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PC Games (Games)

Freeloading With Tactical RPG Vantage Master 22

Posted by simoniker from the load-em-up dept.
Thanks to 1UP for its 'Freeloading' article discussing Falcom's freely downloadable PC tactical RPG Vantage Master Online. According to the author, the title "surprising balance and depth of play", even though it "took rather a while to make, and by the time things were nearing completion it was showing its age pretty badly and was practically unmarketable. The usual course of action in that situation is to just ditch the project and cut one's losses. In Falcom's case, they wrapped it up, put it up for free download at their own expense, and even went so far as to make an English (sort of) translation."
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Freeloading With Tactical RPG Vantage Master More

Freeloading With Tactical RPG Vantage Master

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  • A great freebie! (Score:5, Informative)

    by dancingmad ( 128588 ) on Saturday July 24, 2004 @02:15AM (#9787487)
    I've actually posted about a game in this series, VM Japan [falcom.co.jp], before on /. When I was trying to find information on VM Japan I stumbled across the free version of VMO [falcom.co.jp] and downloaded it. Though the English translation is pretty bad (and the cutscenes aren't even trasnlated), it's a fun game. It's a tactical RPG (along the lines of Final Fantasy Tatics, Tatics Ogre, and it seems to share a lot with the upcoming Phantom Brave). However, you control it with the mouse and it runs as a miniziable windows app (more on that in a sec).

    The graphics are dated but its a lot of fun. The system is simple; you control (via mouse, which is a new experience for me, but works real well) a main character who can summon magical familars. The nautiauls have various elemental attributes and one is weak against one other and strong against one other. Your objective is to kill off the enemy boss (by getting through his nautiauls). On the board there are power stones that you can claim for yourself (or your enemy can too) by standing on them. Stones add to your magical power, a big help. Every time you win a battle you win a new summon.

    Simple yet fun. And since it runs as without going full screen as a normal Win32 app, you can run Winamp and AOL IM while playing, in and of itself a GREAT feature.

    It even has network/internet play, which I haven't fooled around with much yet.

    It's a great good will gesture for Falcom to put this out. It's a great download and if you enjoyed games like FFTA or Disgaea, it's defintely worth a download. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

  • I Think I Get It (Score:3, Funny)

    by jmt9581 ( 554192 ) on Saturday July 24, 2004 @03:19AM (#9787665) Homepage
    So ... all their games are belong to us?

    *dodges rotten tomatoes*

    :P

    • All their GAME are belong to us. Sheesh, people can't even write bad English RIGHT these days! :)

      • The above isnt "proper Engrish" it's closer to proper Japanese.
        Shamelessly stolen from usenet:

        Here's a little song to help you remember the rule.

        THE JAPANESE SINGULAR/PLURAL NOUN RULE SONG
        (sung to the tune of "The Banana Splits" theme song)

        Tra la la! La la la la!
        Tra la la! La la la la!
        Tra la la! La la la la!
        Tra la la! La la la la!
        Tra la la! La la la la!
        Tra la la! La la la la!

        One Gojira, two Gojira, three Gojira, four
        Four Gojira rising from the murky ocean floor
        See them crushing Tokyo, breathing sm

  • be nice (Score:2, Informative)

    by xmple ( 704367 )
    You could show your them your sympathy and good heart by donating some pocket change to them... so maybe some other companies will do the same with their unfinished/obsolete games (sam & max anyone?)

    The only problem is that their site is in japanese, and although "the fish" does a pretty good job, I can only make out their street address; (bottom of their site)

    • Re:be nice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dafoomie ( 521507 ) <dafoomie AT hotmail DOT com> on Saturday July 24, 2004 @08:15AM (#9788277) Homepage
      You could show your them your sympathy and good heart by donating some pocket change to them.

      Or you could buy their products, since they're a for-profit company. The Ys series is coming out for PS2 and PC.
      • yes, but my point was that you could show them your appreciation for their effort of "finishing" a game that was already doomed to end up in the garbage bin before it was even released; and although you could thank them by buying their games, they wouldn't know that you also liked the idea of releasing an "unfinished" game for free.

        Maybe donating money is a little exaggerated, but you can still show your appreciation with your thanks...

        • On the contrary, I think that if their sales went up, some of that could be attributed to their releasing a free game, people liking it and wanting more, and people just being aware of their existance because of it. How many people have even heard of Falcom before this? Though they have released several noteworthy games like Popful Mail, Ys, Xanadu...

  • I love Engrish (Score:3, Funny)

    by KDR_11k ( 778916 ) on Saturday July 24, 2004 @07:22AM (#9788173)
    From the readme:
    The characters in the game might be garbaged depending on the kind of computer you use.

  • The usual course of action in that situation is to just ditch the project and cut one's losses.

    In my career I have encountered more than one colleague who has several years in the games industry behind them without a single published game to their name, so sadly this situation is as the article says, all too common. Developers and publishers get cold feet for the most spurious of reasons and seem to abandon projects on a whim. Which is a shame, because some of the dross [grolier.com] that got published by former emp

  • BAH! (Score:2)

    by Grym ( 725290 )
    I've just spent the past few hours playing this game, and is it just me or is this the most obvious CPU cheating you've ever encountered in a game or what?

    After you learn the paper-rock-scissors combos between the units it doesn't seem hard, but at one point in the "easy" game level, it gets ridiculous. My chacter is 5 TIMES the level of any of my opponents, but ALL of them, regardless of class, gain MP faster and have units which attack harder. It's outrageous. Might as well give my units a one-sided d
    • It's not cheating.

      MP gain is based on how many magic stones you've waited on.

      If the AI's turned all the magic stones red, it's going to gain MP, and you're not going to. You can completely shut down the AI by sitting on all the stones until he dies.

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