Introduction
Robots! There, now that I have your attention, I wanted to briefly talk about a game I enjoy called Vanguard Bandits. It’s a humble game. It’s not Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Tactics Ogre, it’s just Vanguard Bandits. I first discovered this game a few years ago, after I first played Popful Mail. I enjoyed Popful Mail a lot and wanted to play through more of the titles that Working Designs had brought over to the West. I had briefly heard some of Vanguard Bandits' OST online and was already into SRPG-type games, so I checked it out. My initial run was quite short, only playing until Chapter 5 before I got distracted with other stuff.
I came back to this game about a year or so later when I was in a Discord server that was for SRPGs. They had monthly events where there’d be two Games of the Month, and anyone who beat any of the two games would be awarded a cool role in the server and bragging rights. It was a fun little event, I wish more servers did stuff like that. Anyway, the two games for that month were Vanguard Bandits and La Pucelle: Tactics.
Since I had already planned on restarting my run of Vanguard Bandits, I saw this as the perfect opportunity. And by the time I beat it, I had really found myself enjoying the game a lot. I didn’t have a blog site back then to really summarize my thoughts, give my opinions, or talk about minor details that I found interesting. So that’s why I’m here today. So, I hope you enjoy it!
Background and Development
Vanguard Bandits is a Strategy RPG developed by Human Entertainment and originally released in Japan on July 30, 1998. Human Entertainment is a now-defunct game development company best known for titles such as Clock Tower, Fire Pro Wrestling, The Mysterious Murasame Castle (developed with Nintendo), Vasteel, and the Twilight Syndrome games.
Human Entertainment went kaput in January 2000 due to bankruptcy, and the closure led to many of its former members forming new companies, including Nude Maker, Sandlot, Grasshopper Manufacture, and Spike. Spike, in particular, caught my interest, as the Twilight Syndrome games were later referenced in Spike’s—now called Spike Chunsoft’s—hit series, Danganronpa.
The Japanese staff of VB includes Takeshi Aikō as the Director and lead programmer, and Tetsuya Tanabe as the event programmer. Masayuki Yoshioka serves as the character, mech, and map designer. Toshiaki Tamura is the scenario eventer and 3D motion designer, while Kazuhisa Watarigawa handles 2D graphic design. Finally, Makoto Harada is responsible for field map design.
As for the music, the song 'Believe My Heart' features vocals by Yuko Nagashima in Japanese and Jennifer Stigile in English, with lyrics by Kōji Niikura for the Japanese version and Victor Ireland for the English version. The composition was by Kōji Niikura, and the arrangement by Sasagawa. 'Tomorrow To Start' is sung by Yukiko Mannaka, with lyrics by Chiyomaru Shikura, composition by Masafumi Takada, and arrangement by Sasagawa. 'Together' includes vocals by Ai Maeda in the Japanese version and Shiya Almeda in the English version, with lyrics by Chiyomaru Shikura in Japanese and Victor Ireland in English. Both the composition and arrangement were done by Chiyomaru Shikura. The guitar portion is performed by Yoshihiko Chino, with sound production assistance from Atsushi Yamamori and sound direction by Chiharu Sugiyama.
Lastly, the drawing director and character drawing director is Takeo Kitahara, with Shuichi Kaneko serving as the mech drawing director. Nobuhiro Sato is the art director, while Miyoko Kobayashi handles the color setting. Seiichi Morishita is the filming director, and Kou Sato oversees animation checks. Katsuki Kobayashi works as the production manager, with Shigeo Endo as the producer. The production was done by Japan Animation.
Over in Japan, Vanguard Bandits was called Epica Stella (エピカ・ステラ) but was renamed to Vanguard Bandits when it was brought to the West by Working Designs during the turn of the next millennia. Vanguard Bandits wasn’t actually the first name they came up with, before going with that name, they had planned to rename Epica Stella to Detonator Gauntlet. It was a pretty cool name, but Midway forced the company to change it due to its similarity to the Gauntlet series of action-fantasy games.
According to Victor Ireland from Working Designs, “Vanguard Bandits” was an accidental title. After getting the notice from Midway, the team discussed other potential names for the game. One person jokingly suggested the name “Panty Bandits” or something, but Vic misheard them and heard the suggestion as “Vanguard Bandits,” which he liked a lot, so he decided to go with that name.
Aside from the PS1, the game was rereleased on the PSP, PS3, and PS Vita via PSN, though the Vita version only came out in Hong Kong. While Working Designs published the PS1 version, the PSP and PS3 ports were handled by MonkeyPaw Games Inc. Meanwhile the PS Vita version was instead handled by HAMSTER Corporation.
When the game was first released in the West, it was kind of seen as a filler game from Working Designs between the PS1 versions of Lunar 1 and the Lunar 2, with the special version of VB even being bundled with a bonus demo disc of Lunar 2. This, in addition to SRPGs just not being that popular, is likely what caused this game to be a lot more obscure and discussed less, even compared to other niche Working Designs games. Hell, it’s so clear that Working Designs was more focused on localizing and advertising Lunar 2 that they even included a cameo of Ronfel from Lunar 2 in Vanguard Bandit’s Official Strategy Guide in a screenshot where another character, Andrew, should be speaking.
I know the image is kinda blurry, but that is NOT Andrew.
Don’t let this quirky piece of trivia make you think this game’s guide is half-assed or anything; it provides nice detailed descriptions of the game’s mechanics, setting, and characters. Despite how cliche some characters may be, they’re one thing I enjoy a lot about the game, so it’s nice how the manual gives you brief little summaries of each character without telling you too much, like with my homie Duyere.
…Wow, someone at Working Designs must’ve really fucking hated Duyere… Uh, moving on, the manual also provides a brief backstory which I want to explain before moving on to explaining the story in the main game.
The backstory brings up the lore behind the first Eptina War, a war that was brought upon by explorers from a region known as the Ancient Lands. They discovered the continent of Eptina and marveled at the continent's beauty and seemingly endless resources. Some of the explorers stayed to explore this land while others went back home to spread the news.
Unfortunately, as the news spread, more people sought to conquer this new land, and ironically a lot of them brought with them the same dysfunctions of society that they had hoped to escape: poverty, crime, and eventually war.
The wickedness of combat outstripped the continent's beauty and everyone fought each other for territory and religious beliefs. Tensions were so high that people would go so far as to kill one another for sneezing the wrong way. The wars raged on until a miracle happened: in the heart of the Pharastia Kingdom, archaeologists discovered ten mechanical giants known as ATACs (All Terrain Armored Combatants) which resembled armored-clad knights and stood at 25 feet.
After analyzing the mechanics, the armies took advantage of these mechs and the wars ended pretty damn fast after that, with the leaders of Pharastia taking control of the continent.
Once every other kingdom surrendered and the continent was united, the leaders decided to seal the most powerful ATAC—Ultragunner—in a secret location, while the other nine ATACs were distributed to different regions of the continent.
This backstory actually differs slightly from the one mentioned in the Japanese version. Aside from some name changes, the Japanese version focuses more on the ATACs (or Zetsuki) themselves and foreshadowing the events in the upcoming game, rather than discussing the backstory and founding of Eptina (or Cressia). Below, I will provide a translated version of the Japanese manual’s backstory, the English one can be found in full here.
Story
When you boot up the game, you're treated to a sweet animated opening cinematic that briefly introduces many of the characters you'll meet, while also setting the tone and setting of the game. The song that accompanies the visuals is called Believe My Heart, an uplifting track that details how the road to peace and freedom is long and arduous but can be achieved if you believe in your heart and are willing to fight for that dream.
Through the backstory and opening cinematic, you can likely tell this game is set in the fantasy mecha genre, similar to series such as Magic Knight Rayearth, Knight’s & Magic, and Aura Battler Dunbine. It’s an underrated genre that I appreciate a lot. The juxtaposition between medieval high-fantasy settings and modern-day mechs is something you wouldn’t expect to work smoothly, but it does, in my opinion. In fact, many of these series feature some of the best mech designs, with mechs inspired by staple fantasy elements like dragons, knights in armor, and centaurs.
Getting into the game proper, the game starts similarly to many others, with a young hot-headed boy named Bastion (JPN: Randy, ランディ, lit. Randi) and his father and training instructor, Kamorge (JPN: Camoshe(?) カモーシュ, lit. Kamōshu). Both are ATAC pilots, but not of the same kind of ATACs that were excavated in the previous war. Instead, they pilot weaker, mass-produced ATACs created by modern scientists. For as long as Bastion can remember, he, Kamorge, his adoptive sister Milea, and a traveling mechanic named Puck have been on the run from the Janaris Empire.
Suddenly, Bastion’s village is attacked by the Empire, and Bastion and Kamorge set out to battle them. During the fight, they’re joined by Ione (JPN: Julie, ジュリエ lit. Jurie), a cool and collected older woman, and Reyna (JPN: Regina, レジーナ, lit. Rejīna), a casual and free-spirited woman who is also my favorite character in the game. Both Ione and Reyna are ATAC pilots from the Avalon Defense Corps, and they explain that they’re assisting the Kingdom of Pharastia in the war against the Janaris Empire.
While the two are explaining, Kamorge asks if they can meet up with General Galvas and speak to him regarding a debt. The two agree, and so Kamorge and Bastion set out to look for him. At first, Bastion is worried about the Empire possibly attacking again, but Kamorge assures him that the village should be safe after they depart.
Princess Sadira (JPN: Sharon, シャロン, lit. Sharon) of the Janaris Empire takes notice of her soldiers' actions and is unhappy with how General Faulkner is leading his troops to attack innocent civilian villages. After confronting Faulkner, she sets out to stop the soldiers herself, accompanied by her advisors: the stern but kind-hearted Franco and the old and wise Halak. As a quick aside, for some ungodly reason, the localization saw Halak, and decided “Hey, let’s make this old lady speak like Yoda from Star Wars.” It’s so unprofessional and goofy, but it’s so fucking funny.
As another quick note, as you’ve seen, a lot of names and terms were changed between this version and the Japanese version, and it really makes me wonder why. With something like Cosmic Fantasy renaming Yuu to Cobra, I could at least see the vision of making the foreign Japanese name sound more like something that would resonate with a US audience who had no idea what anime was. But in this game, a lot of the Japanese names are normal English-sounding and don’t really seem any less appealing than their US counterparts. My best guess is that they thought the Japanese names were too boring since a lot of the more unique names like Halak, Franco, and Faulkner were left unchanged, but at the same time, Andrew’s name was also left unchanged and that’s a really really basic name.
I just can’t really picture someone seeing the game Vanguard Bandits, seeing one of the characters being called “Regina,” and deciding, “Yeah, I’m going to pass on this game,” but then coming back to the same game later, seeing the character is now named “Reyna,” and then deciding, “You know what, maybe I’ll try this game out.” …Well, at least back in the early 2000s, I couldn’t see that. Maybe I could nowadays, I’ve seen people pass on games for much less.
Tangent aside, when Sadira reaches the battlefield, she finds Bastion defending two travelers being attacked by her own countrymen, Devlin (JPN: Russel, ラッセル lit. Rasseru) and Barlow (JPN: Brata(?), ブラタ Burata). Devlin, like Bastion, is a bit hot-headed and impulsive. Meanwhile, Barlow is kind of just a fat-kid joke. After the fight, Sadira wishes to speak with Bastion, but he is completely pissed off at the Empire, and by extension, at her, and blows up at the poor girl until Kamorge interjects.
Kamorge thanks the Princess for helping in the fight and acknowledges that they share the same goal. When she leaves, you’re joined by yet another traveler, Andrew, a lecherous man who was hiding out during the attack to preserve his life. Despite this first impression though, he’s actually one of the best combat units in the game.
As they travel across to Pharastia, they eventually find themselves surrounded by Imperial troops led by Sadira’s brother, Prince Duyure, and the aforementioned General Faulkner. After taking a lot of damage, Duyure retreats from the fight like a little bitch, but Faulkner specifically targets Kamorge and eventually defeats him—but not before Kamorge deals enough damage to Faulkner’s ATAC to force him to retreat as well.
While Kamorge is having a Greil moment, he tells Bastion the truth about his lineage: Bastion isn’t actually Kamorge’s biological son, but an orphan that he took in. He also gives Bastion a phrase to tell Galvas once they meet up with him later on.
When they reach Galvas’ fort, they realize it’s being taken over by the Empire, and Galvas is being held hostage. Reyna and Ione are able to free Galvas, while the rest of Bastion’s army distracts Faulkner’s troops outside. Once Galvas is saved, and the fort is seized, Faulkner retreats and we finally get to meet up with Galvas, who we learn is Kamorge’s brother.
From him, Bastion learns that Kamorge wasn’t even his adoptive father’s real name; he was actually called Alugard and was one of the King’s top knights. When the castle was attacked by the Empire, the King’s newborn son, Bastion, was rescued by Alugard, and fled the castle to keep him safe.
Bastion is saddened by this as he realizes that all the destruction and war going on was indirectly caused by him. Bastion is put in a deep depression, going so far as considering taking his life, but his friends pull him out of it and convince him that, as the King’s sole heir, he is the only one who can pilot the Ultragunner and use it to defeat the Empire.
The last small quick note I wanted to mention regarding the story is the name of the Ultragunner itself. In Japanese, it is called ウルスラグナ (Urusuraguna) which doesn’t translate directly to Ultragunner, and the name Ultragunner sounds a bit out of place compared to the more fantastical names of the other excavated ATACs like Bahamut, Sarbelas, and Sylpheed. Considering it's the strongest one, it sounding slightly out of place would make some modicum of sense. But I think it’s more likely that “Ultragunner” was a mistranslation. The Japanese name was likely supposed to be Verethragna (vərəθraγna), a Zoroastrian deity representing victory.
As you go through the kingdom and fight off more and more of the Empire’s soldiers, you eventually find and awaken the Ultragunner, and make way to the Empire to stop them in their plans. On the way, a lot of important story events occur, you meet many new faces, and you learn more about Eptina, but for this review, I would rather you experience those story arcs on your own.
When you reach the Empire though, you learn that General Faulkner has a new toy, the Zulwarn, a never before seen ATAC which is said to have the power to rival the Ultragunner and is fuelled using the literal blood of humans.
When you first encounter the Zulwarn, Faulkner taunts you and refuses to fight Bastion as he doesn’t see him as a threat in his current state even with the Ultragunner. After even more fights, we find Faulkner and Zulwarn again on the final map.
Bastion engages in an epic(a) one-to-one duel against Faulkner in an attempt to put an end to his madness once and for all. During the fight, Faulkner’s motivations are revealed. As a child his hometown was destroyed during the wars by the Empire, and his mother was killed. This caused his father to betray Pharastia and join the Empire, and fight against the king of Pharastia, but his father fell as well. During this, Faulkner learned that it was really the Kingdom behind the destruction of his hometown. Having the two most important people stripped away from him, and learning of the hypocrisy of both the Kingdom and the Empire, Faulkner vowed to end the wars by joining the Janaris Empire and destroying it from the inside, while also destroying the Kingdom of Pharastia.
Destroying both of Eptina’s biggest countries, along with the power of Zulwarn, would allow him to take control of the entire continent, and have all of humanity bow before him. Bastion tries to reach out to Faulkner and offers him forgiveness, but Faulkner is too consumed by hatred to listen, and with no other choice, Bastion is forced to undo Faulkner and destroy Zulwarn.
That is the basic rundown of the Kingdom Branch. Like Der Langrisser, the game splits off into multiple different paths: the Kingdom, Empire, and Ruin Branches. In my own personal playthrough, I only went down the Kingdom branch, but I plan to play the other branches when I replay this game.
Thankfully unlike Der Langrisser, choosing which branch to play is a lot more straightforward, and you don’t have to worry about a damn intro quiz arbitrarily cockblocking you out of certain routes. If you want to refer to a comprehensive guide of the different routes, you can follow the route guide here.
Gameplay and Mechanics
The game’s story isn’t something out of the ordinary for the genre: it features a protagonist character who is ‘the chosen one’, several women in the army fawn over him, and the main antagonist is a cocky shit-eating man who meets his demise due to his overconfidence. However, what makes the game stand out to me more is its gameplay. This game functions as a standard isometric SRPG title; you move your units amongst a map to clear out your opponents’ mechs, and the map objectives scarcely deviate from this. If you lose the main character, Bastion, it’s an automatic game over, but losing anyone else makes them unavailable for the duration of the map, and lowers their morale.
Rather than movement being phase-based, i.e. player/enemy phases, movement is instead determined using an initiative system similar to Shining Force or Final Fantasy Tactics. This means the fastest units, player or enemy, will move first and the slower units will move last.
When you do move, before ending your turn you can choose which direction you want your mech to face: North, South, East, or the other direction. When you’re attacked by an enemy unit, the direction you're facing is important as it affects their hit rates and how much damage you take. If you’re attacked from the front, the hit rates and damage are not modified. If you’re attacked from the side, the enemy hit rates are multiplied by 1.33 and they do 10% more damage. If you’re attacked from the back, the enemy hit rates are multiplied by 1.66 and they do 20% more damage to you.
When you get attacked by an enemy, you have several options to handle that encounter, similar to most modern Super Robot Wars games. You have the option to Counter, Attack, Defend, and Avoid.
Unrelated note, but remember the Assist +00% text for later.
Attacking just allows you to counter after being attacked similar to how it works in Fire Emblem. Defending increases your opponent’s hit rates, but halves the incoming damage you take. Avoiding halves the enemy’s hit rate, as you’d probably expect. Countering attempts a preemptive attack with 1.25x power and a Knockdown effect—negating an opponent's attack completely—at the cost of a low success rate. Failing to counter will result in you taking additional damage from the attack, it’s not a very useful option.
When you choose an attack, you can choose from up to four different attack types: Normal, Effect, Knockdown, and Collision. Normal attacks have no additional effects and can be reacted in any way. Effect attacks carry some kind of status effect, like lowering the opponent’s attack or defense or something. Knockdown attacks, as I briefly explained earlier, are attacks that knock the opponent to the ground which negates the opponent’s Attack command, so after you attack with a Knockdown attack, the round of combat ends without the opponent being able to counterattack. Collision attacks function much like Knockdown attacks while also negating the additional defense given to the opponent by using the Defend command, though they tend to have low accuracy. Additionally, if a Knockdown or Collision attack misses, the opponent is still able to counterattack.
When a battle starts, you’re greeted with a side view of the two combatants exchanging blows, similar to Shining Force. They’re represented with nice early PS1 polygonal graphics, and despite a lot of older 3D games having graphics that don’t age particularly well, the mechs look really good in this game, even today. Accompanying the battle scenes the two pilots will have battle cries, comments, or one-liners similar to something you’d see in a Super Robot Wars game.
"Calgon, take me away!" is a reference to an old company of bath and beauty products back in the 70s called Calgon. The slogan was so notable that it was referenced in a lot of popular media in the West such as Cosmic Fantasy 2, Ghost Stories, and even Family Guy.
As you’d expect from many RPGs, each unit is outfitted with several stats that determine how useful they are in combat. Each unit has six core stats, three battle stats, several minor stats, an array of attacks, and some equipment.
Starting with the core stats, we have Bas, which I believe stands for Base. Bas increases your HP and is also the primary stat used to gain new skills, which I’ll explain more about later. Pow is short for Power, which simply increases the damage you deal. Dex, or Dexterity, determines your accuracy. Agl, short for Agility, increases your avoidance and factors into your separate Speed stat. Def reduces the damage you take from enemy attacks, and Wep, short for Weapon, increases the damage your weapons do. It’s similar to Power, but a lot less useful—I’m not sure why this is even a stat.
Whenever a character levels up, they receive three points to allocate to any stat, and the player decides where those points go. If you want to turn a speedy unit into a tank, you’re free to do that. If you want to make a tank into a powerhouse, you can do that too. I really like this leveling system because it gives the player a lot of choice in how to build a particular unit. There’s a great deal of customization, yet at the same time, your characters and ATACs retain their unique traits and attributes. It’s similar to how the Astral Shards in FE3 or the Crusader Scrolls in FE5 allow you to adjust a unit’s stat line to your liking, but you can’t just ignore or change their innate traits or niches, like with something like free reclassing, which I’ve really come to appreciate.
Shifting to the battle stats, there’s HP. In many of my RPG reviews, I noticed that I have a habit of explaining a lot of these basic stats in a very formulaic way. By that, I mean when I get to stats like HP or EXP or any common stat, I tend to say something like, "This stat is self-explanatory," and then explain what the stat does anyway with some kind of caveat. ...Yeah, I’m going to keep doing that.
HP is indeed a very self-explanatory stat: when you take damage, it decreases, and once it hits zero, that particular unit retreats from the battle—or you get a game over if Bastion is the one to die. Despite the obvious, though, there are some caveats. Unlike the core stats, you don’t gain HP through level-ups. Instead, it’s calculated using the formula below.
HP = (Level * 2) + (BAS * 4) + Any Equipment Bonuses + 10
After that, there are AP or Ability Points. Every turn, a character is given 100 AP and AP is spent during movement, attacking, and Support Skills. Stronger attacks will use up more AP while weaker attacks will take up less AP. You can perform as many actions as you want as long as you properly manage your AP, so as long as you have enough movement, you can attack someone with a low AP move, and then have them move away similar to the Canto skill in Fire Emblem. Furthermore, a certain skill will allow you to attack more than once in a single turn if you have enough AP.
Next, there are FP or Fatigue Points, though I always refer to them as Flower Points in my head. FP is kind of the big mechanic that would set Vanguard Bandits apart from other games. Each unit’s FP starts at 0 at the start of the map, and it increases whenever you attack, counter, avoid, or defend. When initiating attacks, the FP usage is dependent on the attack used, choosing the Attack option while being attacked by an enemy though adds the weapon’s AP cost to its FP. When it comes to receiving attacks, avoiding and counterattacking increases your FP by 20 while defending increases it by 30.
If a unit's FP reaches 100 following an action, they become fatigued. This means their turn ends immediately, lose their next turn, and all attacks against them will have a 100% chance to hit and do additional damage. They also cannot counter or defend. After that lost turn, their FP is reset to 0.
Additionally, when a character's turn ends, two-thirds of their unused AP is converted to negate an equal amount of FP.
All the attacks here cost 0 AP because I’m in the process of counterattacking an enemy attack
Some of the more minor stats consist of Level, EXP, Spirit, Range, and Speed. Speed is probably the most important of the ones listed, so I’ll explain that first. Your speed basically determines your turn order, the highest speed stat on the map gets to move first, and all that. The formula for calculating speed is roughly:
Speed = AGL * 0.24 + BAS * 0.04 + 2.5 + Any Equipment Bonuses
Range determines how many tiles you can move in a single turn, it’s just your movement stat. The last stat to mention is Spirit, and to be honest, I have no idea what this is and none of the guides I’ve seen online can really explain what this is either.
Moving on, your units also have access to some equipment. The first item listed is simply the mech they pilot. The second is their weapon, which increases the amount of damage they deal, like in any other video game. In this game, there are four different classes of weapons: swords, spears, katanas, and axes. Swords and spears are common weapon types and many ATACs will have access to one, the other, or both. Katanas are more limited, and reserved to the more fast ninja-like ATACs, like Andrew’s mech, the Vedocorban. Axes are almost completely enemy-exclusive. Similar to the early Fire Emblems, axes are mainly used by the early bandit mechs, with the only exception being the Skorsek, an axe that comes with Dionne’s mech, the Roaring Lion.
Also, fun fact, there is an unused low-level katana called the Tiger Blade.
The third item is a gemstone, which, according to the lore, is the life force of the ATAC mechs. These gemstones provide various stat boosts and are required to perform certain advanced attacks. They also come in four types: Earth (which increases Bas), Fire (which increases Power), Water (which increases Def), and Wind (which increases Agi).
Lastly, there are Amulets—little trinkets that can either boost certain stats or grant the equipee additional support or dormant skills, which leads nicely into the next mechanic.
Your individual characters will also have Support Abilities and Dormant Abilities. Support Abilities are essentially this game’s equivalent of magic. They range from abilities that allow you to heal an ally to increasing stats and recovering FP. These abilities require certain gemstones to be equipped, reaching a certain Bas benchmark, and having a certain amount of AP, so keep that in mind.
Dormant Abilities are skills your characters learn via level-ups and are activated automatically without spending AP or FP. Some of them are decent, like the Parry skill, while others are hilarious, like Halak’s Bad Back, which causes her to take more damage from back attacks. But the most important Dormant Ability is Second Attack, which allows you to attack twice in a single turn. This skill is learned by Alden, Andrew, Bastion, Devlin, Sadira, and Zeira once they reach a Bas of 16 and an Agl of 10.
Like Pokémon, you typically gain new attacks via leveling up, although the specific level of your unit hardly matters—what matters more are the stats your unit has. For example, Strong Slash and Strong Thrust are two early-game attacks that are highly recommended. To learn Strong Slash, your unit needs 8 Bas, 7 Pow, and 6 Dex, while for Strong Thrust, they need 8 Bas, 6 Pow, and 7 Dex.
The last combat-related thing I wanted to mention is that in the localization, there was apparently an added support assist feature. If you have allies adjacent to an opponent you're attacking, you get some bonus, presumably to your hit rates and damage. Victor Ireland specifically mentions a guy named Ken and thanks him for being able to program that in. I was a bit skeptical about this because both this comment and the Panty Bandits comment are the information I got secondhand from a video I watched about Working Designs games. The uploader stated in the comment section that he got in touch with Victor Ireland for some insider info.
I then checked a video of the Japanese game to see if that game has any sort of Assist system, because I wasn’t too convinced that they’d program a completely new mechanic in and though Vic simply misremembered or something. But to my surprise, this system did not exist in the Japanese version.
This is where I wanted you to remember the Assist +00% text from earlier.
Anyways, we’ve talked a lot about the combat mechanics, and that all may be a lot to take in. So, I think it’s time to cool off and have a quick intermission.
During the intermission screen, you’ll have eight different options for what to do next. Let’s go over the simple stuff first: Save will save your progress, and Load will let you load your progress. Quit will just boot you to the title screen and Mission will take you to the next map.
Briefing shows you a quick overview of the map, with a character or two giving you a brief rundown or comment about the upcoming battle. Some of these are simple tactical advice, while others are just silly quips.
Interview is similar to the Supports system seen in FE12. You don’t really have full-fledged conversations, but you can choose up to three characters per map to listen to brief Radiant Dawn-styled one-liners from them and raise their morale.
The little icon that appears between two characters reflects their particular relationship with the other character. As you can see, I have a fairly good relationship with Reyna, but a rather low relationship with Devlin. Apparently, it’s really common for players who go on the Kingdom Branch to have a really low relationship with Devlin and for their relationship to never really improve.
I’m not too sure if Morale has any particular effects in combat, but two of the three branches will have alternative endings depending on your total Morale with your party. Additionally, Morale can be lowered if a unit is killed or undeployed on a particular map.
The Shop option allows you to buy and sell gemstones, weapons, and amulets, it’s pretty straightforward except for the fact that you don’t have access to the shop on every map. In the Kingdom and Ruin Branch, you only have access to the shops in Chapters 4, 10, 14, and 18. In the Imperial Branch, you only have access to the shops in Chapters 4, 8, 12, 16, and 18/19 depending on if you’re going down Cecilia’s path or Sadira’s path.
Durandar is an obvious mistranslation of Durandal. This game has quite a few mistranslations like that, there was an ATAC I posted earlier called “Waiban” which was very clearly meant to be “Wyvern” and there’s another weapon later called Gunganir, which is meant to be Gungnir. A lot of them make me wonder if these were intentional as some sort of stylistic choice, like an in-game language shift to make these names sound more unique, or if Working Designs really didn’t know the real-world references.
The Equip option allows you to equip any gemstones, amulets, or weapons you’ve bought. It also allows you to swap mechs with another person, though certain Excavated mechs, like Ultragunner, cannot be swapped with other units.
All of the mechanics and systems of this game may seem a bit complex if you’re not too used to games in the genre, but you’ll get the hang of the mechanics fairly quickly. I know you can! The game itself also isn’t very difficult; there were some tough portions here and there, but for the most part, I got through the game just fine. That is… until I got to Chapter 19.
During the latter portion of the game, you’re introduced to a powerful enemy-exclusive mech called the Sharking. This behemoth of a mech has a powerful Collision attack called Cutting Wheel which uses up 0 FP, has x1.50 Power, and is 4 Range. Not to mention that this thing also just has really high stats. According to the lore, the Sharking was created by the inhumane inventor, Dr. Madoc. Unlike most ATACs, the Sharking was designed specifically to kill opposing pilots (in-game, this does nothing), and it was seen as so dangerous that Princess Sadira outlawed their usage.
In Chapter 18, you have to fight like two of them alongside a few other generic mechs, and that on its own is a bit of a nightmare. Then in Chapter 19, you have to fight like eleven of them, just for the lolz. This map is on a wide-open field too, with little cover, it was one of the few times I’ve ever had to refer to a Let’s Play during an SRPG game to see how other people beat the map…it was embarrassing.
Most of the map themes and cutscene BGMs didn’t blow me away too much. At best, they were just kind of catchy, and at worst, I just forgot about them. However, a lot of the vocal songs are genuine bangers. I come back to them regularly and listen to them a lot, even years after I’ve beaten the game. My personal favorite is the game’s title theme, Together. However, most of my praise is aimed toward the Japanese version of this song. The English version is fine in a vacuum, but Shiya Almeda’s vocals don’t hold as much of a candle to Ai Maeda’s vocals, in my opinion.
An unintended little tidbit I like about this song is at the end, Ai Maeda can be heard singing “All together!” but if you listen to it in a certain way, it can also sound like she’s saying “Ultragunner.” Again, it’s unintended because Ultragunner is only the English name, but I just find it a bit cool.
I feel like a broken record whenever I bring this up, but I’m a big sucker for the 90s anime aesthetics that the game has. The character and mech designs really scratch that itch very well… At least their in-game portraits do, they scream personality to me, and I like how vibrant a lot of them are. Meanwhile, some of the official character art looks a bit goofy.
Faulkner’s in-game portrait looks so cool, but I hate his hair in this cinematic and official art 😭
I briefly mentioned earlier that the story was quite basic and standard, but one point I can give to the story is that it’s told very well. The dialogue in this game is really charming and does a great job of shifting between more comedic and lighthearted themes to more serious and emotional moments. However, aside from the pop-culture references and such, it’s hard to tell which comedic scenes were originally in the game and which ones were added in localization.
One particularly funny scene I remember is when you recruit a unit named Nana, who is essentially your Est unit. She has nowhere to go and wants to join the army to avenge her dad. Nobody really wants her to join, because it’s too dangerous, but Reyna vouches for her. The rest of the army ultimately decides to let her join.
Then, after Nana joins, Reyna starts listing a bunch of rules and regulations she must follow to be part of the army
If I join this army, I get to pilot a cool ATAC and I get to give Reyna footrubs? Sign me the FUCK up!
《Disclaimer: The preceding remark was an attempt at satire designed to poke fun at a prevalent fetish people commonly discuss online. The joke in question aimed to mock and parody the extreme lengths individuals go through to satiate said fetish, as well as their unabashed openness in discussing such matters in public. We at Mega Convoy LLC disclaims any desire to touch anyone's feet, fictional or otherwise.》
After the terms and conditions are described, Nana kinda just fucks off and leaves, and then Reyna chases after her. It's an all-around silly scene that does a good job of breaking the generally serious nature of the overall conflict.
There’s also this one boss you meet early on, named Zakov, who speaks in a really thick fictional accent that’s roughly a mix of German, Swedish, and Russian, it’s almost like Athena’s accent from FE11.
As he notices our army is approaching an Imperial Fort, he urges Faulkner to let him go out and fight, rather than stay and guard the fort, but Faulkner declines his request and Faulkner opts to depart without him. This causes him to get quite passive-aggressive.
The characters' interactions really helped in making the narrative more interesting for me. Even more minor characters like Duyure and Zakov always had me wondering what was going to happen next with them. The main story also has a lot of background lore and enough twists and turns to warrant paying attention to it, not to mention the differing branches allow you to explore the game from multiple perspectives.
One of the more positive things I’ve seen other people bring up is that, despite its perceived flaws, this game is very sincere. By that, I mean it doesn’t try to be something it's not. It’s meant to be a lighthearted fantasy story with some light romance, political drama, and empathetic characters, accompanied by solid gameplay with decent strategical depth featuring cool-looking mechs that beat the crap out of each other. Nothing more, nothing less, and it does a damn good job of presenting itself as such.
Conclusion
For the most part, when you search for this game online, the reception of it is somewhat mixed. Many people love the game while many others just see it as mediocre, with most online ratings putting it around a 6 out of 10. Even back in the day, it was a common criticism that the game wasn’t too innovative, like in this excerpt from NextGen 67’s July 2000 Issue.
In the Japanese player base, the reception of the game is quite similar: some people see it as a masterpiece of a hidden gem, while others think it’s just okay.
Some people may call it “aggressively mid,” and I can see where they’re coming from. But despite that, I found myself having a lot of fun with it. When talking about this game with friends, I always had something new I wanted to show off and talk about. I found myself coming back to the soundtrack frequently, I found myself adoring the setting and genre, a lot of the characters left lasting impressions on me, and the gameplay loop had enough unique mechanics and strategic depth to make it something that I can look back on fondly.
I’d personally recommend this game to anyone who’s a fan of games like Super Robot Wars or even Langrisser, as I felt a similar enjoyment from this game as I did from those games. In fact, Vanguard Bandits is almost like an amalgamation of Der Langrisser and the Super Robot Wars Masou Kishin games, but with some unique mechanics sprinkled in to make it stand on its own. And even if you play it and don’t like it, it isn’t a huge time-sink, the game is only about 17-25 hours long.
Anyway, I’ve said everything I wanted to about the game. I hope you enjoyed my piece, and I hope you can share any thoughts or opinions you may have on the game. Or you can share some other unrelated shitpost, that works too. In any case, see you in the next blog post.
References
The references section in this post is quite small, but I still wanted to refer to the sources that I used to obtain a lot of the information like the stat formulas and Game Sack’s video where he talked about Working Designs.
Welcome to the Vanguard Bandits Shrine! (2024). Rpgclassics.com. https://shrines.rpgclassics.com/psx/vanguard/index.shtml
The RPG Duelling League (2024). rpgdl.com. https://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=1806.0
Working Designs - Game Sack. (2024). Youtu.be. https://youtu.be/i2v8D5DjI7k?si=yetyt8BYhdmU_huY&t=2731
Vanguard Bandits credits (PlayStation, 1998) - MobyGames. (2024). MobyGames. https://www.mobygames.com/game/14170/vanguard-bandits/credits/playstation/?autoplatform=true
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