Vagrant Story - Strategy Guide (Page 12)

Below are the cheat codes, hints and help for Vagrant Story - Strategy Guide (Page 12).

-----------------------------
(i) Rumours
-----------------------------

DESIGN TEAM DEMOTED?
The most worrying rumour of this month's newsgroups is that the VS design team 
has been demoted within the hierarchy at Square because of the game's poor sales 
(i.e. less than Square's requisite million) in the home market, despite the 
global critical acclaim. I haven't had any confirmation of this story, and will 
try to find out if it's true from an official source, as it seems highly 
improper.

CHEATS
Vagrant Story has no real cheats to date, so I mention this purely because it's 
the obvious way for a cheat to exist.

What if you gave your weapon a certain name and it automatically became a cheat 
weapon? It's an old-fashioned kind of RPG cheat (naming your character with a 
specific title for starting bonuses) and I've seen it used as recently as 
Harvest Moon, so half of me suspects that this might be a possibility.

Knowing my luck, the names Orcrist, Masamune and Xxxx's Bane would work, but I 
haven't dared try.

-----------------------------
(j) Bugs
-----------------------------

MAGIC CIRCLE VANISHING TRICK
In the first area of Snowfly Forest East (second play), the first-person PAUSE 
view shows a magic circle. Click back, and it's gone. 

BREAK ART COUNT
If you finish the first play without collecting all of the Break Arts, enemy 
deaths won't start counting towards your next required total until you've 
defeated the Minotaur boss again on second play.

DISC TROUBLE
Vagrant Story has an enormous disc index to contend with, so if your PlayStation 
is extremely old and has seen some bruisingly lengthy sessions in that time then 
you may encounter occasional hitches as the head searches and searches again for 
the precise track that it needs. Those tiny orbiting sparks you see when you 
initiate a Break Art or spell are an effect to cover the disc access times, and 
it's here that you're most likely to see the game pause for an extra second or 
two while the read head has another go. It's NOT a bug or code glitch, but a 
direct result of your hardware seeing *way* too much use over the years, so give 
it a chance to catch up and it will. If you've taken to standing your PS on its 
side occasionally to see games run more smoothly* (which may mean that the rack-
&-pinion needs some lithium grease) then this applies to you. Hey, it's better 
than having to swap discs just to teleport to old areas...

*(For the record, my original Japanese SCPH-1000 series Serial A is still in 
good working order: but I wasn't entirely surprised by PS2's supposedly 
innovative vertical / horizontal dual mode, as I've been doing that for 
years...)



==============================================
19. CREDITS
==============================================

There's no way I could do all of this on my own, of course, and the amount of 
really useful material I've had come my way since starting this FAQ is nothing 
short of astounding. So here's a list of Rather Superb People: they've all 
helped out for no reward beyond the knowledge that their work will be shared 
freely and may help other players. I'm indebted to you all.

James Savell 
Not content with putting me right on the facts about Damascus, James suggested a 
theory for combining different items of a similar pegging (empirical method re: 
creating Damascus is still early stages), filled me in on the status screen and 
also furnished me with an item list. He's since replaced my lost notes on 
fighting the Wyvern Knight too, which meant this FAQ update got to you an 
evening earlier. Yowza!

Vic Palileo  
Vic did ALL the work for me on the Weapon Titles table, just when I was dreading 
the possibility that I might have to research it all myself, and even went away 
to level up his weapons for a complete list. Can't thank him enough for that. He 
also simplified the Light & Dark Wage War jump better than anyone.

Lawrence Oei  
Lawrence kicked off the alternative boss tactics section with his Phantom Pain x 
8 trick and, more importantly, came up with some metallurgy pointers that got me 
back into the workshop. Greatly appreciated.

Vincent Merken 
Vincent's speed playing tips, not to mention his discovery of Last Crusaders in 
Iron Maiden B3, have made him one of this FAQ's most valuable contributors. He's 
since contributed some equally valuable chain info, too. 

Nelson Murphy 
Some valuable RISK pointers for improving the chance of Sorcery spells came from 
this guy, as well as a reminder of the Riskbreak Break Art, and I'm just as 
grateful for his enthusiasm. The Stat Roulette tip is all his.

Daniel Day 
This guy's hot, and not only uncovered the friendship trick but did so weeks 
before anyone else. He's also contributed a few other worthy items herein.


Taunted me with his spanking Minotaur's Club, which he'd already obtained in the 
Japanese version. Aha, I have several now!

Robert Schmitz
I first encountered Robert when he was editor of the sorely-missed Shining 
Forth: a fine zine, not just a fanzine. He took time out from  reviewing for 
workingdesigns.com to send me his Crimson Pain / Raging Ache tips and 
observations. "One other observation: two room names in the Snowfly Forest are 
Bauhaus songs (Hollow Hills and The Silent Hedges)". Goth-tastic!

Joe P Shelton 
Continues to contribute some very helpful pointers for the hidden Grimoires 
section, and always before anyone else too. Thanks!

ZenCrawler@aol.com 
So, you don't need ranged weapons to take out the crates blocking your 
Cloudstone jumps. This fellow showed me how.

Kaworu , Trevor 
Kaworu noted how to cancel the Bloody Sin (that'll save a few tears, I'll wager) 
while Trevor prompted me to re-try reflecting Guildenstern's attacks.

Cyrus Nunn
Suggested a couple of tips, including his version of Training Dummy 
regeneration, and was more usefully pedantic about my typos. 

Firseal@aol.com
Urged me on to explain the potential doubling-up of weapons for creature 
classes, which is now in.

D. Bingham Brown 
Some canny observations mean the Ward defence trick is all his.

Paul Riggle 
We like people who actually send full info, rather than just an "I found a 
doohickey!" message which forces me to spend an evening working out what they 
were saying and tracking down the item to discover either (a) its stats, or (b) 
they were greatly exaggerating something perfectly mundane.

Koh Chuan Koon  
Emasculate those dragons by running under them at the start of the battle.

Benjamin Ford 
Chest-closing info and Snowfly Forest East magic circle glitch, that's what.

Tim Espasandin , Bryce Rollins , 
Sas2231@aol.com, William Simon  
These people convinced me to write more on Absorb defences, which was worth 
including after all. Still, it is not the invulnerability trick that some 
correspondents have suggested.

Kyle ,Markweb Jimenez 
Precise additional trap info and more.
 
Chris Lai , Keith Rhee 
Got lost in Iron Maiden B2 on my behalf. I've now done an Iron Maiden map that 
is probably as flawed as my original guide, but here goes nothing.

Ryan Kern 
A correction-identifier of the first order.

Gun Dream 
Garrett Beaty 
NaturalH 
The first of many to note it, but these early sharpsters simultaneously pointed 
out my gem removal error.


Sorry if I'm still behind on some credits. V1.3 is an admittedly desperate 
release of an FAQ that has only been half-updated in some areas, but I haven't 
had a day off work in two weeks. That's the trouble with being freelance: even 
Saturday Night is no longer sacred. I'm hoping to fit in a whole weekend to 
myself on a wed/thu sometime before July, if it reassures...

Zy Nicholson



If you've discovered something that needs correcting or updating, or you've 
spotted something that the Vagrant Story-playing world needs to know, then e-
mail

spangenhelm@hotmail.com

and I will see to it that your finest observations are both incorporated and 
duly credited to you. Please bear with me, as, by dreadful misfortune, I also 
need to fit in working hard for a living...

//FIN.//