Legaia 2: Duel Saga

"At first I loved it, but finally it was a disappointment at all"

I just got through Legend of Legaia some weeks ago. People said that the graphics were bad and that the game was boring. But they were wrong. I love the graphics, I even say that I prefer the fixed camera in this 3D world (you have the overview and don´t have to rotate the camera all the time). The level design was great. Well, I was looking for playing this game!

But now, about Legaia 2

Graphics (8/10)
In the first ten hours I liked the graphics very much. There is very, very smooth gameplay, the cutscenes are made very well and the atmosphere is good. But later on you have to visit the same locations again and then the graphics become repetive.

Sound (8/10)
They used the sounds of Legend of Legaia for this game as well. As I saw in Star Wars Episode II, this is a good idea. They mixed the old (good) music with new music. Good job, it sounds well. But I had wished a little more voice acting in the game. Not only in the battles.

Story (7/10)
I liked the story in Legaia 1 very much. It was about this fog in the world. The game was made up in three or four parts, there were many locations to visit. As in Legaia 2, the story starts very good and I like that the evil characters play a big role in the game, they often appear in cutscenes. But later the story gets a little boring.

Gameplay (7/10)
Hmmmmm, difficult point here. The game started very much like Legaia 1 but they did change many things in the battle system. You don´t get AP (I think attack points) when you are hit, you have to collect them by making special attacks. When you proceed the attacks are combos of 10-15 single hits. It takes tiiiiiiime to execute them. Boring, at all. At all, the battles take far too much time later in the game. The last ten hours I played the game in a small window on my TV screen and watched videos while doing this. The final dungeons were boring at all.
Very, very big, only some riddles, few save points and a terrible level design. I played with a walkthrough for the directions. It might have easily happened that I had gone the wrong way and might have forgotten an important item. You notice this later and have to go all the way back. Pheeew.
I remember Legaia 1 having a marvelous level design. The final dungeon of Legaia 1 was one of the greatest in RPG history, I think. Being in a huge body of a monster, always exploring different areas, great.
But the dungeons in Legaia 2? The final ones are just huge, there is no variety, the final dungeon is just a big cavern. Boring.

Challenge
Hmmmmm - I like challenging games, sometimes. But Legaia 2 is unfair sometimes. See this situation: You walk through a big dungeon, all characters have full health, there was no save point for 45 minutes. Suddenly, a random attack. An ambush! You as the player have to watch how the powerful monsters kill one of your heroes, how they hurt another one badly. You soon notice, retreat is your last chance. But retreat does not work, you have to watch how the monsters kill your party - game over. And this are only the random battles!
The final battle: I fought about one hour, then the monster does one devastating attack. One hero falls, the one petrified and one confused. I try to use a healing potion, but the next attack wipes out the party. Game over. I am looking for Action replay codes now.

Overall (7/10)
I really could not wait for playing this game, I thought the successor of Legaia 1 might be a great game but I was wrong. Very few locations, always revisiting the same locations, sometimes unfair random battles, boring level design, boring, loooong battles. All these aspects make Legaia 2 be only an average RPG. I am sorry to have to say this but Legend of Legaia was better in many respects!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/11/02, Updated 11/11/02