The Legend of Legacy Review
Language: English (EU)
Developer: Atlus
Publisher: NIS America
Format: 3DS
Type: JRPGSynopsis:
A mysterious island emerges, prompting adventurers to head towards it in hopes of obtaining glory, treasure, and more. But what does it truly hold? Join the 7 characters in The Legend of Legacy and unravel the mystery of Avalon’s past.Explore Avalon and discover each character’s motivation in traveling to the island. With 7 different perspectives from which to experience the adventure, whose story will you unravel first? Perhaps the Elementalist who uses spirits as his guide? Or will you sympathize with the frog prince, searching for more of his kind? Pick your characters wisely, as team formations and specific combat roles are crucial in battle!
As you can imagine I went a little batty over this game! As a huge fan of JRPG’s I’ve been looking for something new that would devour my soul. Was this game the one, see below the cut!
So graphically, well it’s a 3DS game, they all pretty much use the same graphic style of chibi characters, and to be frank, I genuinely like the style. Though admittedly not all of the characters had a lot of work on them. In fact some of them look absolutely terrible, just look at the generic soldiers for example. This, admittedly, is partly due to the low power of the 3DS, but other games have gotten around this in various ways, it’s a shame that FuRyu didn’t attempt this.
However, despite this I have to admit that the game isn’t to bad looking, and FuRyu did the best they could with limited power. Where this game really shines though is in it’s 3D, this is the first game where I’ve actually been able to play in 3D for long periods without getting severe eye strain and headaches. Which you might think means the 3D is weak or bad, but genuinely I think it’s the best looking 3D game I’ve played todate.
The game uses an unique pop book-esque where the terrain just pops up around you as you move through the map (similar to Bastion). Which on the one hand I really like, from an aesthetic point of view. Sadly, from a practical point of view it was badly implemented as the pop-up generally hides mobs, leading to a lot of random battles you can’t avoid.
Speaking of the mobs, these were well drawn and animated as well, though once again some better than others. Though this time the bad ones just look bad due to the low resolution of the game screen. However the variety is frankly missing, during my time in the Forest maps i fought the exact same three mobs over and over and over again. Sure there were the odd variants, but these were basically just different coloured versions of mobs already fought; with a new art and more HP. This carried over into the other regions as well, same mob over and over, the bane of grinding.
Combat, is atypical JRPG turn based, and it works well. Can’t really say anything about the combat that hasn’t been said a hundred times already! I’m of the opinion of ‘don’t fix it if it if it ain’t broken’.
Graphics out of the way, lets look at the character choices and the story.
Character wise there’s seven unique characters to choose from, each with their own reason for being there. When I first saw this I was impressed, figuring there’s be loads of replayability because of this! So lets introduce the seven characters:
Name: Eloise
Sex: Female.
Age: 24
Bio: Besides being a doctor, she is an alchemist researching immortality. Sexy, at first glance, but serious at her core. Scary when provoked.
Name: Liber
Sex: Male.
Age:18
Bio: A treasure hunter traveling the world in search of treasure. He is energetic, straightforward, and optimistic. He has a strong sense of justice, despises crooked things, and loves women.
Name: Bianca
Sex: Female.
Age: unknown.
Bio: When she awakened, her memories other than her name were lost. She has a gentle personality, but in search of her memories, she also has the strength the move forward.
Name: Meurs
Sex: Male.
Age: 27
Bio: A descendant of the clan known as the “Spirit Messengers” who have the power to communicate with spirits. The guiding voices of the spirits wander in various places.
Name: Garnet
Sex: Female.
Age: 20
Bio: A knight of the Emilia Church Knights. She is an earnest, stubborn, and inflexible woman with an absolute allegiance to the knights.
Name: Owen
Sex: Male.
Age: 36
Bio: A man of unknown origin who calls himself a “baron.” He is greedy and arrogant, but so sure of his skills as a bounty hunter he would go through hell just for money.
Name: Filmia
Age: Male.
Sex: Frog.
Age: Unknown
Bio: Long ago, he was the prince of the country of frogs on The Avalon. He is polite and gentlemanly. He goes about things at his own pace and sings when he’s in the mood
Each of them get a short intro movie that sets their motivation for coming to the island, and while these aren’t ‘bad’ the lack of voice acting hurts it. In fact, with the exception of the narrator (who is terrible) none of the characters are voiced. For that to work well you need a good music score to keep the tension up, sadly said score isn’t here. I turned the music up to max and it was still so quiet I can barely hear it, and it didn’t really make me feel emotions. Though it does have odd moments of being fitting, such as during the intro movie.
The story of the game, after 15 hours (36 combined over 3 characters) I still don’t really have any idea about what’s going on really. The story isn’t revealed in a interesting way, frankly so far no story has been revealed! Which given how much I’ve explored I’m surprised by. Sa far I’ve fully explored the Hidden Forest and the Forest Ruins, this is the first ‘chapter’ which is where you would expected to get some exposition.
What I got however was: ‘Go explore some more’. If I’d gotten to this point fairly quickly I’d be alright with that, but it took me a good few hours to fully explore all the maps, and fight boss. So at this point I feel some sort of exposition was needed. Especially given how things play out after you beat the boss. It sets the stage perfectly for some story, only for the Baron to not deliver. After further exploration, of the Boiling Sea, Seaside Ruins, and the Roaring Valley, I’m still not getting story.
I could have forgiven the lack of the main story if we’d had party chat, revealing more of the characters personal story, or even just random party chat. Through out the entire game while running around there’s no talking between party members, the silence is deafening. The only time they talk is during a cut scene, or if you flee battle and then you get a single sentence spoken by your character. At times it’s easy to forget your a party because of the lack of banter, but there’s an important reason why banter is important. Without the banter you don’t feel attached to your character or party, if you don’t feel attached you don’t feel a pull to complete the personal story, which ultimately leads to a lack of a desire to finish the game.
It was around now that my desire to play the game had pretty much fizzled out. The entire game had boiled down to: Explore Area > Sell Map in Town > Explore Are rinse and repeat. Which honestly I wouldn’t have an issue with, if the game’s mechanics and battles were balanced and varied.
So lets talk mechanics, and why I had problems with them. Firstly, the combat mechanics are perfect (as I said earlier). However every other set of mechanics were just so badly implemented they made what should have been one of the best JRPG’s ever, into one of the worst.
In the town, if you go to the end of the pier you’ll find a NPC who you can ‘hire’ to go trading for you. The more you invest the better returns. This would have been a good system, if it wasn’t so reliant on SpotPass for it to really shine. I paid the mid tier of 1000st, and found it took ages to return; and by ages I mean over 2 DAYS!!. SpotPass apparently speeds up the turn around and gives you extra perks. The fact it took two days though is disgusting, it feels a lot like it’s punishing people (adults?) who don’t walk around with their 3DS in their pocket.
Next up we have the town economy and loot drops. There’s one vendor in town who sells everything, everything but much needed equipment! The starting gear your characters get is pretty decent, better than the stuff you can buy in the store. However that gear is soon not quite cutting it, but the vendor never seems to have new stock. Through out all 3 games the vendor has had the exact same stock, and his specials are so over priced I don’t understand how I’m ever supposed to buy them.
As for the loot drops, they so painfully bad! With a total of two exceptions, I’ve always gotten two things from mob drops. Herbs used to replenish SP, or just st (the currency of the game). I’ve had one weapon drop and one ring drop, and that’s it. The few other drops I’ve had have come from the chests, but mostly those contain st or junk items to sell for st.
Elemental spirits. This is a big thing of the game, one of the foundation blocks in fact. However at no time in the game, or even in the manual, is it properly explained. It never explains why having an elemental contract is important, or rewarding. Which is a big thing, since it has such a huge impact on gameplay. This is especially needed here since you have to give up a valuable trinket slot to equip the shard you need to use the contract. Since you only have two slots they’re very important. What I found is that ultimately, all of my characters ended up losing a trinket slot to these shards. I feel it would have been better to have had a thirst slot specifically for them.
Leveling up, again a core part of any JRPG (or any game really) isn’t explained at all whether in game or in the manual. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, except FuRyu decided to go with a new levelling system. It got away with the usual levels 1-10 and split it up between different aspects of your character. Such as Attack, SP, Health, Speed, and your Arts (abilities). Which feels like a good system, but because it’s never really explained your never sure how well your improving. There’s no quantitate upgrade feel.
The only time I felt like I’d genuinely improved was when a character ‘awakened’. When this happens the character does a flashy animation, which I loved, and then unleashes a new art. Looks amazing, feels amazing, and I felt like: yeah, my toon is getting stronger!
For my first game I went with Owen, because I loved his opening movie and is close to the style I usually like to play. However using him was tedious to the maximum. Why? Because he never awakened. Through out the entire game my companions were gaining arts left right and centre. Where as Owen just plodded along using his same old two arts, Block and Cleave. This was because (I believe) the two companions were so weak I hada to use block all the time to protect them and leave them to the DPS. By the time Owen gained his first art (Ricochet) my other two had five and seven arts respectively. Ricochet however was a shield art, so I was still stuck with nothing really to attack with. I did finally unlock my third ability, Power Swing, but was underwhelmed by it. I was always wondering if the skills I’d unlock were taking longer because they were more powerful. I was hoping to get the skill he used in the opening movie that one shot a wolf! I played a another half hour on that run before giving up and swapping to Garnet, and suddenly I was once again getting arts quickly.
If I’d ignored the block skill and just gone all attack, I theoretically could have unlocked arts quicker, but only theoretically. Since the companions I had were so weak, HP wise, they’d basically get one shotted straight away. This was a big issue after I finished the forest region and moved onto the next two regions, and found myself back to being stuck blocking all the time, and my guys being one shotted.
The game does point out that different party members will work better in different situations. However the game doesn’t level up the party members you’ve unlocked. So after getting my ass handed to me Roaring Valley I decided to try a different makeup. So I picked up my archer, only to realise he was so squishy it was silly. No health, no SP, and no arts, no way I was taking him to the Roaring Valley. The only way to make him a valid party choice was to spend another 2 or more hours levelling him up. This applied to all of the characters I’d unlocked so far, and assume would apply to the others I’d yet to unlock.
Final Verdict
For me this game had so much potential to be amazing, and I’m heart broken that it’s fallen flat on it’s face. It’s a combination of so many good ideas that are badly implemented, and if I’m honest it’s unlikely to ever be completed.
Oh dear, I bought this game yesterday. Why didn’t you upload this review earlier to warn me? I demand that you pay the money I needlessly wasted 😉
ouch that was my fault I’ve got a hand injury atm so It’s taking a bit longer to get work done :'(
Don’t worry man, I was only kidding. Since writing that comment I have played the game for a few hours and am actually enjoying it quite a bit. I can certainly see why the random elements and poor explanation of mechanics would frustrate you however.
That was the problem though. The first few hours or so it takes to get through the first boss fight it’s not THAT bad a game, just a bit dull since there’s no character banter. However once you’ve moved on and find it’s basically a rinse and repeat all over again, i started to lose it.
Etrian Odyssey 2 seems to doing things a lot better