Anyone remember Vagrant Story? That RPG/Action political drama from Squaresoft? You fight a shirtless man using spheres? Good. Like most Square RPG’s, Vagrant Story took up an unhealthy chunk of my youth. I loved the story and thought the combat was neat, but there was something else that caught my attention - the rooms.
In Vagrant Story you explore an abandoned city by traversing small, cramped rooms containing enemies, treasure and the occasional block puzzle. Since it was the PS1 era, the rooms aren’t especially distinct. Different parts of the city have a clear look they're going for but the rooms don’t stray too far from that design. But then you pause the game to look at the map and notice that EVERY single room has a name and each name has a story. “The Rotted Core”, “Howl of the Wolf King”, “The Way of Lost Children”. Names like these imply a larger mythology to the games world not touched on by the campaign.
I was left with questions as to origins and references found in these names but got no answers. I was reminded of this feeling when experiencing another game; Dark Souls by Fromsoftware. The stories of dark souls are handled in a similar fashion. Nothing is outright explained, rather details are provided to you and by combining clues delivered through location names and item descriptions you can understand the full story. It’s a unique way to experience a narrative, almost detective-ish, but the difference between the Souls games and Vagrant Story is that Fromsoftware HAS clear answers. There is a cannon that the player is expected to deduce. In Vagrant Story that’s not the case.
There is no clear lore to the rooms, which means that in my first play-through I fell back on my imagination. I created this story on a monster that patrolled the woods outside the city who killed the animals and the fairies that inhabited it. It's rampage was finally stopped when a wolf dubbed The King fought him, proving to be the end for them both.
It’s a little dramatic but it’s the conclusion I personally created based on the cryptic information Square provided. My game became full of short stories like that. It gave the world another layer. It made the city I was exploring feel mysterious and lived in, a feat not easily accomplished with 32 bits.
Games tend to go with a clearly explicit narrative or something more abstract. For me Vagrant Story did both. It uses the players' imagination to compensate for what would have been a city simply made up of similar rooms. Instead creating a rich kingdom full of mystery and intrigue.
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