The Legend of Dragoon is a bit of a mess. I will make no apologies for this, and shouldn’t have to. Like any game TLOD has high points and low points, and though the low points tend to overwhelm the high, one of the core mechanics of this game is so much fun one can look past the quagmire.
First thing you experience when you boot this gem up is an astoundingly crafted video. These once per disc pre -rendered cinematics are astoundingly beautiful, far too beautiful for the era it was made in, however this is a mean trick as the rest of the game looks, less than stellar. Harsh angles and flat textures abound, constantly assaulting your eyes. A bit more polished than other better known Playstation one RPG’s, but by no means a pretty game.
Most games can overcome graphical limitation with a compelling story. I want to be very clear when I say you can literally skip the entire story in discs 1-3 and only begin paying attention during disc four, and still catch most of the story. Hell you can even pay attention during the confrontation with the final boss and still know everything that is going on. I suggest doing this because the story is atrocious. The main hero is generic Japanese RPG hero #47 with spiky hair and amnesia and familial connections to the grand evil he must stop. The only times I enjoyed the main female interest is the (multiple) times she was incapacitated with a horrible poison and was replaced with a far more interesting woman with all the same abilities. Not that you will use her in battle.
Now I have spent almost three hundred words bashing the shit out of a game I love. But now you get to see why I love it, the battle system. A standard turn based battle system is in place. Players followed by monsters, standard fair. Except that when you equip your character with a combo. THAT’S RIGHT A FISH IN A CAN COMBO. When you select >attack from the menu you get a square that you line up, and the more successful connections you make the more hits you do and thus more damage. There is something very satisfying about this mild action element thrust into a turn based battle system, providing fans of either to grab hold of something and be gripped by the grip of battles grip.
Magic is….. not so lucky as attack. You earn the right to use magic by completing successful attacks on your opponents, and once you have accumulated 100 Spirit Points through your combos you get to activate your Dragoon mode, where the character becomes encumbered by oversized armor and wings. Your combo changes to a more powerful model and the magic menu is unlocked. These spells use mp so that is two gauges that are drained to use magic, but the spells are DEVESTATING. So for fans of spells, you will have to work to get your fix.
Each character has their own set of attacks, and special dragoon based spells, though only one has healing abilities, the damnable Shana who you will remember as the poison prone bitch who you don’t want around. The greater downside of this woman is her bow and arrow have no combos at all, so getting her to dragoon time is harder, and her attacks are weaker, essentially making her less useful than the potion in your pocket. Though your potions are limited super low, and you can only carry 16 different items in your battle pocket at a time. So once again the game sucks at something.
Finally this game is effing hard. Boss fights are more likely to be multi staged than not, to the point where you should just expect any visible monster to be hiding four friends behind his back. Leveling up takes a ridiculous amount of effort, I finished the game under level forty, with hours of grinding before that. The bright side is half of earned xp is given to your non active players so they are not completely screwed if you want them later.
So is The Legend of Dragoon for you? Well if you are a fan of RPGs and are willing to laugh at a laughably bad story, give it a go. I have personally seen it for less than ten dollars in mall stores with back catalogs of playstation one games, so get it. Give it a try, give it a cry. And decry the lack of a sequel because the battle system should have been spread far and wide in the rpg realm.