Vagrant Story Retrospective | An Extremely Comprehensive Critique and History

If you're desperate for more LENGTHY video CONTENT - you're in luck. I've just posted a new video covering the entire ONIMUSHA SERIES. It's a lengthy exploration of one of the great lost franchises and how it almost destroyed the company that made it. Enjoy! - https://youtu.be/6zI6lW3BjZ4?si

While he's only mentioned briefly in the video, I thought some others might be interested in hearing more about Hitoshi Sakimoto (composer from Quest). He is well known among Sega Genesis / Megadrive fans as having crafted some of the most exciting and dynamic soundtracks on consoles full of excellent soundtracks. What not as many know is that he also developed the software he used both to compose and to play back his music, the Terpsichorean Engine. There was a much deeper overlap between software development and composition than typically encountered in modern times with DAW software and complex digital audio playback. I've personally dived fairly deep into the sound chip driver code of Terpsichorean from Gauntlet IV and Verytex and I wish more people could appreciate the elegance of his work. In gauntlet IV, for example, the yamaha YM2612 is driven entirely from game processor, freeing the z80 sound coprocessor to be used exclusively for sound effect playback. The effect playback code itself is incredibly elegant, supporting playback of four different PCM formats in <200 instructions of tight, self modifying code. Mixing bitrates like this allowed for some sound effects to be stored as lower fidelity files and others (such as the voicelines for the announcer, character voices, etc) to be remarkably crisp 16 bit.. It uses the clock frequency of the z80 processor itself to bitbang the audio out the PCM port. Incredible, honestly.

In any case and regardless of the details everything. I hope Matsuno is living a fulfilling life and enjoying his day to day life these days.

What an absolute underrated gem of a game, it's wild how well the comic book aesthetic still holds up 20 years later.

Vagrant story is my favourite game of all time.A 3 hour video on it makes me really happy. Thank you for this treat.

Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yasumi Matsuno were some of the greatest storytellers in the medium. I like to think in an alternate universe Sakaguchi and Matsuno are still at Square giving us amazing titles.

Matsuno originally studying foreign politics in college feels like it explains everything to me.

This isn't the first hours long retrospective on Vagrant Story that I've watched but I'm honestly shocked at how much more I've learned from this one compared to others. The in depth detail on the game itself more than suffices whatever interest the video title would draw but you go out of your way to put us into the history of its development and impact the work has had on its creators and industry. Thank you for your hard efforts in creating a masterwork of a game retrospective.

This is the level of gaming journalism I'm looking for. Well done, sir!

Matsuno's story is so unfortunate. Hideo Kojima's regard for him wasn't just words, and everything Matsuno touched was absolute gold. Case in point was Naoki Yoshida's asking him to write what is still to date the most positively regarded 24-man raid content and exploration content in FFXIV with Ivalice and the Bozjan Resistance. Not to be hyperbolic, but in my mind, everything that "the big three" (Matsuno, Sakimoto, and A. Yoshida) touch is absolute gold and I'll always be there for it. I admit though that if I hadn't been such a shill for Squaresoft in the late 90's, I might have missed Vagrant Story. Marketing for anything in the 90's that wasn't a massive blockbuster movie was pretty lackluster, and I actually had a conversation about this with my older brother about just how many amazing musical artists from the 70's didn't make headwinds at all because they weren't armed with the viral marketing and streaming services of today. Then of course there was Playstation 2 release hype... Man, we got a masterpiece of a game and hardly anyone remembers it. As always, I love your writing and editing style, and I'm constantly learning new stuff about games I played ages ago, but this one is really special to me, so thanks so much for making it.

Wow, you did not disappoint! so many details and behind-the-scenes information on this one game from over 20 years ago. Thanks for putting so much effort into both the editing and research on creating this documentary-style video. I remember as a kid reading in a gaming magazine about Matsuno leaving FFXII due to an illness, and it was such a vague and mysterious reason for something very uncommon in Japanese game development. Thank you for clarifying the details of that. Again, I can't wait for your next video, its honestly such a treat to get these retrospective videos, especially for these games I enjoyed as a kid and teenager. Keep up the great work!

Low-key the greatest JRPG ever made. Artistically, one of the greatest games ever made in general.

I remember beating Guildenstern's final form by catching him in an endless chain as he swoops across the arena, nickel-and-diming his health 1 point at a time for about 10 minutes.

This may be the earliest I've even been to a video, see y'all in 3 hours.

I truly can't think of a game on PSX that blows me away more than Vagrant Story. Everything about it is truly astounding, though what always impresses me most is the use of the engine. It looks amazing for the time and it's file size is mind blowing.

Matsuno studying foreign policy and his first job being an international journalist explains SO much. I'm really impressed with this video, VS is my favorite collection of cutscenes of all time, and not only there's a bunch of production and post-release information I didn't know, but you've managed to pace the ABSURD amount of systems that need to be explained pretty well as you cover the rest of the game. Congratulations again on the 100k!

That final scene where Ashley Riot masks himself as the VKP inquisitor and is dressed in his black attire struck me with such style that it inspires me to try to create a character based upon that idea alone

I always feel sorry for Matsuno. He made an incredible masterpiece that most people will never finish, and got his campaign setting stolen by a huge corporation who just does whatever they want with it.

It blew my mind to find out that this game is in the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics and FF XII. I really wish more FF titles would be in Ivalice. I love the sceneries and the amount of lore in each game. Also the fact that there's many different prominent races in Ivalice that adds so much character to the games.

Been insanely busy lately so won't be able to watch this right away. I want to give it the time and attention it deserves rather than breaking it up too much. I Really love your presentations, in-depth and well-structured with steady pacing. Just wanted to compliment your work and add to the algorithm. I follow several game retrospective channels and these long-form reviews are right up my street. They take an incredible amount of effort on your part and the reason they are watchable is because the quality is so high. I hope your channel keeps growing and you keep enjoying what you do.