Vay

Best left in the past

I personally don't have a problem with this port and it's features. I think the publisher did an overall great job with the port, Vay itself is just not a great game even from it's time period. Like, the story has potential but that potential is never really explored. It's too focused on trying to leap to the next plot point rather than spending any time to breathe and let the characters really grow. This is crazy considering this game was originally a Sega CD title, and thus had more room to allow for character growth and team banter. There's actually some sort of ancient civilization that we never learn much about, and how the five wizards received the five orbs that you wind up having to collect. What are all these mecha technology things doing here? Why do the Danek have a castle dungeon they reside in that looks like something out of an H.R. Geiger painting? None of this is explored, we don't have time for that, hurry up and go kill the final big bad please! The game isn't even challenging either. I hate that you are given a decent variety of equipment but none of that really matters when it typically boils down to, "wear the thing with the most stats." Weirdly enough, you can sometimes push ahead to another town you will interact with later in the game, and it will have even BETTER equipment than the town before, and I mean like, a lot better. It was one of the most infuriating things to me to spend my hard earned money just to have that happen not once, or twice, but what felt like three times in the game. Oh, speaking about money, at least there's an option in the menu to x4 your money from battles. You may just want to turn that on as it's the only way I began to even afford upgrades at a reasonable pace at all. It's almost like the shops were designed with the x4 money rate in mind, or that's what it felt like. You can do the same with experience, but I only turned that on after beating the game to get the "Level 99" Achievement. Anyway, I hate to put the thumbs down on this, but there are just so many better RPG's from this time period, or even in the indie scene now and days. I would only recommend picking this up as a curiosity or if you're really into retro RPG's. If SoMoGa ever try their hand at releasing more titles on Steam I'd be sure to check them out though, as this port and it's features are pretty good. If they applied these principles to better games they can certainly build a reputation on that.

I finished this game and here are my thoughts about this one I've never finished the Sega CD version however after seeing that this is on Steam wanted to give it a try. A lot of the dialogue translations are different from the Sega CD version, a lot of them are either actually funny or cringe. The music is still pretty good and once you realize that you can turn up money drops in the settings menu, it helps for later on item & gear purchases. It's also an extremely short game with not that much romance even though it feels like there should have been something.

Great game great Port I recomend it for any RETRO RPG fan

I will make this simple enough for anyone the lost jewel of the sega cd is this game,I have it on my phone as well,I have waited for this game to come to pc for 20 years,and if you like straight forward rpgs this is your game,so play,or dont but the graphics are better then even sega cd,And this was one of my favorites from way back in the 1990s,And now even better they give a times 4 for expierience,And money,But if you feel lucky try the hard mode well alls good with this game the graphics could be better but its thrown together with spare parts it seems, but at least steam tried,good game,the music stayed the same so enjoy the game eh,or just say it sucks, and get on with your what a magig, or day what ever it is,this was the first space suit game that I played its just a plain classic. and only 6 bucks when I bought it anyway.

I have very fond memories of this game from the mid-90's on the SEGA CD. It was one of my very first RPG experiences. With that said, I highly recommend it for lovers of retro JRPG games, however the original experience has been tampered with in a number of ways for this port and not all of it is an improvement as billed. -The XP/GP boost options are nice as they reduce the exorbitant grind requirements of the original. -The overworld walk speed is waaaaay faster than the original by default and feels way too fast. It cannot be slowed down, only sped up to an even more goofy walk speed. -The graphical updates mostly look awful and the cutscene resolution is worse than the OG 90's release. -The damage numbers in battle are too small to see without squinting. -Battle speed is too slow by default and too fast when set to X2. - New SFX and battle victory music that doesn't fit with the original compositions by Sakop. - New English Dub isn't any better or worse than the original Working Designs dub, which was pretty bad to begin with. - New English translation is fine. If you have access to the SEGA CD version, play that instead. This version works well if you want to play the game without spending the extra grind time for the full experience.

This is a bootleg game. I mean its not. But it FEELS like it. The Cutscenes are there. The Game is there. The rest is like watching ALIEN while Sponge Bob Squarepants doing the lines. Oh its not that severe. BUT IT FEELS LIKE IT. >:L

I played Vay because I heard the cool battle music and the cutscenes and wanted to give it a try. I have NOT played the original version yet... but this was a pure waste of time. You are missing absolutely nothing but playing this, because there is nothing in this game you have not seen here before in other JRPGS. If I have to compare this to Lunar that is a much better game but I find Vay's characters much less insufferable. Then again they don't have much personality or twists to them (sans the Bard guy). Why did Leifang leave so we have Mintz in our party again? What exactly did that add? Mintz is in our party the last 10% of the game and Leifang is from the first 10% to that point. Also a character dies and I'm supposed to be sad, but I only knew him for 2 hours. I need some emotional investment for a character death to sting. Gameplay wise I did the same thing every battle. EVERY. BATTLE. There is no elemental strategy, status effects are worthless and can be ignored (except when you get stuck with a 3 person party and you fight 2 petrifying birds), no grinding is req. outside the first boss and you will get to level 99+ without even trying. Also Lunar's pop culture references show there ugly face here. Nothing says immersion like constant 4th wall breaking. The whole "futuristic death machine crashed into a medieval planet and is wrecking havoc" is just a glorified suit of infinity +1 armor, complete with sword and shield, and where EXACTLY did all the other technology stuff come from? I thought the only thing that came from space was Vay? Why did Vay armor automatically start killing people if it's "pilot" was dead? I'll probably play the original version and give that a go. But I suppose this game can keep you amused for a day.

Please port Lunar next, I would gladly pay 10x as much for that. As for this product: TL;DR: mediocre game, great port, overall pretty decent if you want to experience an old-school JRPG, and want the excessive grinding to be optional. Vay is pretty standard JRPG fair with generic story and gameplay. It comes from an era where it was pretty common for RPGs to have lots of grinding (5 hour games with 20+ hours of grinding), it was a fairly mediocre-to-average game for its time, and would not be any better by today's standards. The port on the other hand is great, lots of convenience to make this old game not feel like a chore. Options to turn off random encounters, to increase (or decrease) xp and/or money (from 0x to 4x on each), or to speed up movement and/or combat. Also has an optional "hard mode" (WD's jacked up difficulty from the original localization). The people who beat it in one day likely abused these options. But they are optional and you can make the game as easy or hard as you want. The default options are normal progression and no hard mode, and so should play about like the original Japanese console release (but in English).

What a delightful surprise. I am so glad I got an opportunity to play this through. Granted I used the QOL features (which are great and really gets rid of the grind), however it was a fun story from a time long past and the cutscenes were fun too, along with a boppin' soundtrack. Really hope we get more ports like these, the SegaCD had a lot of awesome exclusives.