Vay Brings Phantasy Star Role Playing to the Sega CD: Today in History- April 14th, 1994
The Sega CD was known for one thing, other than a lot of full motion video games, and that was animated introductions. Vay came to North America via Working Designs with a fully animated Anime style introduction that told the story. Interspersed throughout the game, at key moments, additional animation is used to further the story.
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The story of Vay is one of a great divide of technology and death. Many many thousands of years ago, in a galaxy far far away (no this is not THAT story) an interstellar war had lost a combatant. One of the large mecha are lost to space and time- eventually the pilot dies but the onboard computer continues to operate. Eventually crashing into the planet Vay this mecha re-instates its programming and breaches a swath of death and destruction across the face of Vay, a planet of little to no technology. The five most powerful wizards were able to seal away this mecha safely. The keys to freeing this death machine were hidden across the planet as the mecha was all but forgotten.
Playing Vay is similar to playing the Phantasy Star series of games, minus the homologation of technology and lack thereof. Battles take place from behind your characters as they face the enemies (unlike the Final Fantasy series where battles are viewed from the side).
Vay is often described as the typical RPG, which is fine. It is definitely one that is right at home for gamers new to the genre or that are just looking for something to jam to that doesn't require solving a ton of puzzles and branching paths.
I remember the first time I played Vay, it was not exactly groundbreaking but it was better than many of the other role-playing games being released at that particular time - i.e., pickings were quite slim all around.Vay has only been re-released on the iPhone and iPod Touch. That leaves eBay as an option for purchasing a physical copy of the game.
I had a copy of Vay and never got around to playing it. I finally sold it last month so I could buy more crypto while its cheap.
Bitter sweet move but in the long run could be better for you. I am not a proponent of piracy but it is quite easy to emulate the Sega CD today so there is always that avenue if you so choose.