Legaia 2: Duel Saga

"Fun gameplay, weak story."

Legaia 2: Duel Saga is the sequel to the popular Legend of Legaia. In fact Legend of Legaia is the 12th best selling RPG ever released in America. It sold about 300,000 copies. This game does a good job of conveying the feeling and atmosphere of the first. You get a real sense that the same people worked on this title also worked on the original. That being said you will probable feel about the same playing this title, as you were when you played the original.

Gameplay:
This is one of the more difficult RPG out there. While long time RPG fans may not have a problem, people new to the genre or used to Final Fantasy games will feel quite a shock. This is a very refreshing change of pace from what we’ve been getting lately. It offers fun/challenging gameplay that we’ve missed in other games on the market. But is that enough, or do we need more?

The battle system is just like Legend of Legaia. You are given the option to attack from the left, right, up and down. With these combos you are given a number of slots to fill with your choice of attack. You will get more slots as you level up. You start as low as 3 slots but will find yourself reaching up to 15+ slots. You also learn combos that are called arts. These increase your attack power as well as your AP meter. The AP meter is the attack points. When you perform arts your AP meter increases. You can store up to 100 AP at a time and they do carry over from battle to battle. Defending no longer increases AP like Legend of Legaia. So the only way to increase it is to use normal attacks. Leaning arts is just a matter of trying different combinations, maybe you’ll get lucky and find a new one and maybe you wont. If you’re a lazy gamer then you could always buy a strategy guide or check out Internet sites, but for the rest of us there’s a lot of fun in finding all the arts. Then there are super arts that are much more powerful but use up your AP meter. With these you can do up to 3-4 times the amount of damage. Late in the game you’ll find great combos that allow you to use these without losing AP but I will let you find that out for yourself. There are also hyper arts, which you can’t learn like the other two. With this one you have to ask the right person to teach you or find a book that teaches it. . Hyper arts use up AP just like super arts. These are extremely powerful and work exactly like the super arts. The only really difference is how you learn them and the strength. These are the strongest attack you can use with out a variable attack or an origin attack. Next there are variables attacks, which are combined attacks. Two of your characters will attack, one right after the other to create a very strong attack. These are the most powerful non-elemental attack in the game. Variable attack also use up AP. They use up 80 points from two characters so this move will really drain you. Then you get origins with act as the magic in this game. Origins also have a move that combines their magic with a normal art attack. These are the most powerful moves in the game. You use 100 AP and 100 MP to perform these moves.

They do a good job of balancing these attacks. This is not one of those games where magic is useless or attacks are useless. You will find yourself using both. Of course though you will end up use attacks more to conserve MP but you know what I mean. The battles are completely turned based so you will have plenty of time to decide what your next move is. Now before you get all worried that you’re going to have to retype in each command, just keep reading. Every time you learn a command it goes to a menu. You simply press the O button and you can just select your attack. In addition it saves your last move, so you wont have to retype if you plan to use the same combo. In battle you also can use items and defend just like any other RPG.

When not in battle each character has a special move he/she can do to get past barriers or puzzles. By pressing the square button you can smash walls or make a vine grow. Just press the R2 or L2 to switch characters. Switching characters is an instant affect. You could do it while running and have no slowdown or pauses. It’s fluent (shakes his fist at Dark Cloud). This can create some hard puzzles. Like for example you may enter a room with 9 pedestals. With only a picture of a wolf you must know which ones to light. Each pedestal will have a letter. Sometimes you can go off the main course to find hints for the puzzles, which helps make them possible. Like for this one (this is just an example of the type you will see so no spoilers) you may find a clue that says wolf must be light backwards. Or that you light all but wolf. This would be one of the easier puzzles but you get the idea. Usually before bosses you can camp. In this you can rest using a camping kit (think tent or shelter) or you can chat with your fellow adventurers. You can cook which is like a mini game. You can buy/find ingredients that can be made into meals. This can raise your attack, defense, maximum HP, etc. But it can also decrease your stats. So maybe cooking one meal would raise your mental, Maximum HP, attack, defense, and evade. Then it will lower your Maximum MP. So there is a lot of strategy in finding the right meal for the right situation. Finally you can save at the campsites.

I would have given the gameplay a perfect score if it were not for the lack of fully explore able world map and the lack on story. The world map is just like any other except you are constrained to a path (think Legend of Dragoon). While I don’t hate this style and this game does it flawlessly I still much prefer a map where I can go anyway I wish. At least it’s not a repeat of FF10. To me that’s the worse system. I hated the lack of freedom, but that’s another review. The story of this game is lacking. It is just the kill the bad guy, save the world story you get in every RPG. Unlike other RPG’s where you get several good twists in this story line, that pretty much sums this one up. The few things they add to the story are not at all epic but do help with a sense of atmosphere. I liked the characters in this game. I didn’t find any of them annoying and most of the time they had interesting things to say. The characters themselves looked cool to. So I have no problem here. One thing you will notice is that all the characters mimic the ones for Legend of Legaia. While they are new characters, the personalities are similar.

Graphics:
This graphics in this game are good. I love the style of them but technically they are not that great. Everything is well colored but manages to avoid a cartoon look. There is a low polygon count and things look bland and show lack of detail in some areas of the game. Everything in the game is smooth and clear. So if you don’t care if graphics are perfect you will find them more then acceptable. I also like how each one of the main characters look. They all look pretty cool which is always nice.

Sound:
The sound is nothing special. Don’t expect FF quality here. With that said the sound does fit and is often very good. It’s more of a lighthearted style as opposed to the dramatic opera of PE or FF7. I personally like the more dramatic music but this is fitting. The voice acting in this game is bad. You wont be able to take any scenes seriously where voice acting takes place. The game doesn’t support full voice-overs, which was a disappointment. Although considering the horrid voices we got maybe we should be glad.

Value:
This game is a fare-sized game. It will last you 20-25 hours the first time through. That’s if you play strait through and do no side quest. This game features tons of side quests that could easily double the length of the game. Too many RPG’s don’t really think that side quest are important but this game actually delivers in that category with is very refreshing. This may not be the best RPG out right now but its still worth a close look by any fan of the genre or series. If you like Legend of Legaia then you will love this title. The main point holding it back is the bad story. I find the only real reason to play an RPG is for characters, atmosphere, and most importantly story. This game fails to deliver that aspect in its game. So if your one of the few who don’t care about the story in a game then I would highly recommend this title to you, but for the others this may be worth passing up.

brake down:
This game is a fun, lighthearted adventure that while fails to deliver a compelling story still manages to be a fun worthwhile adventure for any RPG fan.

Gameplay-7.5/10
Graphics-8.5/10
Sound-8/10
Value-8/10
Overall-7.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/28/02, Updated 04/27/03