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Legend of Dragoon Playstation Reviewed: 9/7/03
Many people after playing this game would think, "Why did it take so long for Sony to make this?" With a whole lot of potential, but a whole lot of problems Legend of Dragoon is a game that quickly went nowhere. Here's a look into the story: Years ago a powerful tree called the divine tree created life. The tree created the humans, the winglies, and the dragons. After that, a war took place between the humans and the winglies. The humans needed help and the dragons offered assistance by giving them their power and the humans became dragoons. The war ended and the humans triumphed but hostility still ensues. Now all of this sounds great huh? It's too bad something that had so much potential turned up sour and boring. In the present time the story beings with the main hero Dart returning to his home town and he finds out his village has been destroyed. Also his friend Shanna was kidnapped. Okay...so far it's good right? Nope. The major problem with this game is making it through its boring and very slow storyline. The game only starts to pick up on "some" excitement after the second disc.
The game environments match games like Final Fantasy VII and consist of pre-rendered backgrounds. The detail in them is okay but not extremely exciting to look at. The character designs are awful. When Final Fantasy VII was created back in '97 you'd expect to see blocky characters because well, smoother character design was not implemented yet. But this game has no excuse. Sony didn't improve the detail in their models one bit. They are too blocky and the camera angles don't help. You either see the character too up close and they don't look nice, or too far which doesn't help the look either. The CG cut scenes are the only thing that does the graphics justice. When a movie starts up they are amazing to look at. It portrays the story excellently and is full of emotion. The music in this game is pretty average. There is nothing really memorable or appealing so there's really nothing to say about it.
Legend of Dragoon is a straight
forward rpg to play in terms of gameplay. In battle the controls are
basic like attack, magic, item, etc. There is however a few things that
was implemented to spice things up a bit. When you attack the enemy
there is a targeting system that appears and when you time it correctly
as soon as the two squares meet you get to attack again, making a chain
combo. As you gain more experience the combos increase in length and
power. You also learn special attacks that chain in with the combos,
and are important in gaining spirit points. Spirit points are points
you get when leveling up your dragoon spirit that allows you to transform
from your original form, into a dragoon form. When you're in the dragoon
form your character wears a war suit with wings and has special magical
attacks and abilities. Each and every time you transform there is a
transformation sequence that takes place. The problem with that is after
seeing it a couple times it wears out it's appeal and when your in the
dragoon form the attacks and magic are not all that powerful almost
making it a waste of time to perform. A
basic attack should be stronger then a dragoon attack, that's just sad.
The final thing that makes you want to throw it into a garbage can is
its constant and terribly timed random battles. Walking two steps, getting
attacked and losing after you busted your fingers fighting an ending
boss is not amusing.
Sorry Sony, but
this game deserves a rental at best. Now is probably the best time to
do it because if you find it in a video store you can keep it
for a week and see for yourself how it's not worth buying.
-Q Jets
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