Vanguard Bandits was a fun game. I remember the first time I played it as a kid and always got the Kingdom's bad ending because apparently I sucked pretty bad at keeping people alive...

Certain actions in the missions determined each ending. The number of people alive had nothing to do with it from what I remember. Will have to consult my strategy guide later to be sure (taking son to doctor cause he is sick again).

You get the bad ending by having low morale, and letting people die in battle lowers it.

Yeah I had forgot about the morale. I just remembered the key missions. You have to have your morale at a certain level when you do specific missions in the game (the branch missions). There are five endings to the game, four depend on morale and the fifth doesn't depend on anything at all (just basically do the storyline without worrying about your actions). Makes me tempted to boot up VB again and play it in my PS3.

"Faulkner! What can you possibly hope to accomplish using Zulwarn's black power?"
"It's quite simple actually. I desire all humanity to bow before me."