Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgement tells the story of Tobias, who is an orphan from the War between the nations of Urdu and Balastrade. The story acts as a prequel to the last two entries in the series, with the events of the game picking up just a few years after the conflict. Tobias lives in a place called the Church of Restoration and the game starts with this sanctuary being attack by mysterious enemies. The reason for this attack is unknown and Tobias and friends are scared off to the forest. As you might guess, the story involves a threat to the world and only Tobias and his friends can save it, but that is not all as there is some heavy emotional baggage brought along too which adds some depth to a very plain plot. There is some nice interplay between the characters but nothing as fundamental as seen in Dragon Age: Origins.

 

 

The way in which the game plays is pretty commonplace, well in terms of if you have played anything of the chess-like JRPGs of recent times like Disgaea or Final Fantasy Tactics then you would have seen it all before. You guide your character around a world map making frequent stops to fight a group of monsters on a grid. The game does the staple JRPG change of screen from the world exploration to the battle scene, much like the Final Fantasies of old (and indeed something that 13 has returned to) you are then placed with your party on a board like grid of which you need to move around to confront enemies. The battle is split up into two sections, first movement and then your choice of action (Melee attack, Magic cast etc). These battles take place on a variety of fields which are actually quite large for a RPG game. You battle on swamps, Valleys and ransacked villages, which is quite nice to have.

 

Possibly the best thing that Vandal Hearts brings is a Classless Class system, it seems like an oxymoron to say that but it works exactly like that. If you want a character to be a Warrior then give him a sword, if you want them to be a mage then equip them with some spells simple. The only problem is that each character has a default class, and in those classes they have massive bonuses which pretty much stop you from changing classes at all.

 

Overall, Vandal Hearts is pretty good for a reboot, nothing new is done here but that isn’t always a problem as shown by the excellent Darksiders. The game is a little too short for a proper RPG as it only clocks in at around 6 hours and there isn’t all that much to do other than grind away to level up outside of the main game missions. But if you’re waiting for the RPG opus that is Final Fantasy 13 then this will tide you over for a little while.