Let's Play Vandal Hearts (Sega Saturn): Island of Madness (e08)
Channel: aetherspoon
Date: 2021-08-08

Welcome to Chapter 2, Interlopers! We have finally reached Gillbaris Island, the ancient and spoopy place where spoopy things happen. Let's stop by this totally normal village!

This will be the last pre-recorded video of this series for a while, as I have an important question for you all at the end of this video!


Timestamps:

0:00 - The very enunciated narrator returns!
1:07 - Battle Intro
2:27 - Battle Start (!)
30:47 - Battle End
30:58 - Kitty Start
31:54 - Kittycam Start
34:15 - Kitty gets distracted and leaves.
35:08 - End of content / Beginning of explanation of Promotion

----spaaaaaace~----


All right, at the end of this video I've hit level 10 for (nearly) everyone; that means it is time to talk promotion. Every character (save one) can promote to a new class, and every character (save one) has a decision to make as to which class to promote to. Since I can't really do a randomizer for Vandal Hearts (trust me, I tried), I thought I'd ask you all.

In general, Guardsman is the weakest class in the game. Monks aren't, but they're much weaker than the Sorcerer or Bishop classes (in the PS1 version anyway; I know some spells are mixed around); their main advantage is a large boost to speed. Bowmen are less powerful than Hawknights, but that one is really marginal by comparison; both classes are useful and you'd want a mix.


So, if you want this to be super challenging for me, make them all Guardsmen, Monks, and Archers. I'd have a pretty big sad since that means I wouldn't see some of the new spells in the game though.


If you want to make this super easy, skip Guardsmen entirely and go with Swordsmen, have one of the Healers turn into a Monk, and have one of each Hawk and Bow.

If you want me to go lore-based / art-based, it'll be one Guard / two Sword, one hawk / three bow, two sorcerers, one bishop, and one monk. Balance-wise this isn't a great idea, as that hawk will be a while before we get them.

Lots of options here! I'm also going to take a poll in my discord for the one person who has actually played VH before.

Below are the individual character choices.

Clint - Swordsman or Guardsman? His art in the manual is that of him as a guardsman, so I guess that's what matches lore-wise?
Diego - Bowman or Hawknight? He looks better as a Bowman and lore-wise fits Bowman slightly better.
Eleni - Sorcerer or Monk? Story-wise, I think she's meant to be a sorcerer, but she probably could be a monk.
Huxley - Bishop or Monk? He's intended to be a Bishop by all accounts, and I had him as Ninja Master Huxley last time I played.
Kira - Bowman or Hawknight? She looks better as a Bowman and lore-wise fits both pretty well. I'm pretty sure (given all of her character art) she's supposed to be the badass sexy archer stereotype though.
Grog - Swordsman or Guardsman? Art-wise, Grog is supposed to be a swordsman, I guess? I always thought he was supposed to be a Guardsman.
??Knight?? - Swordsman or Guardsman? This one looks better as a Guardsman than the other Knights, but lore-wise both fit. Art-wise, I can't actually tell.
??Archer?? - Bowman or Hawknight? Definitely looks better as a Hawknight and lore-wise seems to fit that a bit better as well. Art-wise this character is an archer, but most times they depict base class. Personally, I prefer this character to be the opposite class of Diego, for spoiler reasons.
??Healer?? - Bishop or Monk? This character seems to fit Monk better than Bishop in my mind, both lore-wise and appearance-wise. This is my normal Monk of the game.
??Mage?? - Sorcerer or Monk? Definitely a Sorcerer lore-wise, I don't know if I've *ever* seen them as a monk, actually.
??Archer?? - Archer or Hawknight? Even this character's portrait in the manual has them as a Hawknight, for reference, it is pretty clear art/lore/appearance-wise that's the intent.

PS: Yes, every character has unique sprites... and each promotion has unique sprites as well. No palette swaps!