It's sort of like Final Fantasy Tactics! Let's Play Vandal Hearts II!

Yeah, I couldn't really think of a better title.

Hi, I'm gentlemanorcus. This is my first LP on this forum. I've done two other LPs, both for the TVTropes forum (of the games Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis respectively). I don't do LPs there any more mainly because of a lack of an audience (I had one person regularly commenting on my first LP and two for my second). Also, I have problems with the management of the site. But that besides the point.

I decided as my first LP here to do a long and complex tactical RPG that will require lots of writing, screen-shotting, and time out of my school year. As you'll find, I'm just full of great ideas.



This is Vandal Hearts II. Vandal Hearts II is a game I hold close to my heart, as it was one of my first tactical RPGs. I've never played it all the way through, but that just adds that authentic "blind" favor, huh.

It's the sequel to Vandal Hearts I, but it doesn't really have anything to do with it's predecessor beyond one ending that's incredibly hard to get. It's takes something of a cue from Final Fantasy Tactics, having a dark and politically themed story. Gameplay is something of a unique twist to tactical RPGs, having simultaneous turn-based combat (more on that later) and each character being a complete blank slate (stats wise).

So, before I dive in here, let's come up with the name of our main character, who we'll be meeting soon. His default name is Joshua, but that's pretty boring. I'm not sure of the character limit- let's just start with a maximum of 8 characters, and we'll work from there.

Main character, huh? How about Felix?

Oh boy, this game... I just finished reading a LP of this elsewhere; let me tell ya, you're in for a treat if you've never finished this. I'll be following along to see your take on things, of course.

Main character... I'm tempted to say Ceodore.

I've played abut half way through the third chapter, or a bit after they find the comatose prince. I also know, from reading some walkthroughs, that the chuckling jester guy is the main villain, but that's fairly obvious from the first chapter.

There's also something else we can vote on. Since the main character is felxible to many sorts of fighting styles, what kind of character should we make him?

• A sword (one handed or two handed) wielding warrior.
• A lance wielding warrior (always two handed).
• An axe (one or two handed) wielding warrior.
• A mainly healing mage with some damage spells.
• A mainly damaging mage with some healing spells.
• A bowman.
• A dagger-wielding thief. Who can fly. And doesn't actually steal things, just opens chests. It makes sense in context.

The entire make-up of our team depends on this decision, so it's pretty important.

Thief!

I'd say either a thief or a lance-wielder, whichever you prefer.

Oh yeah, I forgot how you can just go ahead and make everyone the best possible character type of all like that.

As for a name, I say Arisian. It's an obscure Lensman reference alluding to how you both can, and really kinda must, totally break the game by predicting every move the enemy makes and totally crush them as they flail helplessly at the air you previously occupied.

Also,

Kind of obvious choice.

Can you do a shield and axe combo? I don't get to see that nearly as often in video games as I'd like.

And it's always suboptimal when it does appear, grumble grumble.

Yep, that's definitely doable. And I agree actually, I don't think shield/axe combos are seen enough in video games. Kinds of underplays the importance of axes in the early Middle Ages.

I was gonna say the lance thing, but that was before I read about the flying thief.

Everyone should probably be aware he doesn't straight up magically fly, he uses mechanical wings to hover above the ground. Which is still pretty cool, though it doesn't really work with the setting.

I'm well aware of this, but it's still getting my vote. Might as well have the hero do something useful... He sure won't otherwise.

Another vote for this:
I agree with Lucas in general but not in this specific case.

I'm OK with a steampunk thief.

Normally I'd be all about a shield and axe combo, but steampunk thief sounds too awesome to pass up

Flying lancer so as to emulate the most broken class from Vandal Hearts 1.

First time I played this I didn't have any characters with make block or find treasure, for those of you not in the know this means that I couldn't play about a quarter of the game. I remember there being quite a number of "Fun" maps in the middle chapters.

Flying lancer is doable, though I prefer to make my theives the one with flying armor in this game since flying armor bestows rather low HP.

So anyway, I think I've gotten all the votes I'm going to get.

The main character's name is Arisian, with Felix being the runner-up if the character limit is too small. Our main character will be a thief we steampunk wings, though unfortunately it takes a chapter for him to get them.

Update should be tomorrow or Saturday.