Vagrant Story, despite being a commercial failure (due to low advertising), is considered a "perfect" game by Famitsu (a Japanese gaming magazine), and is one of its legendary five "greatest ever games". It is the third game ever to reach this status, and the first game by SquareSoft, now named Square-Enix, to earn this rating.
Some believe that the battle system in this game would originally be featured in the Final Fantasy series, but they tested it out in this game first to see how it would be received. It was generally received as too hard and complicated for the masses. However, a battle-system reminiscent of that of Vagrant Story is present in Final Fantasy XII.
Ifrit, one of the central mythological figures of Final Fantasy series, makes an appearance as one of the bosses in this game. Together with him appear other representatives of Arab mythology: Marid and Jinn.
The game has a short epigraph signed "A.J. Duran". This is a character from Final Fantasy Tactics.
The English language used in the US/UK version of this game is close to the one used by Shakespeare, and some characters have names taken from different tragedies by Shakespeare. Romeo Guildenstern, one of the game's main characters, is a combination of Romeo from "Romeo and Juliett", and Guildenstern from "Hamlet". Rosenkrantz is also a character from "Hamlet".