Vandal Hearts: The Flames of Judgment.

Man, the fond memories I have playing Vandal Hearts and Vandal Hearts II on my PSX. I loved the story, characters, and most of all, the music. Sadly, Vandal Hearts had fallen silent for over 10 years after the release of the second game. This changed early this year with the announcement of Vandal Hearts: The Flames of Judgment.

I'll be honestly, I was actually quite shocked that Konami was making another one. I figured that they where just gonna let Vandal Hearts slip in to obscurity like many of their older, lesser know titles. Naturally I was excited by this news and eagerly awaited more info on what the story and what not. When Konami started releasing info and screen shots of the game, I was less than impressed.

As I expected Konami, like many other Japanese developers recently decided to go with a western development studio with a spotty recorded. The first thing that struck me was the gaudy art style. The art style struck me as bad deviant art level, and the characters are pretty bad as well. Judging by the characters seen so far, we have quite the list of sterotypes. Tobias is your generic Japanese styled plucky young solider, shy looking magic user with glasses, calm and cool guy with a spiffy uniform, and token black character, but wait, this time it's a woman.

Visually, the game leaves alot to be desired. Look, I know it's a game for PSN and XBOX Live, but this game could pass for a budget PS2 game. It's apparently going to be a short game as well with about 20 levels the developer said.

Come on Konami/Japanese Developers, this is getting old. I mean, yeah they have had success with Silent Hill Homecoming and Silent Hill Shattered Memories, but their luck is gonna run out sooner or later.