You can actually skip through the entire introduction by pressing Start at the very beginning, but you may want to sit through it, since it does offer a small taste of combat as well as contain some very well directed scenes. The first fight will be against two of Sydney Losstarot's grunts. One blow should be enough to finish each of them. The second will be against a Wyvern, which is actually a somewhat tough enemy normally, but happens to be wounded and weak right now. Smack it in the head once or twice to finish it off. After that, you won't regain control until you reach the Wine Cellar.

Now, you're actually in Lea Monde, and there's no turning back. You're quite a long way underground; it'll be a while before you see daylight. Fortunately, the way to get there isn't particularly hard; these first areas are more for practice, particularly the Wine Cellar. You are equipped with an Edged one-handed sword and some shabby armour, but you'll get more equipment soon enough.

Notice the mini-map in the bottom right corner of the screen. It shows you a miniature depiction of the room you're in. If you rotate your perspective with the shoulder buttons, it will rotate with you to reflect that. This mini-map will show all available exits from the room you're in, and will also mark the way you came in that room with a red dot. So, head in the direction of the white dot on the mini-map, and you'll get to the exit from the first room.

The next room, Worker's Breakroom, has a Save Point (blue pillar of light) and treasure chest. Make use of both; the chest has a shield that is pretty bad but better than nothing. Since your sword is one-handed, you can equip it. You'll also get some poor armour and some healing items. Healing items can't be gotten at will, since the game contains no inns or stores, so don't squander them. The armour should be equipped at once. You can use this room to practice getting in and out of Battle Mode and otherwise getting acquainted with the things described in the Combat section of this shrine.

Leave that room and continue. There currently isn't much choice where to go, as you no doubt see. Around this time, you'll be attacked by a Bat, so unsheath your sword and whack it when it comes near, as described in the Combat section. Not very hard, was it? Note the crates off to the sides; you can pick them up if you put away your weapons and press X near them. You'll be doing this often when you get to the puzzles, later.

One room down, you'll see your first Sigil-locked door. Take the unlocked exit in that room for a fight with some Crimson Blades. They're actually somewhat strong (at least compared to Bats), but a few blows to the head will do them in. Notice how the game predicts the damage you're likely to do in your attack and the odds of that attack being successful when you open a battle sphere. The chest in that room is actually a Container, where you can store excess items (since there's a limit to the amount you can carry). I never use Containers; you may wish to, but there's really no reason to now.

The room with the Blades (Wine Guild Hall) also sports a Cloudstone, which is just like any moving platform in any game. Give it a whirl and move on to Wine Magnate's Chambers for a fight with a Silver Wolf, which is no tougher than a Bat, really. The next room will contain more Blades, one of whom has a bow; you should rush him immediately to avoid letting him pick you off from a distance. Keep going.

Chamber of Fear has two exits. The one on the high ledge leads to a room with a treasure chest which you should loot for your first Crossbow. The other is the one you'll have to take to advance. More Wolves and Bats will attack you in the meantime, but they should be nothing to you. Labourer's Thirst has a crate puzzle, of sorts: just pick up a crate and drop it in front of the jutting ledge, then jump from on top of it towards that ledge while not in Battle Mode. You should grab the ledge; pull yourself up with the Up button. The next room will have a similar trick, except you'll have to destroy one of the crates in the stack in order to be able to pick one up from it and carry it to the ledge with the lever that opens the exit door. When you pull the lever, you'll have to get down and out the door in two seconds.

Another simple crate-carrying exercise, and you've reached Blackmarket of Wines and the Save Point therein. Save, for you're about to meet the game's first big enemy. On the way back, you'll see a human-shaped Training Dummy here that won't fight back if you hit it. You can hit it to learn Battle Abilities or to improve your weapon's performance against Human enemies, but it's not required or anything.

The second you see the Minotaur, rush him and whack whatever body parts you can reach with your Edged weapon. You should get at least two hits for each one of his; you can also try using the Crossbow against his body. If you're hurting, use one of your healing items. Whatever you do, this really shouldn't take too long. Victory will come with a chance to raise your statistics with the post-boss roulette as well as a Grimoire which will teach you the Heal spell when you use it and another which will teach you Degenerate, which decreases enemy STR. When you win, you'll gain access to the system of Chain Abilities, described in the Combat section. This is the real battle system of Vagrant Story. You may want to hit the Dummy outside the boss room until you learn some Abilities.

You'll now have the Sigil required to unlock that door in Smokebarrel Stair. Go do so. When you go through that door, you'll be in for a fight with a fairly disgusting Undead enemy. You can actually shoot him with your bow, since Undead enemies tend to be weak against Piercing weapons, or you can cast Heal on him, which always does damage to Undead. Either way, it's not a hard fight, and you'll get a Piercing Rapier when you win. This is a pretty good (at this point, anyway) one-handed sword.

On your way onward, you'll see some more Undead. These are so rotten, however, that they're missing arms, and thus can't hit you very well. Dispatch them quickly and continue straight to The Hero's Winehall, where you'll meet another boss. Already.

Dullahan is tough; I remember I used up almost all my healing items in this fight the first time around. He packs a mean one-handed sword (the best in the game, actually) and is weak to Piercing weapons. Try to hit him in the Abdomen; there's a high chance of missing but the potential payoff is just as high. Dullahan isn't too bright, so you can actually sometimes sneak up behind him or make him lose sight of you; if that happens, try to shoot him from a distance with your bow. Also, keep your RISK down, since that affects your chance of hitting his abdomen. He has 180 HP, much less than the Minotaur, but the fight will be harder. Winning will get you more magic and Elixirs, which will permanently raise your statistics. The chest in the room contains a Spear. The exit leads to the Catacombs.

And that's it for the Wine Cellar. The game will be picking up the pace pretty soon, and so will this walkthrough.

The first room contains a Save Point, a Container, and two beneficial Traps that will cure status ailments and damage, respectively. Continue on to a time challenge - you have to reach Persecution Hall before the time runs out. You should have enough time to fight all the enemies along the way, but if you're really running low on it, try to dash through. You'll meet a Hellhound and a Skeleton. The former is like a Silver Wolf with the addition of a nasty area-effect Breath attack; the latter is basically Undead cannon fodder.

In Persecution Hall, you can pick up a crate, place it near the step off to the side, get on the step, pick up the crate and place it a bit higher. Use this technique to make a platform from which to jump to the door above (look for the white dot in the wall on your mini-map). That's a treasure room, where you can get a Blunt Goblin Club, good for wasting those Skeletons. To get to the real exit, stack crates on top of one another.

In The Lamenting Mother, you'll have 30 seconds to defeat a Ghost. There's no penalty for not defeating it, but you will get an Elixir if you win. The Ghost can pack a punch due to its magical capabilities and its teleportation. However, if you look closely when the Ghost disappears, you'll see that its shadow still remains on the floor. You can use it to track down the Ghost to its new location, and whack it the second it appears. The chest has a Broad Sword for you. Return to the previous room for an earthquake, which will actually allow you to progress.

In Hall of Dying Hope, you can push one crate from the sides and put another on top of it to get to the treasure room and the Dagger and Gem therein. To get to the chest, you'll need to push the rolling cube to the chest and slide a push crate onto it. A similar puzzle awaits outside in The Bloody Hallway. To solve that, roll one cube along the wall until you can roll the other on top of it; from there, you can roll it onto the other side and use it and the crates there to make a stepladder, like you've already done before. A little more, and you'll reach The Withered Spring, and with it a Save Point and a door to the first Workshop of the game. You won't be able to combine anything there, but you can repair your equipment, at least. You won't be able to get through the doors in The Withered Spring yet, but you're halfway there.

Now, head in the direction of the other exit in The Withered Spring. It's a straightforward path populated with Undead and Bats, both of which should be easy prey for you; the Rapier, Dagger and Club will all help against various kinds of Undead. If the Undead have weapons, like spears or hammers, you might win them randomly. Also, there's a side exit in one of the rooms that leads to The Lamenting Mother, where you were before. However, the floor in the room is out, so you can't really do anything there.

Eventually, you'll get to The Beasts' Domain, where a pair of Lizardmen will ambush you from above. You'll get the Antidote spell from one and the Sigil you need from the other. Use the Rapier or Crossbow for a relatively painless fight, and return to The Withered Spring to save and use your new Sigil on the big door, which leads to the Sanctum.

You'll find yourself in a long hall, with many little rooms off to the sides. Your goal is to defeat the Golem, which will allow you to travel across the underground waterway. Along the way, you'll be fighting Skeletons that have slightly better equipment than those in the Catacombs, as well as Slimes (use that Rapier), Skeleton Knights (Rapier, again) and other enemies that you've seen before. The Slimes are capable of poisoning you, but you can cure that with the Antidote spell or Faerie Chortle item. You don't have to explore every room unless you're aiming for 100% map completion (which will never happen on first play, anyway), but you might as well, for practice.

Initially, you'll have to solve a small crate puzzle to get into the Sanctum. What you'll need to do is create a stack of crates from which to get over the big barrier. Just get rid of one of the push crates and use the space to slide another push crate next to the others. You can put two regular crates on these, then another on one of those to create the column.

Now that you're in the Sanctum, you should head for Alchemist's Laboratory for a chest that contains the Fixate spell, which will help you get through areas where there are tough jumps involving Cloudstones. That room is one of the small side rooms, adjacent to the room right across from you when you first enter the hall from the Catacombs, but you have to get it from the room across from the entrance by jumping up to a high aperture in the wall. There really isn't anything else here besides Undead foes, so just head off to the far narrow end of the big hall to get to the Golem. To beat him, equip your Goblin Club, since he doesn't take well to Blunt weapons. He's also very stupid, so hitting him in the back isn't particularly hard, either. Regardless of what you do, the Club should take him out pretty fast. Once he's gone, you'll have the spell Prostasia, which will be very useful.

Now, just return to the big hall and take the exit on the opposite end. The river's too wide for you to jump, so you need to take the Cloudstone that you can find in Passage of the Refugees, which is situated significantly higher than the riverbanks. Work your way there, get the crate out from under the push crates, pick it up and put it near the wall. Then, only one Lizardman will remain between you and the next Save Point, which you should use immediately. In the next room is the next big enemy.

The Dragon is hard. On first play, I lost to him quite a few times. He has around 500 HP and is rather strong; the tail attack alone does around 80 HP of damage. His worst attack, however, is his fire breath, which will affect all of Ashley's body parts and probably be enough to kill him in one blow. Fortunately, he has to be at a certain distance from you before he can use it, which means that if you run underneath his long neck, he won't be able to kill you that way. The problem is, he can still hit you with it as you run under him.

Basically, just run underneath him the second you get control of Ashley, and just as you get close to his head, jump. Enemies can't hit you while you're in the air, and you'll be underneath him when you land, so if you time it right, he won't ever have a chance to use the breath attack. Once you're "safe," equip a Piercing weapon, cast Prostasia on yourself, and hook a button up to the Defensive Ability called Reflect Damage. Then, whenever the Dragon hits you, you can press that button on impact and have half the damage be dealt back to the Dragon. Since he's a lot stronger than you, this may be your primary method of attack for the entire fight; just make sure to keep healing as your health gets low. Use that Piercing weapon on his head and neck, since he's weakest to Piercing everywhere but the tail (which is out of reach, for the most part), keep your RISK down, and you stand a good chance of winning.

When you do win, learn the Analyze spell and take the exit the Dragon was guarding to reach the daylight. Refreshing though it may be after all those caves, you're still far from safety.