Volfoss - Part 2/3 (Incomplete Playthrough) - PS1 - ボルフォス ~ Ikuaipe Tournament
10This is not a complete playthrough of the game! Volfoss is a tactical-RPG that never left Japanese shores. What could have been a fantastic game is ruined by the randomness that can make it very difficult to beat. Let me try to explain. The game works as you clear a series of missions in succession. Choose a mission, go back to base, choose another mission, etc. However, the story can take very different turns depending on which missions you choose. There are five possible endings, with five different types of missions, tied to different countries/lands. Every mission you do will change your alignment. When you reach certain key points in the game, your alignment will dictate how the story progresses. To battle, you hire creatures (mercenaries) to fight alongside Shalvas, the main character.
The creatures you can employ will vary depending on your alignment. But the best creatures have to be caught. You can capture any creature you fight on the battlefield, but if you want to have a 100% chance to catch them, they have to be very low on HP and this will be indicated by a "swoon" state. But some creatures are better than others. The Chameleon is apparently the best one, but you'd have to encounter one in first place. I never did. And that's not all. Once captured, the creatures are sent to jail. When you go back to base, you can go talk to them, but most of them will refuse to join you. Again, this depends on alignment and probably some randomness. If you keep them in jail and go talk to them after every mission, eventually one may decide they want to join you, but maybe not. Enemies in missions will also scale to your own level. To learn spells, creatures need to be sent "training", but whether they come back with a new spell or not is, again, random. And sending them out to train costs skill points that you have to acquire by leveling them up during missions.
This makes the game very difficult, so I had to give up on it. Granted, I made many mistakes by not hiring many new creatures and keeping my originals for too long. On YT, I found a playthrough by a Chinese guy who I asked help from, because I realized that all of his characters were much stronger and varied than mine, but he is using an emulator and he told me he resorted to cheats to get the best creatures and levels, and even then he found it tedious. Getting gems (to boost attack or defense or get special abilities) and accessories is also difficult and random and is entirely dependent on enemy drops. It is not possible to grind because everything you do is tied to the story.
That's too bad, because the game has some fantastic music and great artwork, and ultimately I think it's a super unique TRPG with a complex story that gives you many choices. But you'd need to clear the game five times to see all five endings. I wish I could have reached at least one ending, but alas. There are some other cool designs of characters I've never even encountered in this playthrough. If you're reading this and you've played and beat this game before and you notice something I did fundamentally wrong somewhere, please comment and let me know! I would love to give this game another shot one day and reach at least one ending.
#ps1 #volfoss #namco
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