Legend of Legaia

"Legend Of Legaia is definately a Legendary game. It was my first game on my old PSX, and the first i got into. Anyhoo, this game is damn near perfect."

Graphics 10: My standards for graphics arent very high... in other words im not a graphics freak. But this game met my standards. Prerendered stuff in this game topped FFVII, just by a little, but still better. The battle Graphics are nothing short of amazing. While somewhat blocky and occaisionally choppy, they are MIND blowingly detailed. So im giving it a 10, regardless of what a few graphics fruits out there think.

Story 10: The story revolves around our 3 characters, Vahn, Noa, and Gala. The human race lives with these mech-like but organic creatures called Seru. Seru lived peacefully with humans, helping them by giving them superhuman abilities, and humans helped seru by... um... hmm... mebbe i shoulda given this on a 9, it doesnt tell you how the Seru really lived and what they got outta the... oh well im goin off subject. Anyhoo some strange mist suddenly spread over the world, and then Seru turned savage and possesed humans liked demons, and instead of giving their powers to humans, they kept and used the power for attack instead of peace. Anyhoo Vahn, Noa, and Gala each get a Ra-Seru, special super-intelligient Seru that arent effected by the mist, and the 3 (well actually 6) set out on a journey to revive Genesis Trees, other worldy trees that repel the mist. The story travels much deeper into the lives of the characters, and the ending is truely touching.

Gameplay 9: The gameplay in this game is truely great. The battle system is probably the most plain old fun of all ive seen in RPGs. Going into detail would take all day, but the battle system is like a fighting games, with over a dozen attacks, hyper attacks, super attacks, and one special miracle attack for each character. (the game calls em arts but then people would think i was talking about painting or something like that) The Ra-Seru, whos names by the way are Meta (for Vahn) Terra (for Noa) and Ozma (for Gala), can, by small chance, assimilate defeated Seru to use as ass-hauling summon and healing spells. Heh, resistance is futile... Anyway the controls are good, if you cant handle off the up down left right stuff then you just suck with the controller... Fights with normal enemies are perfects for leveling up and gaining new arts and Seru, and boss fights require plenty of strategy and planning ahead. The game is involving and fun, even with only 3 characters (although there was one guy who you fight in the game who i would DIE to have as a party member [Gaza]). The reason i didnt give this puppy a 10 is cause the Level-up and Money barometers in this game are lower than Valkyrie Profiles HP/Damage barometers are high. by the time you beat the game your characters will all be around level 40 (the max level being 99)!!! And if that aint enough, when you fight battles, you get some good money, and you play for hours and hours battling and battling and you come to the next store and you find weapons and accessories that Billy Gates couldnt buy even if he bought Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. Even normal healing items cost a fortune to buy in the mass numbers in which they are needed. This provides a real dilema since getting totally up to date equipment is a third of what keeps you alive in battle, and despite how insignificant it may seem, going into fights knowing your gonna get slaughtered isnt good for the fun factor.

Sound 10: Although i didnt care for the music most of the time, the boss music, Songi's boss music, Cort's boss music, and Juggernaut's theme are some pretty good ear candy, definatelty rivaling some of FFVII's tracks in my not so humble opinion. The voices of the characters attacking are cool, and even cooler are some of the chants that your foes utter with their big spells. They really help you get into it and make the attacks seem more real and life-like. And hearing your opponent's ''RAUGHS''s ''OW''s and ''AGH''s and ''UGH''s and ''OOF''s and ''GURGH''s and ''AHH''s and ''NAUGH''s and ''OUGH''s is always good, afterall, what better way is their to get into the spirit and heat of battle than hearing your opponents agonizing cries of pain!?
Even when your biggest foes slaughter your party members, they utter a few cool sounding Jap Jibberish words as a way of saying, ''haha, your dead''

Replayability 10: Theres so much stuff to get and see in this game that you dont get with a run of the mill first go through it that your bound to play the game through at least 5 times before you get everything, and dont worry, its not hard to get into even after ive played through the game a well over a dozen times.

Buy or Rent: With apologies to the FF series, LOL (no im not laughing) is the best RPG ive ever played. A definate buy, even if your not an RPG fan, this game was the first true blue RPG i played(the old Zelda games for the NES & SNES would have been, and although they were awesome, i consider them more adventure than RPGs), at least for the playstation, even not so RPG freaks may grow to love it, i know i did. Legaia was the game that brought me to FF and all the other RPGs i now love. Screw renting it, and to all seven hells with not buying or renting it at all, BUY it, you will love it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/01, Updated 12/27/01