Legend of Dragoon

I’ve noticed that for some reason people who’ve played the Legend of Dragoon either love the game, or hate it. I guess I fall somewhere in between the two. It’s certainly not the “Final Fantasy killer” as many said it would be, but it’s definitely a game worthy of some attention.

The story begins with Dart, your main character, heading home to his village of Seles. He’d been off for some time searching for the killer of his family known as the Black Monster, but with little success he’s decided to take a break. He arrives home to see Seles in ruins and his friend, Shana, has been kidnapped by Imperial Sandora. Dart chases the last few enemy soldiers from Seles and runs off to rescue Shana. Along the way Dart meets up with several other party members, the most notable is the mysterious woman named Rose who happens to be a Dragoon. The Dragoons are powerful humans that used the power of dragons to defeat the Winglies in a great war some 11,000 years ago. Rose helps Dart (and his other allies) to unlock the Dragoon power that is in all of them. Who exactly is Rose? Why was Shana kidnaped? What is the Black Monster? What the heck is a Wingly? As you progress through the game these questions and more will be answered as Darts adventure to rescue Shana turns into a struggle to save all existence. I found the story to be pretty interesting and would like to see a sequel. There was some interesting backstory, such as the war with the Winglies, and there were a lot of revelations in the plot that were pretty cool. My biggest complaint about the story and the game overall is that it is very cliche, and at times I felt like I’d played this game before. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t played it, but most of the plot twists will easily be unraveled before they are actually revealed because of this. Regardless, the story doesn’t suffer too much, and although it won’t keep you on the edge of your seat because it’s so predictable, it will likely keep you playing.

At first glance this is a normal turn based RPG, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Your characters can combat in two ways: human and dragoon. As a human you can use items, block, attack, and do all the basic RPG stuff. Attacking is pretty different in this game though, and by pressing X at the right time you can do additions which allow you to perform multiple hits. Each character has several different additions they can learn, and mastering these additions can allow you to defeat tough bosses with ease. Unfortunately some of the additions are extraordinarily difficult and I could never get them right. They’re not impossible though because I saw my brother do them successfully all the time, and fortunately you can buy items that allow your character to do additions automatically. Rarely will someone rant on about how much they love blocking in combat, but blocking in Legend of Dragoon is great. Blocking will restore a small amount of HP, lessen any damage your character takes (magical and physical) and nullify any status effects that hit them while blocking. This will come in VERY handy! The other type of combat is dragoon. When you are in human form you gain SP by attacking the enemy. How much SP you have determines how many turns you may stay in dragoon form. As a dragoon many of your stats are raised so you become pretty tough. You lose the ability to block and use items, but you gain access to some powerful magic. Each character has several different magic spells they can learn, and can even summon a crappy looking dragon. Dragoons can also perform additions, but dragoon additions are done by pressing X at the right time as a little thing spins around in a circle. Not the best explanation, but you’ll figure it out. The weapons and equipment are just like the average RPG, and your characters level up through experience in combat. They also gain dragoon levels, which increases the max number of turns they can remain in dragoon form. Battles are sometimes random, but not always…it depends on where you’re at.

One last thing that I almost forgot (a matter of fact, I didn’t even think about it until a few days after this review was posted) is the fact that the amount of items you can carry is SEVERLY limited. Your entire part can only carry a total of 32 items, and items are quite critical in this game. The vast majority of your healing (HP restoration, status removal, revival) comes from items, as well as plenty of other useful stuff. It’s VERY annoying when you have to go through a long dungeon and have to survive on a very limited amount of healing, but as the game progresses it gets less bothersome. Nonetheless, it’s certainly the games least attractive feature.

Legend of Dragoon had a decent amount of voice acting, but it wasn’t the best. The voice overs in FMVs looked like they were done in 10 minutes, but it’s better than nothing I suppose. The voices in combat sounded better…if for no other reason you can’t tell their mouth isn’t moving properly at the time. The music to the game was nice too, although not the most memorable.

The game is VERY linear so you’ll go from one place right to the next. You can’t explore the world map at all and are restricted to going from town to town. This didn’t bother me too much because I don’t enjoy exploration, but I know that plenty of people do, so I thought this should be addressed. There’s not any real replay value here either or much else to do other than proceeding with the story. There is a couple optional bosses though, so you can play an extra few hours in you want to.