Tales of Legendia

"Is it Worth The Time To Go Onboard The Legacy?"

Even though Tales of Legendia has been slandered by critics and players alike for being a step back from the highly successful Tales of Symphonia, does the game deserve the hate? Known for its fast-paced action-packed battle system and high level of characterization, does Tales of Legendia follow the trend Tales of Symphonia established or does it deviate into a pile of horribly executed ideas? Read to find out!

Story:

Senel, the man with a golden heart, is on a mission to protect his sister, Shirley. Shirley, known as “The Merines,” or rather, the girl who has the ability to save or destroy the world, is being pursued by many looking to abuse her power. On a dark and stormy night, aboard a ship, Senel and Shirley crash into an even bigger ship known as "The Legacy". Now aboard “The Legacy,” a ship the size of a continent, the standard RPG affair begins. The heroine, who of course cannot protect herself, gets kidnapped by some villain and Senel is now off to traverse through forests, caves, mountains, and anything else in his way in order to get her back. Along the way he will meet a colorful cast of characters who not only join Senel to fulfill their personal goals, but to provide aid, comfort, and humor.

What makes Tales of Legendia's story different from every other RPG is not the story itself, but the cast of characters. The run-of-the-mill “save the world” story is actually only half of the game. Once the credits roll, the “Character Quests” begin. The first half of the game establishes the premise of the world, while the second half shows why these characters act the way that they do. Each "Character Quest" focuses on a particular character. For example, Norma, the crazy and highly optimistic thief who will flirt and do anything to get her way, is in pursuit of the Everlight. We hear about her desire for this object during the main quest, but we do not know why. Later, during her quest, not only do we discover her motivation, but the cast will pursue the Everlight. The idea of focusing a little tale on each character is excellent, as too many RPG's leave side characters in the shadows in order to convey the main plot, but the quests are executed horribly.

Why?

While these stories should be considered little vignettes, I wonder why none of them were integrated with the main plot. Because of this, the stories felt disjointed and tacked-on. Further emphasizing the tacked-on feeling of the character quests is the lack of voice acting.

Sound:

During the segments that have voice acting, each character is portrayed well. For example, Chloe, an honorable and rational knight, delivers her lines in an apathetic and calm manner. Each character portrays their role very well. Even the NPC's have decent voice actors. Because the voice actors portrayed their roles well, it is disappointing that the voice acting suddenly stops during the character quests. This hinders the game because not only does it seem awkward, but the character quests contain much more text than the regular quest. This makes me believe that either that the development team ran out of money or the actors themselves felt like they could not deliver the lines in the latter segment well. Either way, this hinders the player from further connecting with the characters, especially those who get very little face time during the main quest.

The good voice acting is accompanied by an brilliant soundtrack. Easily the most outstanding aspect in the game, each track is beautifully composed to convey the proper mood. What is also remarkable about the soundtrack is the lack of repetition. While many RPG's have a few decent tracks that are repeated during many scenes, there were many tracks to convey several different moods. The battle theme will pump the player to pummel the enemy into oblivion, while the melancholy tracks during dramatic scenes will emphasize the gloomy state of the current situation. So while the sound and story sound good, how does the game play hold up?

Gameplay:

Fought on an entirely 2D plane, Tales of Legendia is a throw back to the earlier installments in the series. Many criticized this decision because Tales of Symphonia had a pseudo 3D battle field that is completely abandoned. However, this decision is justified because Team Symphona did not develop this game. An internal development team at Namco did, who also made the critically acclaimed Soul Caliber series. The influence from Soul Caliber is easily seen during the battles because each encounter plays like a fighter.

Senel is the first protagonist in the Tales of. . . series to use his fights to fight and not a sword. Pressing X will make him punch or kick, while the O button will unleash his “Iron Eres” techniques. Now you must be asking, “What is an iron eres?” Out of the eight characters you can control, there are two classes; crystal eres and iron eres. Crystal eres are mages, while iron eres are fighters. Each move executed with the O button will consume TP, or technique points. During intense battles, the X button will not suffice. Properly stringing techniques will lead to long combos, which not only prevents the enemy from a counter attack, but will also add additional damage. To further encourage combos, at the bottom of the screen is a blue “Climax Bar”. Once the bar is full, with a simple tap of the R1 button, the four characters in battle will unleash a combination attack. Because it is recommended to string combos, you will be rewarded with more XP the higher the combo. It is essential to acquire XP in order to gain levels and acquire new techniques.

Besides XP, the crystal eres users need to acquire a certain number of items that the enemy will drop at the end of the battle. This encourages the player to fight as many battles as possible because it is possible to miss out on particular spells. On the other hand, iron eres users need to use their techniques a certain number of times in order to unlock more advanced attacks.

The main problem with the two classes is the lack of balance. The iron eres users are much stronger than the crystal eres. After a certain character acquires a healing spell to heal everyone in one swoop, there will be little reason to use any other mage. Not only does it take a long time to cast a spell, but the damage will be inferior to physical attacks. Senel, who deals the most damage, will most likely be the character you want to control.

At the end of each battle, you will get a grade. What increases the grade is how high you can combo and if you prevent your characters from dying, using items, getting hit, or being afflicted with a status (eg. Poison). The problem with this system is the asinine AI. While you are only able to control one character at the time, the three other characters will do very little to help you. For example, you may tell a character to heal, but she will deliberately walk into an enemy, get hit, and then start chanting some random spell. As they get pummeled, the mage will not have the oh-so-brilliant thought of getting out of the way. This forces you to interrupt each battle by going into the menu and issuing the same command over and over. Because of this, there will be several battles where your grade will be well into the negatives due to no fault of your own. But, do not fear because if your party is severely hurt after a battle, you can heal them with items you can cook.

Following the proper Tales of. . . tradition, cooking is back. However, Senel naturally has no idea how to cook. During your adventures, you may find completely random objects in the middle of a dungeon or town. Once hitting X, Mimi, a chef, will appear. She will teach you recipes. While the cooking items are superior to regular items, I never found the game so difficult that I actually had to cook anything.

The difficulty in this game is a mixed bag. During the beginning, when you have no one by your side and no way to heal yourself, the game may seem difficult. But once you get your first mage with the “First Aid” skill (a.k.a. healing spell), the game is pretty easy. Sadly, the game is a bit of a button masher and as long as you are able to corner the enemy on one side of the screen and have TP, the enemy will have a very little chance to attack. There were many times when I was able to upper cut a boss into an air, keep it in the air, and rack up to 200 hit combos with minimal effort.

While I found the game to be easy, players new to the RPG genre may find this game extremely infuriating. Why? Because the encounter rate is astoundingly high. Every few steps you will find yourself in a random encounter. When the dungeons are complete mazes, it will take a player an hour or two just to get through the dungeon. What makes this even worse is that during the character quests, you will be forced to backtrack through the dungeon once beating the boss. This artificially extends the length of each dungeon.

To break up the linearity of the dungeons are puzzle rooms. This idea is good because in these green tinted rooms, you cannot encounter any monsters. Equipped with the sorcerers ring, Senel will have to shoot little balls of energy into floating crystals to activate a duct (a fancy name for a door). These puzzles are mind-numbingly easy and require decent hand-eye coordination. There were many times when I disregarded the puzzle and was able to strategically place Senel in a spot where I could just shoot the ball of energy into a crystal instead of spending a few minutes pushing a block into a spot where it would be even easier to hit the crystal. A good idea, but not executed well.

Another badly executed idea is “Chaotic Zones”. Explained as zones where the enemies are tough, but the rewards are great, chaotic zones will often provide a shortcut or treasure. While traversing through the purple goo, the enemy encounter rate jumps even higher. You WILL get into a battle with a special kind of enemy, which will not be hard, but will have an insane amount of HP. These battles will get incredibly annoying because the regular enemies in the dungeon will give like 10x more XP than the enemies in the chaotic zones. Fortunately, one you beat an enemy in a chaotic zone, it will disappear.

Unfortunately, outside of these dungeons, there is very little to explore. Werites Beacon is the only city in the game. While the city is bustling with life, the city itself is rather small and there really is no reason to talk to any of the NPCs. In this city, though, are the usual places you'd expect in a RPG: an inn, a weapons shop, an items shop, and an arena.

What is special about the arena is that you can fight individual or party battles in order to obtain gald (money), weapons, or titles. The item shop is special because the items you win during random encounters can be synthesized to create items vastly superior to the ones found in the weapons/armor shop. It is imperative that you fight as many enemies as you can so you can obtain these great weapons (Note that this option only opens up once the “main quest” is completed).

As I mentioned before, in the arena you may earn titles. Like Tales of Symphonia, titles give your characters a stat boost. While the arena earns you the best titles, you can earn titles through several other means. For example, a character may earn a title if you use a healing item on him/herself 5 times in a row. While some of these titles are simply humorous, the best titles will really give your characters a stat boost.

Graphics:

During this fifty hour quest, you will see some truly uninspiring areas. Each dungeon is different and follows the usual themes of a fiery cavern, snowy mountain, lush forest, etc. Along with the typical dungeons, each dungeon is extremely linear. If you get lost, it is only because each area looks exactly the same. Also, there is very little to explore on the world map.

What is unique is that the game has an unusual chibi-like art style where the characters look kind of deformed, but in a cute way. Personally, I thought their waddle-like walk was cute, but some may find the graphics to be a bit weird.

Technically, the game is inferior to many other titles as it does not support 480p (progressive scan) or 16:9 (widescreen) and there usually is not much on the screen. Because of this, the load times are minimal. Also, the camera is zoomed pretty far away, so the character models actually have no facial animations and only have one or two physical gestures. To make up for this is character portraits that pop up during conversation. Unfortunately, the same portraits are recycled over and over. In battle, though, the characters are much more animate and the camera is a bit more zoomed in.

Besides the in-game engine, there are a good number of cut scenes that are truly great. Unfortunately, there is only one per character quest and the ones in the main quest are rather short.

Closing Thoughts:

The criticism behind Tales of Legendia is partially justified as there are a number of apparent flaws, but the game also does several things right. The development of the characters and soundtrack are truly outstanding, while the unoriginal plot, uninspiring dungeons, and repetitive game play detract from the experience. For anyone who wants to play a RPG with fighting game elements, then this is the RPG for you. The fifty hour quest is entertaining from beginning to end and there are many reasons to play this title more than once. For example, after the game is completed, you are awarded the grade shop, where you can use your earned grade to buy alternate costumes, 2x XP, or 2x grade, and hard mode. This title is hard to recommend when there are vastly superior titles that fall under the same action RPG category, but if you are a fan of the Tales of. . . series, then this game is a must have.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/26/09

Game Release: Tales of Legendia (US, 02/07/06)