Not but three months after Lunar:SS did I buy this game. I was coming off my Lunar high, and needed something to get me back, Vay seemed to be the answer.
Thousands of years ago a battle was fought in a distant galaxy using horrible machines of death. One of these machines, the Vay armor, left the conflict and shot through space for centuries. It finally crash landed on a planet, and a great war was fought against the armor, ultimately sealing it away. Now, almost a thousand years later, the kingdom of Lorath comes under attack from the evil Danek Empire, which kidnaps Sandor’s (the prince of Lorath) bride. Now its up to you as Sandor to resurrect the Vay armor and save your princess.
In Japan, Vay was the first rpg to be released for the Mega CD(Sega CD in the U.S.) It attempted to harness the new medium’s enhanced capabilities, but alas, it was a mixed bag.
From a purely technical standpoint Vay’s cinemas are twice as goo as those of Lunar:SS. However, when artistic and emotional perspective are taken into account, they quickly sag below SS. Vay’s anime is not a bunch of stills like most of those in SS, but where as SS had colorful, imaginative and powerful scenes with little animation (like Ghaleon’s bleeding eye scene) Vay has fairly fluid animation, although they’re a less inspired by a great deal. Another down point, and an annoying one at that, is that half the time when the characters talk in the cinemas, their mouths aren’t even moving! The game play graphics are your typical rpg mix of towns, people and monsters. Overall Vay looks good, but by no means great.
Variety really could have helped Vay’s music. Its good at first, but never changes, and soon becomes a tad nerve wracking. You’ll scream in agony over the fact that all the towns, save one, have the same wretched music! The only break from the monotonous town and map scene is the battle music, which thumps along with a strong techno beat. Sound effects are basically non existent, but hey, its an rpg.
The play of the game works, but its like a thorn in your undies. Typical menus and turn based combat control all of the features. What will burn your goat, however, is the difficulty of battles. Unlike SS where you earned enough experience to make things just a little challenging, Vay forces you to go out gathering experience for an hour before every other dungeon, and even then the bosses usually kick your ass.
Working Designs tried very hard to make this game into something special, and for that, their effort should be commended.
However, with its many short falls and overly difficult game play, this one doesn’t hold a candle to their other legendary titles.
