Legaia 2: Duel Saga

"The original Legaia remains my #1 favorite game. Duel Saga doesn't have as high a throne, yet it still is engaging enough to be an enjoyable game"

Being an ever loyal superfan of the original Legaia, which was greatness at its best in an RPG, I was ecstatic when a friend of mine gave me a gaming magazine and said "Hey look, they're making a second Legaia game." Because I talked so much about the game, she figured I'd be more than happy to here it. And I sure was. As soon as I could I went to the nearest Gamestop and paid the 50 bucks. I grew more and more excited watching the opening video for Legaia 2, and in the beginning of the game I actually liked it, seeing as how Lang reminded me so much of Vahn from the first Legaia. However, as I progressed and eventually gained my full cast of 5 characters, I realized that Legaia was not going to have the charm and magic that the original had.

Gameplay 9/10: Legaia is famous for its TAS system, and Duel Saga brings it back with a few changes. Like before, you have your Up, Down, Left, Right, buttons that you mix together so you can find certain combos. This time however, your maximum slot on your art meter is 14, instead of 9 like in the previous Legaia. 'Spirit' is missing in this title. In the original using Spirit would raise your defense, increase your art gauge, and gain attack power. Now in the absense of this, you can choose to guard, which lets you block or take less damage, and you have certain moves which gain attack power automatically. You have your Normal Arts, Super Arts, Hyper Arts, Variable Arts, and Mystic Arts. Variable Arts and Mystic Arts are new to the Legaia series. Each character can learn 2 variable arts, and when put in the bar with another character, the two characters will combine their attacks on one enemy to finish it off. The animations are very well done for variables and the best arts in the game. Mystic Arts are the equivalent of Mircale Arts from the previous, in the fact that they are the most energy consuming and powerful arts. To do a mystic art, you need to have more than half of your mp, less than half of your maximum health, and full attack power. With the mystic art, your mystic, which is basically your magic in the game, will attack the enemy at the same time as you, doing incredible damage. However, the mystic arts are somewhat dull for the most part. Another addition is that now once you have discovered an art, you can just scroll your arrow next to the name on the list, press x, and the moves will pop in your box, so you don't have to press as many buttons or accidentally mess up on one. However cool the TAS system is this time, the one from before is still better though. The art moves and animations were far more exciting looking than before and involved the hands, legs, and Ra-seru. High and Low in Duel Saga means a high slash or a low slash with your weapon and legs are never used in kicking. Even with Kazan who only uses his fists. Enemies are also very hard. Regular enemies are tough, and many times you can be killed during an ambush without you even having the chance to recover. This can be annoying in cases, but hardcore RPGers will love this.Enemies now have an HP bar so you can see how much life they have left, unlike the original where you just had to guess or have a feeling of when they were gonna die. Every character in your party 'save Ayne' has an Origin to use as magic, which takes place of the Ra-Seru from the previous title. The Origins have their own personalities as well as the Seru, yet the spells used are pretty dull and not too flashy, also take up a butt load of MP. In the previous Legaia, you could absorb monsters and summon them for a special move, which would have a status effect if at least at level 3(you could level them up the more they are summoned) and you could also get the Ra-Seru's ultimate spells and some other hidden spells. In Duel Saga it is sadly limited and you only get the 4 summon spells for each character which you gain after your Origin gains the appropriate level. Some Origin summons look nice, yet some others could have definately used more work. Dungeons and caves are soooooooooo windy and filled with multiple dead ends that it begins to seriously piss you off. It wouldn't be so bad if there were more save points so you can heal your characters, but the enemies are so darn tough that you can be at the end of a long and grueling maze finally, only to be ambushed and killed before you know it and have to start the whole dang thing all over again. AHHH! I guess the dungeons were longer to make up for the absence of a REAL world map, but it is just terribly frustrating. The original Legaia had above average length dungeons and mazes, yet the difficulty wasn't so bad to where it was going to tick you off, plus the dungeons looked much much cooler.

Story: 6.5/10 So the story is basically this, you are a boy named Lang who was adopted by the head of a mercenary group that protects your village of Nohl from nearby monsters. As luck would have it, as soon as you are recruited into the fighting force, a man called "Gold Eyes" comes and beats the heck out of you after telling you that he is after your village crystal called the "Aqualith" and going to use it as part of his plan to create a new world for a race of people called "Mystics", who are distinguished by a large tattoo somewhere on their body. The Aqualith is a levitating crystal that poors a neverending supply of water into your village lake, and apparently its useful for this guys takeover of the world. Those who played the first might think this guy was kind of a rip-off of Songi from the original, and he kind of is. Except Songi was way cooler. Anyway, you set off on your quest to get your crystal back and keep your village alive. However, because of certain events, Lang finds himself in a much more serious situation. Along the way he learns of the Mystics and partners with a mute girl named Maya,Kazan(a skilled warrior), a blonde pirate named Sharon, and a giant named Ayne. The story is very linear and pretty much everything is forshadowed before it happens. If this were made a few years before its released, the story would have been deemed pretty good, however it feels like something that has been done on many occasions. The developers didn't seem like they wanted to waste time thinking up something completely original.

Graphics 7.5/10: The graphics in Legaia are done very well in some aspects, and mediocre in others.Some environments are incredibly detailed and look nice enough to just sit around and appreciate the scenery. Yet the character animations are sometimes stiff and none to spectacular. Also dungeon environments, which there are a lot of, look very very plain, which becomes a problem after seeing them so many times.

Sound 7/10: Some of the old music composed by Michiru Oshima in the original Legaia's soundtrack are back in Duel Saga. THe songs are done really well and have many layers of instruments and it shows how much hard work was put into composing. The intro music by one of the new composers is really nice along with some other environments. Yet the battle music and the boss music is pretty flat and you won't remember any of it most likely.

Replay Value 7/10: I would say Legaia has an average replay value. I keep finding myself coming back to this game to play it for no reason. Yet only hardcore fans of the RPG genre would really consider playing this game again. While this game is really fun, the original cult-classic Legend of Legaia for PSX beats it in most all aspects by a great deal.

Rent or buy: I'd say rent first and see if you like it. If you are a fan of the first you should try this out for nostalgic purposes and see if you like it. Even still, fans of the first might rate Duel Saga more harsly as expectations would be high.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/07