Vandal Hearts/Gameplay

Battles are carried out on a series of grid maps made up of squares, which may include different heights such as steps and walls and squares not accessible like water, trees and buildings. Although the environment is three dimensional the angles used make it appear similar to an isometric view. Every character participating in battle has a set number of squares that they can move, and one action (such as attacking, casting a magic spell, or using an item) they can perform per turn. Once every friendly character has performed their actions for a turn, hostile characters take their turn. On every stage the player controlling the friendly characters goes first, and they can move their characters in any order they wish.

Most but not all stages are completed by killing all the enemy characters. Other stages have different victory conditions, such as killing one particular enemy character, moving your characters to a specific location on the map, or killing certain enemies while saving others. In every battle, the death of the party leader results in immediate loss. Losing other characters in the party does not cause defeat, instead it causes the loss of gold, which is a greater penalty than it seems as there are a finite number of battles in the game and thus also a finite supply of gold. If a friendly character dies they are only gone from the current stage and can return in the next stage. On stages that include rescuing other characters, the death of these characters also results in loss.