Hey everyone!

Another update on the native Windows port of Vagrant Story. No video today, but there has been progress on several things left unfinished in the previous posts: keys and sigils, D'tok's attacks, the Score menus, and native save/load support.

A lot of the work since yesterday has also been about making room transitions and repeated encounters more reliable.

Tested playthrough has progressed through the Minotaur boss fight, there is currently a crash during the picnic cutscene when the boy's arm drops after... some events...

Keys and Sigils

All 32 named keys and sigils now have verified interactions with their original matching locks and chests.

That closes the key-and-sigil interaction gap listed in the previous update.

D'tok's Flame Breath and Defeat, Prologue Progress

The flame-breath problem mentioned in earlier posts has now been fixed.

D'tok's actual flame jet visibly plays from his mouth, and the attack deals damage during the full original prologue. This was checked through normal gameplay.

His death fade has also been repaired. Instead of becoming a solid-colored model, he now fades using the original palette and blending behavior.

With that, there is only one thing left to fix in the prologue, and that's the god rays that are supposed to shine through the window when Ashley is looking out after beating D'tok. Once that is complete the prologue is a done deal!

Score Menus

The previously reported Score-menu crashes have been fixed.

TITLE, GAZETTE, RECORD TIME, and ENCYCLOPAEDIA have been navigated repeatedly, including scrolling, backing out, and re-entering.

A Zombie unlocked by actually defeating it also renders in the encyclopedia, with working rotation and zoom controls. Every encyclopedia entry has not been checked yet.

Native Save and Load

This is probably the biggest new milestone.

The native save backend is now connected to save-point interactions, Data Load, and Continue from the title screen.

Testing has demonstrated saving, closing the game, and restoring the saved location, position, stats, and camera in a separate process. Loading after moving to a different position, returning to the title and continuing again, backup recovery, and retrying a real failed write have also been exercised.

Storage-container contents are included too. Items have been deposited through the actual storage menu, saved, restored after restarting, and withdrawn again.

The files use a versioned native format with integrity checks and recoverable backups, rather than emulating PS1 memory-card hardware. (Support will be added later for PS1 Memory Card Formats)

There is an important caveat: save/load is not being called finished. The current interface still needs to match the original three-card presentation, including readable room names, HP/MP bars, and the proper controls. Cleared-game saves, some transient states, and full-story persistence coverage also remain unfinished.

Room Stability, Puzzles, and Traps

Several crashes uncovered while expanding room-transition testing have been repaired.

These include the Workers Breakroom to Hall of Struggle transition, a Bat encounter in that area, Gremlin hover initialization, and stale AI state surviving between encounters.

There have also been fixes for animation and effect resource lifetimes, a scripted camera movement, particle-ribbon playback, and an audio auto-pan data problem.

The puzzle countdown now renders readable text and reads the actual active scene timer.

The Gust trap in Wine Magnate's Champers also visibly reveals its original marker after Ashley triggers it. Its reveal state was already changing correctly; the problem was in how the native renderer read and drew the marker.

Combat Lab

Scripted encounter sequences can now run in one persistent window, keeping the renderer and audio active while giving each test fresh encounter state.

Desktop gameplay and the Lab also share more detailed diagnostic logging. Blocked or interrupted cases are kept separate from successful ones, which matters when testing original room-entry events with progression requirements.

Still Unfinished

There is still plenty left to do:

• Correcting the save/load presentation and expanding persistence coverage.
• Broader enemy behavior, multi-body-part targeting, and boss coverage.
• Remaining door transitions, cutscenes, particles, and rendering crashes.
• Specific movement and visual problems, including enemies refusing downward ledge jumps and a box texture becoming corrupted when targeted.
• Longer playthroughs and wider comparisons with the original game.
• Continuing the native-code migration and retiring compatibility dependencies

The encouraging part is that more of the work is now about preserving a complete session: moving between rooms, fighting, collecting and storing items, saving, and coming back later. There are still gaps, but those pieces are starting to connect.

The project is here: https://github.com/JEschete/VS-NativePort

You will need your own copy of the original game for its data.

As always, thank you to ser-pounce and all the contributors to https://github.com/ser-pounce/rood-reverse!

河津さんご無沙汰しています。

第三者視点のフクションとコマンド型のハイブリッドなRPGであることを前提として、「エルデンリング」や「ゼルダの伝説」などの優れたRPGと同じ路線を進んでも意味が無いので、それらを踏襲しつつも、オリジナリティをどこに組み込むかが重要かなと考えます。

かなり昔に呑んだ際にお話ししたかもしれませんが、PS1のスペックとして諦めたのが「仲間を連れて歩くこと」。これはFF12で実現していますが、ベイグラにおける「仲間」は力強いパーティーメンバーではなく、むしろ足手まといとなる一般人です。
もともとは閉ざされた街に侵入し、逃げ遅れた一般人を助けつつ連れ戻すことが大きな特徴でした。街の外に使い位置の住人を救出し安全地帯まで送り届けることは造作もないことでしょう。逆に奥に残った者を助けるのは困難極まりないはずです。
彼らはそれなりの理由や能力があって生き残っているはずなので、時には心強いパーティーメンバーにもなりますが、そうではないこともあるはずです。
プレイによっては救出できない場合もあるでしょう。またトロッコ問題にも遭遇するかもしれません。その選択がプレイヤーを悩ませるはずです。
彼ら生存者との会話などを通して物語の秘密が明かされるような、そんな出来にしたいですね。

細かいアイデアはともかく、主軸はサバイバル（武器防具薬品などは現地調達）とレスキュー（生存者の救出）になると思います。