Vagrant Story is a Japanese-developed console role-playing game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Sony PlayStation video game console in 2000. The game was released in Japan in February 2000, in the United States in May 2000, and in Canada and Europe later, at the time of Square's promotional "Summer of Adventure" game package, and in PAL territories in June 2000. It was largely developed by the team responsible for Final Fantasy Tactics, with Yasumi Matsuno serving as producer and director. The game takes place in the fictional kingdom of Valendia and the ruined city of Leá Monde. The story centers on Ashley Riot, an elite agent known as a Riskbreaker, who must travel to Leá Monde to investigate the link between a cult leader and a senior Valendian Parliament member, Duke Bardorba. In the prologue, Ashley was blamed for murdering the duke, and the game discloses the events that happened one week before the murder. Vagrant Story is unique as a console action/adventure role-playing game because it features no shops and no player interaction between other characters; instead, the game focuses on weapon creation and modification, as well as elements of puzzle-solving and strategy. Overall, the game received positive reviews from gaming magazines and websites.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1628:

The Swedish warship Vasa sank after sailing less than a nautical mile into her maiden voyage from Stockholm on her way to fight in the Thirty Years' War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_%28ship%29

1675:

The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, today the basis of the Prime Meridian, was laid in Greenwich, London. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Observatory%2C_Greenwich

1792:

French Revolution: Insurrectionists in Paris stormed the Tuileries Palace, effectively ending the French monarchy until it was restored in 1814. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_of_August_%28French_Revolution%29

1846:

The United States Congress established the Smithsonian Institution, an educational and research institute and associated museum complex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution

2006:

British police arrested 25 people suspected in an alleged terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the UK to the United States and Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

fizzle (v): 1. To splutter or hiss. 2. (figuratively) To decay or die off to nothing; to burn out; to end less successfully than previously hoped http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fizzle

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn. --Laurence Binyon http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laurence_Binyon