Short answers, pulled from the story.
Vagrant Story is a 2000 action role-playing game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation. It was directed, produced, designed, and written by Yasumi Matsuno, who also led the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics.
Vagrant Story features no shops and no player interaction with other characters. Instead, players craft and customize their own weapons and armor in workshop areas, and the game incorporates puzzle-solving, platforming, and a pausable real-time combat system built around chaining attacks and managing a Risk bar.
Yes. Vagrant Story is the third of thirty games to receive a perfect score of 40 from Famitsu magazine, and the only PlayStation game to achieve that score.
Hitoshi Sakimoto composed, arranged, and produced the Vagrant Story original score. The soundtrack was released on two compact discs by DigiCube on the 8th of March 2000 and contains 57 tracks. A re-release by Square Enix followed on the 24th of March 2006.
Yasumi Matsuno stated in a 2004 interview that the stories of Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy XII unfold close to each other on the Ivalice map. Final Fantasy XII uses terms from Vagrant Story including Riskbreaker and Leámonde, and Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood's Return to Ivalice raid series in 2017 included alternate versions of Leá Monde and Valnain.
The game's scenery was inspired by real-life landscapes in southwest France, particularly the city of Saint-Émilion in the Bordeaux region. A team of five people visited France in September 1998 to study the architecture and incorporate those styles into the game's design.