Among the many exceptional developers working at Squaresoft in the late 90’s and early aughts, none were quite as critically beloved and niche as Yasumi Matsuno. Over the course of a decade from the release of Tactics Ogre to the publication of Vagrant Story in 2000 as a one of Squaresoft’s final swan songs for the Playstation 1, Matsuno developed a cult following due to his particular brand of grand medieval fantasy storytelling that dabbled in grey morality and complex political machinations. Most of this fandom was amassed with the release of Final Fantasy Tactics, a strategy RPG so popular and influential it’s kind of amazing how little attention it’s received as a franchise in the many years since. 

Yet, that same sentiment can be applied to Matsuno’s entire post-PS1 career. Although Matsuno seemed destined for greater things, Final Fantasy XII is, at the time of writing, the last major mainstream game he had any role in as a creative director; and even then only for part of its development. The game went through development hell due to management changes caused by the recent Square Enix merger–changes which resulted in Matsuno ultimately leaving the project and the company that made him famous. Final Fantasy XII still went on to be a massive commercial and critical success–one whose aesthetics, world, gameplay, and plot were clearly a product of Matsuno’s initial vision for the game–but in the years since he has failed to work on any major projects aside from some writing roles for Final Fantasy XIV online raids and subquests.

And that’s a shame, because Matsuno’s last full creative game project is quite possibly one of the most fascinating games ever made. Vagrant Story, like many late PS1 JRPGs from Squaresoft, is incredibly unique and experimental. It’s DNA can be found somewhat in Final Fantasy XII’s gambit system, but aside from that the game is one of a kind. From its real-time, yet tactics based combat system to its groundbreaking graphical work on a console not known for aesthetic excellence, Vagrant Story remains a strange artifact of its era.

I played the game earlier this year and my experience with it was a consistently frustrating, yet engaging one. In a lot of ways, Vagrant Story is borderline hostile to modern players. Most of the game’s combat mechanics are explained by an ungodly amount of tutorial text that is hidden away in a Main Menu tutorial subsection. As such, without a guide to simplify it all, the process of playing the game is one that often feels aimless and confusing. For example, one may think going into the game that the best way to deal damage is to get weapons with higher stats. After all, that’s how most JRPGs work and the game introduces a forging workshop into the game fairly early on. 

In reality though, weapon management in this game is much more complicated than one could ever imagine. You see, you can’t just use one weapon for every enemy, you have to keep a rotation because certain blades are more effective against specific enemy types. In addition to this, each weapon has various elemental stats, which arguably are even more important if you want to deal any kind of acceptable damage to bosses throughout the game. These stats are only visible when expanding information upon each weapon in the main menu, which you’ll frequently have to enter in order to swap between your various weapons, creating a clumsy stop-and-go combat flow. 

Plus, weapon forging itself is a horrifying ordeal that can be a nightmare to navigate. Unless you have a chart pulled up online, or are really paying attention to stats while forging, the likelihood you’ll accidentally forge a worse weapon than the one you currently possess is high. This isn’t even taking into account the armour forging and the amount of potential grinding and playthrough pre-planning required to get the best gear in the game during your first run. As such, it becomes clear early on that Vagrant Story is not particularly interested in holding anyone’s hand. 

That being said, once you use a guide to peel back all the layers of obfuscation, the game isn’t actually all that difficult. Particularly in the last third, if the player has managed to forge enough high quality gear and has at least three or four weapons with decent elemental and monster advantage stats, the final few areas are easy to beat. The only stretch of the game I’d say offers a true challenge is the middle, since that period of exploration is where players are most likely not going to have a full grasp on the game’s weapon and stats system and have the least effective gear due to the lack of fast travel and large gaps between workshops.

So then why did I still find the game so gripping in spite of its janky mechanics and balancing issues? Well, admittedly a lot of it comes down to aesthetics and storytelling… but mostly the aesthetics. As laid out in this extensive twitter thread from user @Dreamboum, Vagrant Story is, without question, the most technically accomplished full 3D game on the Playstation 1. Even Metal Gear Solid, which is considered one of the most cinematic and graphically impressive 3D games on the console, pales in comparison. While most 3D games of its era struggled to get character models to look remotely human-esque, the designers on the Vagrant Story team were able to animate their models to minute details, including facial features. This was only possible thanks to their ingenuity and, somewhat ironically, their heavy experience working with 2D pixel art. That experience allowed them to think outside of the box, mostly in how they ended up mapping 2D textures onto 3D models. One of my favorite examples of the team’s excellent graphical work though is the in-engine lighting during cutscenes. The team would layer two differently shaded character models on top of each other to create a pseudo shadow effect. The results are quite impressive–you can only really tell that they’re layering two character models on top of each other if you’re playing the game in HD and looking very closely.

In general, Vagrant Story is an art design marvel, even without the impressive technical feats the team accomplished. Sure, the game is in full 3D on the Playstation 1 and runs smoothly, but the fact that it also manages to still look so stylish makes it all the more impressive. The character models make expert use of the PS1’s angular polygons to give every character a striking and distinct silhouette. It helps that the characters themselves were originally drawn by legendary artist Akihiko Yoshida who brings his A game with some of his most bizarre and memorable designs. The protagonist, Ashley Riot, is probably both the peak and low point of the character design work here. His unique spikey hair and simple clothing make him instantly recognizable among a sea of more standard hairdos and crazy medieval outfits, but his strange ass cheek window shorts remain a baffling, unexplained decision to this day.

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In many ways though, the environments are the true star of the show. The disheveled partially underground city of Lea Monde is filled with texture and detail–extenuated by dark mining caverns, haunting temples, and sunny but abandoned town squares. For a game that takes place in such a confined setting, the areas are remarkably varied and always find a way to add more identity to this eerie and magical setting. Of course, it helps that these environments are scored by Hitoshi Sakimoto in some of my personal favorite work from him. Although Sakimoto is mostly known these days for his grand orchestral compositions, Vagrant Story’s soundtrack is defined by an ominous sense of dread and mystery punctuated with moments of intense instrumentation and vocal chanting. It may not be typical Sakimoto fair, but it remains quite exceptional. The opening cinematic score alone stands out as an impressively timed and executed piece of video game music.

Still, as I mentioned before, the appeal of this game isn’t entirely based in aesthetics. I mean, yes, a lot of it is aesthetics, but those aesthetics do serve a purpose in telling an equally interesting story. Vagrant Story is an engrossing game narratively, because it still feels unlike any other JRPG I’ve ever played. Much of the game’s larger plot and worldbuilding is conveyed subtextually. Just like its obtuse gameplay mechanics, the story refuses to hold the player’s hand. Oftentimes it’s left up to players to piece together the plot’s chronology and how various character’s conflicts and motivations bounce off each other. 

This isn’t to say the narrative as presented in cutscenes is inherently undecipherable. If you’re just following the story of Ashley Riot as he attempts to track down the mysterious Sydney, it’s easy enough to at least grasp Ashley’s journey of unlocking mysterious powers and grappling with his tragic and traumatic past. But if you want to understand the broader political scope of the game–what the organization Ashley works for is, and the more complex inner workings of the world–it’s necessary to pay close attention to the side character’s minute actions and dialogue. If you do, you’ll be rewarded with a gripping tale of political corruption, power hungry religious institutions, and a destroyed magical city meant to tap into otherworldly dark magics.

To some players, I can understand why this vague storytelling would be frustrating. A lot of pre-PS2 era video games tend to play much faster and looser with their narratives, mostly due to hardware limitations making it difficult to fit in more cutscenes and story content. This often is particularly true of the PS1 era. There may be a lot of character and plot development on screen, but oftentimes the motivations and worldbuilding are left up to incidental dialogue or mere implication. For some old school JRPGs, this doesn’t work for me. I struggle with a lot of SNES era RPGs for this very reason. However, when it comes to the PS1 era, there’s always just enough information and texture to the gameplay and world that I can’t help but love that sense of openness.

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In that blank space between concrete story and implication is room to explore deeper thematic ideas, and that’s something Vagrant Story excels at. In this game, there is no true side of good and evil. Sydney, a man who at the beginning of the game storms a noble’s castle and steals their child, at first seems like the obvious villain. His status as the leader of a religious cult, Mullenkamp, certainly doesn’t help matters. However, as the game progresses, Ashley’s position as the unassailable hero starts to become more and more questionable. How true is Ashley’s tragic past life with his family? Who is Rosencrantz and why does he seem to be working both for and against Ashley’s side? This ambiguity forces players to call into question their very idea of what player agency is. Maybe just because Ashley is the main playable character doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a positive force on this world or its characters.

Like a lot of PS1 JRPGs, I’m also impressed by how uncompromised this game’s creative vision is. The game’s often nonlinear storytelling and cliffhanger ending do so much to imply that this game is merely a small piece in a much larger saga that could easily encompass several sequels. The game even ends on a title screen calling the game a prelude to “the story of the Wanderer.” That sense of grand scale is brazen considering there was no guarantee this game would be successful enough to receive a sequel, and indeed it didn’t. Vagrant Story remains one piece of an incomplete puzzle 21 years after its initial release. To some extent though, that brazenness is admirable. It’s actually been speculated that around 50% of the game’s story was cut due to time restrictions on development, which makes the cohesiveness of the story on display all the more surprising.

Vagrant Story certainly is not a perfect game. To be honest, I’m not sure if I would even recommend it to most people. The fact that playing the game with a guide is somewhat necessary to have a smooth and enjoyable playthrough is already a steep asking price. However, if you’re able to get past that retro roughness, you’ll find a title that remains compelling. The texture of this game’s setting, characters, and general art design is so intriguing. Like many of my favorite pieces of art, the world it creates is one I want to think about and explore for days on end.

On some days, I sit back and imagine what happens after the end of the game where the city crumbles and Ashley wanders out into the wider world. What lies beyond those narrow walls of Lea Monde and the little bits of the kingdom of Valendia the game shows? I’ll never know, but it’s fun to think about and speculate what could’ve been. Unlike most games, where the lore feels like it’s answering miscellaneous worldbuilding questions no one asked, the vagueness and unsolvability of Vagrant Story’s larger narrative gives the game a specific sense of history and identity hidden just beneath the surface of the central plot. That sense of hidden history compels me to learn more–to dive deep into the story and characters in game to maybe grasp at the grander truth. I may not be able to find the answers to all my questions, but I don’t care because the mere act of  thinking about the world and atmosphere the game creates is enjoyable on its own merits. The fact I can even linger on such thoughts, even months after finishing the game, shows just how compelling Matsuno’s vision was and continues to be. It may be janky, but with those rough edges Vagrant Story becomes an experience unlike any other.