Vandal Hearts
1996
- role-playing (rpg)
- strategy
- turn-based strategy (tbs)
- tactical
- fantasy
- single player
The story
You assume the role of Ash Lambert, a hero torn between saving his country and restoring honor to the disgraced Lambert dynasty. As he struggles with his inner demons and personal problems, he will meet various companions throughout his journey. They will help your character fight to overthrow the oppressive regime and ward off an ancient being that threatens the world. Vandal-Hearts is a 3D turn-based strategy game. Unlike many games of the genre, the various battlefields have sloped surfaces that will either work to your advantage or against you. It will be up to you to accommodate your strategy and amount an appropriate offensive assault against your foes as well as set up defensive measures.
What it’s like
Chunky pre-rendered battlefields tilted into sloping, diorama-like grids, with the terrain itself becoming part of the tactics, and a warm, slightly grainy 1990s palette of ochre fields, grey stone keeps and storm-dark skies. Camera swings around each map at a slow, deliberate pace, and rotating a level's height changes everything you can reach. Combat is methodical and stately: turns unfold in a measured rhythm punctuated by flourishes of melee and spellcasting, and the soundtrack leans on orchestral-leaning synth themes, with stirring brass in battle and quieter, melancholy pieces during the castle and village interludes. The vibe is earnest, slightly wistful fantasy with a sense of old-fashioned courtly tragedy, the kind of game that suits a long rainy weekend or an evening of planning moves at your own pace. Its tone is serious but not grim, with a lonely hero gradually gathering a party of unlikely allies, betrayals and reversals arriving as the story turns. Violence is stylised and bloodless in presentation, with clashing swords and magic flashes rather than gore, and tension comes from tactical danger rather than horror. Suited to strategy fans who enjoy patient, puzzle-like battles and a story with a touch of old-school melodrama.
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