The battlefields start on a much lighter and joyful note, but end up sounding quite dramatic at the end of the intro. The orchestration sounds more realistic, and also more epic as is the case with the overworld theme. However, the music does show signs of improvement. The jab technique on a lance shows the dexterity of the wielder, while the axe storm and slash from swords show the precision of the attack.Ĭoncomitant with the lack of movies, there is absolutely no voice acting in VH 2, which again is inexcusable for a 1999 game. Many weapons can give you special attacks, all of which have been nicely designed. The movements are much more realistic (except for the bow and arrow, that look clumsy) and diverse. I think only magic in Final Fantasy II showed so much diversity.Ī final improvement: how attacks are made. Every single spell you cast (or curative / attack item you use) has some form of animation to it: healing spells have angels (the stronger the spell, the larger / more numerous they are), fire spells range from dragons to meteor showers, holy spells include a giant heart beating and even angels crashing on you for the gates of heaven, etc. There are also sharp differences in altitude in many battles, making the battles more difficult and varied compared to the preceding game.īut the best improvement was done with magic. Blood splatters also look less geyser-like… but it’s still too much for my taste. Too bad it wasn’t meant to add some difficulty in one such battle, there are “treadmills” that don’t affect your moving at all, and flying on lava doesn’t affect your health like the poison fields did in the previous game. Many of the “bonus” battles (necessary to obtain the Vandal Heart sword) have very big moving objects that show the technical prowess of the designers. On the battlefield (where most of the action happens), graphics also look nicer. Aging was also done nicely for the few characters you see between the Intro and Chapter One you can still recognize them. Also, everyone you talk to has a (static) portrait, and those are drawn nicely – some details like blood can show up at times, improving the image. Their movements still look a little clumsy (especially on stairs), but at least they can jump when they have to. For starters, characters are less pixelated and are drawn better. Also, while the cutscenes don’t have the same psychedelic backgrounds, they still fill less than half the screen.īut compared to VH 1, VH 2 does show some nice improvements. It’s inexcusable for an RPG produced in 1999. Literally: the only “movies” I could find were the loading screens, which looked like the reels of a mute movie.

While VH I innovated by introducing brief CGIs, none of that is present in VH 2. But even after playing the game through, I still think that it’s a bad game

I wanted to give Vandal Hearts II the same chance, since I never completed the game. When I played Vandal Hearts I again on Vizzed, I realized that, for its time, the game was a gem. Vandal Hearts II Review by: janus - 5/10 Worse than I Remember

Vandal hearts 2 psx