The Legend of Dragoon - Review

Game Brings New Light to Authors's Eyes.

By: CLOUDBOND007

Review Breakdown
Battle System	9
Interface	9
Music/Sound	8
Originality	8
Plot	9
Localization	7
Replay Value	7
Visuals	8
Difficulty	Easy
Time to Complete	45 - 55 hours
Overall
Criteria

   Legend of Dragoon was released very recently. It spans 4 discs, and has some of the best visuals found on any PlayStation RPG. The quality of this game seems to surpass the two most recent installments of the Final Fantasy Series, and many other RPG's released on the system.

   The main feature of the game's battle system are the additions. These are attacks which use timed button presses. The more powerful the attack, the more difficult it is to time the button presses. It sounds like something that would be tedious. In fact, I was a little worried about having to get used to this system. I was wrong about it, though. It actually adds a lot to the game. For example, random battles aren't as boring because you have to actually pay attention to them in order to perform the addition and defeat the enemies. Whereas in most other games, you can win most fights by just pushing a single button without paying any attention to the game. Characters learn new additions as they level up. The other main battle system is the Dragoon Transformations. When you attack enemies in battle, your SP meter fills up. Something like the Limit Break meter in FF7, but this meter increases based on performing successful additions. Once you get enough SP (It doesn't take very long), you can transform into a Dragoon. Once you are a Dragoon, you can't transform back into human form until you run out of SP. This takes between 1 and 5 turns. What makes this tricky is that while you are in Dragoon Form, you have access to powerful attack magic, but not to items. So, if everyone in your party is a Dragoon, and is running low on HP, there's nothing you can do. Therefore, you need to plan ahead before using the Transformations. That just adds a little more strategy to the game.

   There was one feature I really think is worth mentioning, here. You can have arrows point out the exists and entrances when things get confusing. What's interesting is that when you are in a dungeon, the arrow above your main character will change from green to yellow, and then to red. When the arrow is red, you know a random encounter is going to occur very soon. Knowing about them ahead of time makes the random battles much less frustrating and distracting. The menu system is pretty good, and loading time while using the menu isn't bad at all. During actual Gameplay, loading times are basically not existent.

When the moon hits your eye...

   There's going to be some music that you probably won't like, but there is enough really good music to satisfy most people. Battle music isn't bad at all. That's fortunate, considering you probably listen to it more than any other piece of music in the game. A lot of it is average, but as I said, at times during the game, you're likely to hear several songs that you really enjoy listening to. Voice acting really isn't too bad at all, though you don't hear it all that often, compared to some other recently released games. When a character casts a spell in Dragoon Form, they will say the name of the spell as they cast it. Most of the actual speaking can be heard in the FMV, but those are not very frequent until late in the game.

   LOD has often been described as being too similar to FF7. I have to disagree with this. While the style of the graphics in both games is somewhat similar (Dragoon looks much better, actually), and they share a couple of features in common, Dragoon adds a lot of new and interesting features. The addition system and Dragoon Transformations are much less tedious and more interesting than the systems found in typical RPG's.

   I thought that the story was really good, overall. This is mostly because your objectives change so often as the game progresses. For example, what you're doing early on as the game starts is very different from what you end up doing on the later discs. Meaning that there are a lot of plot twists and surprises. This makes you want to keep playing... to find out what's going to happen to the characters next. Sometimes, things will happen in the story that you've probably seen before in other RPG's. But for the most part, there's enough going on to keep you entertained.

   There are some grammar mistakes in the dialogue, and once in a while, a statement might not make a lot of sense. Some people will notice that more than others. Aside from that, no other problems with the localization.

Dragoonize!

   Replay Value really depends a lot on how much of the optional stuff you did the first time through the game. If you tried to really master the game, and found everything, you probably won't want to play again for quite a while. But if there's a lot of stuff you missed initially, you'll probably want to go through again to see the things you hadn't seen.

   There are some good points and bad points to the game's graphics. The Battle graphics are arguably the best you'll find on the PlayStation. Character movement is excellent and very realistic. The camera will move as a character attacks making it easier to see what's going on. Spell effects are also very good, but most of them aren't quite as good as you might expect after seeing some games like FF8. Fortunately though, there aren't many spells at all that are very long, like the Summons in FF7 and FF8. That makes it much less frustrating to use powerful magic repeatedly. However, the design of the towns seemed very poorly done. Most of them were had a very confusing layout, making it difficult to find your way around. Luckily, this doesn't really apply to the dungeons, and other such areas. And as I said earlier, you can opt to have arrows enabled which point out your main character, as well as exits and entrances. Something that may bother a lot of people is the fact that there is no explorable overworld. Towns and other areas are connected by dotted lines. This makes exploring the world impossible, and can make going from town to town and annoying process. It's something I was able to get used to fairly quickly, however. The last thing I'll mention here is the FMV. While you don't see it much early on in the game, when you finally get to watch it, it is extremely impressive. Most of it is better than that found in FF8, but the addition of voice acting makes it even more remarkable. I admit that FMV is not something I usually care about, but I really enjoyed watching it in this game.

   Although this game was long, it wasn't really that difficult. There are some bosses that will probably beat you, but after you figure out a decent strategy, it's not a problem to get past them. For the most part, you level up enough just by fighting the random enemies as you go through each area. You won't need to stop to fight for long periods of time to become strong enough.

Get the timing down pat or you'll never deal serious damage.

   This was one of the longer RPG's I've played. I often get through most games in less than 40 hours. However, after having done nearly all the optional tasks, and getting to the end of the final area, I had been playing for more than 51 hours.

   Despite the fact that several sites and magazines gave the gave average to below-average reviews, I really enjoyed it. I thought the battle system and story were great, and I really liked the fact that this game really takes a decent amount of time to beat. Usually, I do prefer RPG's with 2D graphics like Lunar over games like Dragoon. That wasn't the case with this one, however. So, I do recommend the game for most RPG players, as long as you don't have any strong dislike of RPG's with the new-style graphics.