"Great RPG with a nice challenge"

I've been a fan of Legend of Legaia way back when, since the first one was on the PlayStation. Legend of Legaia will always be one of my favorite RPGs, due to the great story, rememberble characters, and the unique battle system. Legaia 2 is an Old School RPG, which has many of the old elements that the old Final Fantasy games had, with obviously some beefed up specs because of the PlayStation 2.

Graphics 9/10
The graphics are definitely nice looking in this game. Though it's not as detailed as say Final Fantasy X, it definitely gets the job done well. The graphics in battle are amazing; with all the art and combos look really impressive. The backgrounds are nicely done, with the exception that it's a bit repetitive, and an area will use the same textures over and over. The game also manages to maintain a good frame rate during most of the game, with the exception of some drops when using a big powerful art combo.

Story 8/10
The story in Legaia 2 tends to pull you in, because the game usually leaves you at choke points a lot, making you eager to see what happens next. However the game follows a typical overview of a troubled teenager who has lost his parents. The story isn't as unique as Legaia 1, but it still manages to keep some nice flavor to it. Anyway, onto the actual story.

You start off as a young teenage boy named Lang. He lives peacefully in his village, training under his teacher, Galvan. Lang has no actual parents, and he is not sure what happened to them. He continues to live a normal life until the Aqualith in his town is stolen, which gives water supply to his town. Lang then takes the responsibility of exploring the world for the Aqualith and finding the man who stole it. As Lang progresses, he meets new people, some in which help him in his quest. But like all RPGs, Lang discovers some secrets about his past, the world, which eventually snowballs into something way bigger than finding the Aqualith...

Sound/Music 8/10
The sounds and music are both simply mediocre, especially the music, which seems to be laziness on the developers’ side. The sound is nice, but nothing too special. The sounds of combos to an enemy sound well, and environmental sounds are nice as well. But again, nothing that really made me go ''WOW!” As for the music, there is some decent tracks in it, but nothing that will make you want to go out and buy the soundtrack, which the Final Fantasy music’s seem to do. The worst part is that Legaia 2 uses a lot of recycled music from Legaia 1. About 40% of the music is from Legaia 1. Now I could understand 1-2 songs to bring back the old feeling of Legaia 1, but 5-6, and a lot as major themes is just unacceptable. If I wanted to hear Legaia 1's music, I’d go play Legaia 1. The battle music is decent, but I found the boss music to be utter crap, and overall I didn't like the battle tracks nearly as much as I loved Legaia 1's (They should have recycled the battle tracks at least). There is no field voice acting in this game, which makes it old school, yet like Legaia 1, the characters speak when they are in battle mode. The voices are simply mediocre, not a ton of emotion, yet it wasn't dull either.

Gameplay 9/10
The gameplay is strictly which makes the Legaia Series as unique as it is. The Legaia series follows a system called 'TAS', or Tactical Arts System. With this, you enter commands (Left, Right, Up, Down) on the D-Pad, or Analog Stick to make certain combos. If you enter a successful combination, you do a special move that deals more damage than a regular hit. This system adds way more flavor to most RPG battle systems, such as Final Fantasy with its simple 'Attack' command. The TAS system is great for experienced RPGers to test their true experience, because Legaia 2 is a difficult game. It may seem easy at first, but as you progress the enemies themselves will be extremely difficult, that’s not even talking about hard bosses. There is no rushing through this game; you'll need to level up a lot if you want to stay on top of the game. Bosses can KO you in as low as 1 round if you are not prepared Levels Wise, Art Blocks wise, or Items wise. So the game requires you to be experienced in organizing and preparing for fights. The combat itself can get slightly repetitive, and random battles are a little bit too frequent. But I find other RPGs to get way more repetitive than this does, but hey, every RPG is repetitive when you look at it, it's really just the story and mini-games that give it different flavors. There are overall 5 characters to join your party, all joining up at different times. For the beginning you are fighting your battles alone. It's a nice change from Legaia's default 3 person party the entire game.

Lasting Factor 8/10
The lasting factor of this game is roughly 30-40 hours. It's not exactly the longest RPG ever, and most of your time will be spent leveling up. Luckily it has some interesting side-quests and mini-games to keep you entertained and take a break from the main story. It doesn't have as many games or side-quests as Final Fantasy does, plus you can get 10-20 hours more out of FF games, but Legaia 2 still manages to get the job done.

Replay Ability 8/10
There is not a huge reason to replay the game, but the same goes with most RPGs. You can play through it again to relive the story, try out different party combos, or try different choices to see how the story plays out. The typical replay ability of RPGs.

Recommendations
Legend of Legaia for the PSX was an amazing RPG, better than this I'd say. Definitely try it if you want to see more of the TAS system (no other RPG offers it, which is why it's unique to Legaia). Try the Final Fantasy RPGs of course; they are also great RPGs, with amazing stories, good combat systems, and lots of hours of side quests and mini games.

Rent or Buy
If you loved Legend of Legaia, and would like some more of the TAS system, feel free to buy it. If you are new to the TAS system, and are skeptical about how good or bad this game may be, give it a rent and try it out.

Final Words
Legaia 2 managed to patch up a lot of hardships in the first Legaia (such as wasting rounds using Spirit). At the same time with the improvements, the game also took a step down in terms of hookable characters and storyline. The roles were basically reversed in this game, better combat system for Legaia 2, but sacrificed the music score, and the storyline. So really it's a double-edged sword.

Overall Score 9/10 (Not an Average)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/06/04