I mentioned this on the podcast, but the way in which different weapons have different timings is realistic and cool. The PROBLEM is that the animations are designed to fake out the player. There’s no need for that, and it doesn’t add to the realism. It’s just an unnatural impediment that was added to make combos more difficult. Boo.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/914326-vagrant-story/faqs/56772

I may need to switch weapon types, which will result in needing to start rebuilding affinities. Baw!

Maybe tonight. :(

This is the aesthetic of FFXII, only on the PS1 with all the expertise that could be mustered. Team Ivalice were a glorious devteam, and I miss them terribly.

Or this. I could have just quoted this.

Be careful; once you start breaking weapons down and making new items, there’s no going back. It’s a deep, deep well–a place where HOURS vanish away before you know it.

And those old polys do tend to grow on one after some time. It’s quite a beautiful game.

This is the aesthetic of FFXII, only on the PS1 with all the expertise that could be mustered. Team Ivalice were a glorious devteam, and I miss them terribly.

If your head is “dying” you are silenced.
It’s hard to speak clearly when your face is swollen. And spells have precise verbal components.

The first person camera is inverted. Ok, fine. But so is the Area Map, even on the d-pad…!
The fact that the d-pad and analogue do the same thing shouldn’t be surprising. Remember that this was early days for analogue/d-pad controls on PS1. In fact, this is the first game made by this team which ever implemented analogue controls–their previous game, a couple years earlier, was d-pad only. Not too long before VS, controls were perforce d-pad only, so the d-pad controls were almost always inverted. This is because, as you should be aware, non-inverted cameras are a much more recent standard, even in the console space. Camera controls on the console derived from existing camera controls on the PC, which had predated the consoles by many years, providing an established ‘mode’ of doing things which consoles sought to adopt. The PC camera arrangement had controls derived from flight simulators, since those were some of the most widespread and earliest examples of dynamic camera reaction to input. Flight simulators use inverted camera controls because that is how flight yokes work in a simulation: up is down.

The O and X confirm/back button commands are swapped like many other PS JRPGs before a certain time, which makes sense since O is the symbol for “correct” and X for “wrong” in Japan, usually. I believe Xenosaga was the same way, so I’m used to it. (it’s also similar to Nintendo’s A and B button placement)
They’re not swapped: they’re in their original positions. O and X are confirm and cancel in Japan, respectively. This has always been and is *still* the case there. However, from about 1998 onward, companies began occasionally experimenting with swapping the buttons as part of the localisation process for overseas releases. This became more common over the next two years so that, by late 2000, most games had a swapped O/X arrangement in North America. At the hardware level, this change happened from the PS2 onwards. If you were to import a Japanese PSP, PSVita, PS3, or PS4, you’d find that the O and X buttons are still confirm and cancel, unlike in English-speaking territories where they are reversed as part of localising for sale outside of Japan.

– “Ashely’s armor reduces damage from magic attacks, it also reduces the effects of beneficial healing magic. Unequip Ashley’s armor for best results when using healing magic.”
LOL, sounds like an old game to me.

– If your head is “dying” you are silenced.

-The first person camera is inverted. Ok, fine. But so is the Area Map, even on the d-pad…!

-The O and X confirm/back button commands are swapped like many other PS JRPGs before a certain time, which makes sense since O is the symbol for “correct” and X for “wrong” in Japan, usually. I believe Xenosaga was the same way, so I’m used to it. (it’s also similar to Nintendo’s A and B button placement)