Legaia 2: Duel Saga

"Oh, look! It's Legaia 1 with a terrible plot!"

I owe a lot to this series. Legends of Legaia 1 was the first RPG that I really got into. By playing this game, I found the doorway to a world of Final Fantasies, Lunars, Chronos, and Xeno's (hey that rhymed! Give me a Pulitzer!), so i was excited when I heard a sequal was soon to come. Too bad thsi is what I got... a carbon copy with improved graphics and a terrible, boring plot...

GAMEPLAY 9/10:
Now THIS is RPG combat, I tell you what! It's the same as Legaia 1's combat system, but that's NOT a bad thing. You have four choices when you choose Attack (Up, Down, Left, or Right). You input certain combonations of these to create new, more powerful attacks and stuff... to some, finding new special moves would be tedious... but a true RPG gamer will find this to be the BEST part of the game. Experiment, my friend, experiment! I would almost suggest buying this game for the gameplay! As for the puzzles and dungeons... they probably could have been better made and thought out, but getting to use your ''Origin'' while out of battle to solve puzzles was just cool.

PLOT: 5/10
To me, all you need for a great game is good gameplay and an interesting plot. At least Legaia 2 got one of those... The plot has nothing creative or new, there's an evil guy who has great powers who needs three crystals to destroy the world... blah, blah, blah and you play as a guy with amnesia who has cloudy dreams about the past. Need I say more? There were no real twists or turns to speak of... the few there were you will see coming from miles away. I MISS THE MYST!!!

GRAPHICS: 8/10
Pretty good... really good actually. The character designs were great! The animations were as smooth as melted butter and water, and they're pretty cool too. The backgrounds kinda suck, but not too bad... yeah, there's not too much bad you can say about the graphics in this game. One complaint is that there are NO FMV's... just little plot sequences that usually ONLY happen during a battle...

SOUND: 6/10
Another significant downfall of this game. Sigh... I still get TERRIBLE goosebumps when I think about the HORRIBLE voice acting! I honestly think they just had ONE guy do all the voices... he just his voice a little for every character. I don't how long I can talk about the voices... they were THAT bad, and they were inconsistent with the spoken dialogue... you only hear them talk during one of those plot advancements in battle... not that I was complaining too much. The music isn't too bad... it's just the typical kind of music you'd find in an RPG, it was definitely nothing worth praising... but it's also nothing to boo, so I'll just give this category a 6/10... is that okay with you guys?

OVERALL: 7/10
I really had BIG expectations for this project... maybe I didn't like this game because I was expecting too much out of it... I dunno. So, would I suggest this game? If you're a hardcore or oldschool RPG gamer, then yes! Buy this game and enjoy the experience... however, for ANYONE else, you should probably rent it first. I'm not saying you should all-together avoid Legaia 2, you really should give it a try.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/03, Updated 01/04/03