Last time in Vagrant Story, some major story events happened. This time, it was the exact opposite. There was no story whatsoever.
Workshop Work
I was just in the middle of crafting new gear when I decided to take a break last time. Now that I got back, I spent another twenty or so minutes trying to make the most of it.
Since I can now Teleport between save points, I used this to my advantage and shifted between Keane’s Crafts (Bronze, Iron, Hagane) and Metal Works (Silver and Damascus), but most of my time was spent in Keane’s Crafts. As I said last time, sure, I can now work with all material types, but the issue is that I only have a few hagane and silver pieces, and I really need to combine them with the lower class materials in order to get anywhere.
That being said, I made a few upgrades and decided to move on.
Training Dummies
I noticed I had a few unused sigils as well as several new keys, so I decided to use them in order.
The first one was a sigil opening a door in the Wine Cellar. Since this was the very first area of the game, I figured it would be the easiest one to get to. The only issue was that I didn’t have enough max MP to get there with teleportation, so I would have to teleport half-way there, recover and then go all the way.
I picked the Hall of Sworn Revenge in the Catacombs as my first location.
What’s this? An undead enemy? I might as well, while waiting for my magic to regenerate. I can even use chain arts to regenerate it faster.
What!? Zero Damage? But my Paladin is actually a high level weapon, relatively speaking. Ok, I’m casting Heracles.
Still Zero Damage!? Maybe I can Tarnish or Degenerate the enemy.
Zero percent chance of success!? How!?
Oh wait, it’s an undead training dummy. Awesome!
I’m writing this one down. I don’t want to lose it like I did with the human dummy.
Undead Training Dummy: Hall of Sworn Revenge, the Catacombs
This is pretty much what happened. I was confused and then I was ecstatic. I spent about 20 minutes beefing up my paladin and then I used teleport to get to the Blackmarket of Wines in the Wine Cellar, which was the room with the sealed door.
Wow, so that’s where the human training dummy was! I didn’t lose it after all!
Yup. I found the other one right here, after spending almost an hour unsuccessfully looking for it in one of my previous sessions. I’m writing this one down as well.
Human Training Dummy: Blackmarket of Wines, the Wine Cellar
Conveniently, both training dummies are in a room with a save point, so I’ll be able to come here and train easily in the future. I spent about 10-15 minutes training my Executioner here and got it to 75 or so. With the gem I have in it, its human affinity ended up at 90.
This is what a training dummy can do for you.
The Sealed Door to the Gallows
There was a boss-like enemy behind the sealed door – a Minotaur Zombie. I expected the fight to be tough, but it really wasn’t. I beat it without much danger, got some random items and tried to loot the chest in the room – it was locked with a Chest Key, which I didn’t have. Oh, well…
The fact that I found two training dummies on the way here was more than worth my trouble.
Next Seal: Iron Maiden B-1
Vagrant Story obviously opened up to me with teleportation. I decided to go with the seal blocking the second room of the Iron Maiden, right after the fight with a gargoyle and two wraiths. I had to fight them again, but it was a breeze this time.
I expected there to be another fight and another blocked door, but as it turns out, the seal opened up a huge part of the dungeon.
Iron Maiden B-1 is shaped more or less like a downward spiral, with treasure rooms on some of the bends. The large rooms usually contain a combination of wraiths and undead, mostly 3 in total. The treasure rooms, on the other hand, usually contained one or two undead and a new type of enemy simply called the Shadow. Shadows don’t have much health and fall with two or three strikes with Light’s Hope (my evil weapon), but they cast high level multi-hit spells, with upwards of 200 damage, so they represent a big risk.
Like most casters, Shadows are glass cannons.
Some of the chests in these rooms were locked magically, so the Unlock spell worked, but some were locked with the same Chest Key I needed back in the Wine Cellar. Luckily, I would get it soon from one of the bosses here, though I can’t remember which one dropped it.
Boss Battle: Wyvern Knight
The wyvern knight was extremely easy, which I found surprising. The trick with dragon enemies is that they have a powerful breath attack which can outright kill you, but they can’t use it you stay up close. The other trick is that they usually have high defense or high dodge rate. This time, that wasn’t the case. My Dragonslayer trident made quick work of the wyvern, after I cast all of the spells I needed to cast.
Boss Battle: Iron Golem
The Iron Golem makes quite an entrance, but in the end, it’s just a repainted golem from the start of the game. I was smart enough to use analyze against it, so I quickly figured out I needed to air fuse my weapon to start dishing out some series damage. Luft Fusion combined with Heracles on Ashley, as well as Degenerate on the golem upped my damage from zero to a minimum of about 50. It also reduced the damage I took to about 20-30. I made the Iron Golem my bitch, excuse the language.
The Iron Golem has a cool “Intro”.
Chest Key
As I said, I got the Chest Key so I was able to go back now. I pushed forward, though, until I finally got to another sealed door. Once there, I started going back, unlocking chests along the way. I got some weapons and even had to discard some due to my bags being full, but overall, it was a huge haul.
Additionally, each chest contained a type of Wine. I’m not sure what to do with these, but Callo did say she’s interested in them at the start of the game, so I kept them.
In order to leave Iron Maiden B-1 completely, I also had to figure out a total of three or four block puzzles, which always takes me back to Soul Reaver. The puzzles really are quite similar.
Keane’s Workshop
As I said, my bags were full, so I really had to do some combining with the weapons I got before going for the locked chest in the Wine Cellar. This crafting session was by far the best yet. Here’s where I’m at now…
Exorcist I still a silver scramasax dagger. I simply didn’t find anything better yet. I plan to switch to either a one handed axe or a crossbow for phantom enemies in the future.
Dragonslayer remained a trident, but I changed its hilt to a frames pole, so I have two gem slots now.
Executioner is now a balbriggan with a bhuj type hilt. It has three gem slots and a base damage of 38. Humans beware!
Paladin is now a war hammer with a runkasyle grip with two gem slots and 25 base damage. It’s also up to 41 undead affinity with the option to boost it to 100 whenever I have the will and time for it.
Hunter is now a short sword with 17 base damage and a power palm grip with three gem slots.
Light’s Hope is now an executioner sword with 33 base damage and also a power palm grip with three gem slots. Two of those slots are taken by a Demonis gem, which adds 15 evil affinity. I did this because I have a hard time finding evil enemies to conveniently train on. Fingers crossed for a dummy soon.
Finally, I use a hagane kite shield. I also have a damascus circle shield which is weaker and I got it from…
Back to the Wine Cellar
I had to fight the minotaur zombie again, and it was easy again. I opened the chest, got another bottle of wine, some random items and the damascus circle shield.
I had to fight this guy twice. He’s a regular enemy, so he respawns.
To Wrap It Up
That’s it this time. Time was invested, but there was no story progression, which is also pretty cool, because I realized Vagrant Story is a much more open game than it seems at first. From what I hear, it really does seem like a mixture of a JRPG, a Demon Souls type game and maybe a metroidvania.
It’s though, unforgiving and it makes you feel awesome when you succeed.
FYI, I’m at 57% map completion and close to 23 hours in.
