Review by: Tony Mitera

Set as a prequel to the original Vandal Hearts found on the original Playstation, Flames of Judgment is the newest piece of bite-sized gaming to be found on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. The game features traditional turn-based strategy mechanics set in a fantasy world, not unlike the other games in the series or in games such as Final Fantasy: Tactics. It’s a simple game to pick up and play, and though it is very linear in its progression it does have a good deal of depth to enjoy along the way.

The story is one ripped out of so many fantasy properties before; following the chronicles of a young orphan named Tobias who finds himself thrust into combat after the small town he calls home is attacked by a band of armed foes. Of course, though the enemy appears to be a rival nation the real threat lies from a treasonous General. As Tobias and his friends get ambushed during a raid on bandits they get declared as traitors to their own kingdom, and must find a means of fighting back against the General to clear their names and stop his terrible scheme from coming to fruition.

The game itself is little more than a linear series of battles strung together by shoestring cutscenes and the occasional menu allowing you to purchase items from shops, talk to local passerby, and save the game. You gain gold to spend in the shops by vanquishing foes found in the battles, though since there are a finite number of battles and foes to fight within them you must carefully consider whom you really want to upgrade and in what way. Since each party member can equip two weapons, two items, armor, and a helm there is a fair amount of customization allowed for with how you want to deck out your characters.

Once in combat the game boils down to an easy to understand set of mechanics. At the top of the screen you see the turn timeline which shows the order that all of the battle combatants will take action in. Characters can move across the grid-based battlefield and then perform an action such as attacking or defending but not vice versa, as those actions end a character’s turn. This makes positioning your characters before committing to an action quite important, but adding to the positioning consideration is how characters standing next to each other will often both attack if one of them initiates an attack action against an enemy that both of them have a chance of engaging. With the highly tactical combat the game’s many battles always feel strategic and exciting, not to mention due to how the game loves to mix up battle win and loss conditions to keep things lively.

One interesting mechanic is that though each party member is clearly better suited towards a particular combat discipline you can have them learn any skill or magic ability simply by having them perform the action. Every time a character performs an action such as attacking with a specific weapon class or dodging an attack they gain skill in it, making future actions or responses of that type more effective as well as potentially increasing their stats. To learn magic a character can equip a magic book containing a particular type of spell as one of their two item slots, letting them cast the ability if they don’t know it or making it more powerful if they are already knowledgeable of it. Since characters don’t gain experience or levels in the traditional sense they only become better fighters by gaining these skill points, which makes their growth a lot more fluid.