The Legend Of Dragoon
[Playstation]

3 years in the making, SCEA’s ‘Final Fantasy’ killer was a project that turned a lot of heads. It didn’t go over too well with reviewers, as it became known as a pretty big let down to the fans that had be following it’s soulful creation. Most highly heralded for its impressive PSone graphical power, the ability to transform in to Dragoons, and a unique take on the battle system. I wouldn’t say it failed miserably because there are quite a few who found it dazzling, but the average consumer didn’t agree that it lived up to the standards that it set for itself.

The Legend Of Dragoon is a story of faith, honor, past, present, and the courage to change the future for the better of life itself. Even if that means taking on your own God. The basic rundown is this: A Divine Tree was seeded by the God, Soa, and gave birth to 108 forms of life. The 107th species, Winglies, were capable of powerful magic and enslaved all other life forms. Humans, along with all other species, were puppets on a string to these creatures. Humans however, were destined by fate to overcome the Winglies. 7 humans had their lives intertwined with magical stones which gave them power to rule over dragons, as well as gaining the power to defeat a dragon. Winglies were defeated and Humans flourished, but some Dragoons lost their lives as well. Fast forward to present time, and our red armored hero (Dart) stumbles across one of these stones that he has seen before. It calls for him and this is where our story takes off with the meeting of old friends, new companions, and tossing them in a blender called fate so that they mix just perfectly. The story starts off terribly slow, but when you get to the second disc, things start taking flight. It’s a mediocre storyline, as creative as it may seem, but it does have enough to keep the gamer involved long enough to ride it out to the end. I’ll admit, I got chill bumps a couple times toward the end...but there were times where everything just felt too perfect.

One would think that an RPG would grow out of random encounters eventually, but show their ugly face all through LoD. You will encounter an enemy every 4 to 5 seconds while moving, seriously. Every screen has at least one battle waiting for you. Odd thing is - some levels (3 or 4) do have visible enemies. You even encounter enemies when you’re sailing on the impregnable battleship, Queen Fury! Back on track though, like a Final Fantasy game, you wander around a world map and enter towns and other locations. The difference here is that you are on a linear path. There are physical lines drawn between areas on the world map, and these lines are where you can travel. The problem with this is that it limits free roaming (annihilating any chance of sidequests) and requires that to get to any given point in the game, you have to go through each environment again and again. This means LOTS of random encounters. This could benefit a gamer though right? This means huge level gaining for the characters because of all the battles. Wrong. Legend Of Dragoon characters level up about as fast as those dead, bloated creatures in the highway. At the end of the game I was at level 38 with my main character. The worst part about this is that I think it’s the way they intended it to be. The best part is that the enemies are always beatable, but still offer a splendidly good challenge. So let’s move on to the more exclusive aspects: Dragoon transformation and the additions system.

Turning in to a Dragoon sure looks amazing, but does it really serve a purpose? Well, it’s the only way you’ll be casting any magic in battle. Actually there are items you can buy or find that you can toss at an enemy, but they’re weak and useless as you progress. The Dragoon magic is mostly for show. I found that straight up attacking did more damage, and saved the Dragoon spells for healing and defensive maneuvers. The additions system is my favorite part of the game. Each character (except for Shana and Miranda) has melee attacks that are triggered by using precision timing to tap X as a series of boxes appear on screen. Some enemies will try to counter-attack you and that requires that you press circle, but the screen indicates which you need to press. As characters level up, better additions are earned and you can choose them or stick with the one you know best. Dragoon forms also work kind of like this. A circle appears and you are required to tap X when the rotating line hits a certain point on the circle. It works fairly well, but can be inconsistent at times. Another helpful option in battles is the ability to ‘guard.’ Guarding puts your character on the defensive and recovers a little health at the same time. This helps a lot if you’re ever low on potions. Since I’ve already pretty much covered the controls in this section I’ll go ahead and finish them off as well. It plays nearly identical to Final Fantasy VII. Occasionally I found myself stuck on a townsperson or a piece of furniture but other than that, it controls well.

For the most part when it comes to visuals, LoD doesn’t fail to impress. Of course the graphics are dated like crazy, but they are just as good as the Playstation Final Fantasy’s, and the cutscenes are just splendid. There’s always deep detail in every city or town that you enter. The character, boss, and enemy models are all very well done, but like all PSone RPG’s, there are jaggies and other flaws. The two areas that LoD flunk in when it comes to graphical prowess are the battles and the world map. The battle character models look good from a distance but when the camera moves in closer to show magical spells or a special attack, it just looks terribly unappealing. The same can’t be said for the battle environments. There seems to be a single battleground for every place you come across. Unlike the characters though, the environments always look bad. The overworld map just looks god-awful. I wouldn’t know where to start so I‘ll leave it be. One other negative is that the indicating arrows that tell you what areas are accessible are sometimes unclear, but that’s nothing major.

Last, but most importantly is the sound. No RPG is complete without a good mood setting soundtrack. Sadly for LoD, it’s not a feature I’d take the time to call good. There are some tunes that are nice and some that are creepy. Most of it is crap though, and I’m not being evil. The voiceovers during cutscenes are a nice little extra and the voice acting is on par, but the battle talk is total poop. I got so sick of hearing Dart make Dragon Ball Z noises, it ain’t even funny. The tunes you’ll hear the most (battle and save screen) are the worst, so if you plan on getting this game don’t be expecting a composed masterpiece like what you would hear from Nobuo Uematsu.

If you approach this game with a frame of mind that it’s going to blow your socks off and send them through the dry cleaner, putting them back on your feet clean, refreshing, and amazingly warm...you’ll more than likely be let down. It’s a mediocre RPG with some qualities that make it stand out just a little better than other average titles.

7/10

---Frayed