Legend of Legaia

"Final Fantasy VII meets Tekken meets The Rock"

Final Fantasy VII: An RPG of epic proportions and with an extraordinary atmosphere, it is to a human what headlights are to a deer.

Tekken: Had it not been for Soul Calibur, Tekken would without doubt be regarded as the best 3D fighter around. But its story and fighting scheme still make it a very strong contender.

The Rock: A mere action movie that wreaked havoc with character development that proved action-packed flicks could have interesting plots. The Rock is also the best movie ever. Period.

Legend of Legaia can indeed be perceived as a blend of the three. It has Final Fantasy VII’s unfathomable length and its RPG features are similar to a certain extent, its battling system is an extraordinary and unique martial arts feast that can be closely linked to Tekken, and the character development throughout the title is as impressive as The Rock’s.

Legaia is a first-generation PlayStation RPG, and its visuals show this. As a vast 3D RPG, it makes exhaustive use of polygons and the palette used for any detail isn’t the best one you will see on the console. Think Final Fantasy VII, but a tad worse. Your characters look like Lego blocks, with hugely deformed hands, legs and bodies. Their only remarkable traits are their faces, but this can only be observed during battles and cutscenes since they’re merely midgets the remaining time. While it is possible to make out these facial details even in towns and when you’re loitering about, they look like dummies. As a matter of fact, the same can be said about everybody, humans and monsters alike, although the latter get away with murder by being original and bearing a multitude of funny or gory details.

Similarly, Legaia’s world is a wide blob where pixels play such a preponderant role it’s not even funny. Some towns and dungeons are well-detailed and the gloomy atmosphere in the later dungeons is particularly enthralling, but it’s hard to consider Legaia an impressive game as far as graphics are concerned. With mountains that look like cardboard, grass that is actually gray and various glitches, especially during battles, it’s hard for a casual gamer to develop a real liking for the game if he’s of the thought that a PlayStation game must have great graphics to be very good, and that game play comes only second.

While monsters and bosses look generally good albeit rushed in certain instances, there’s no denying they’re unique. Bosses that bear a strange similitude to mythological beasts thus join in the fun and challenge you. Their stances are sometimes funny, and some bosses are insanely detailed although some details unfortunately look goofy. The mist, which is something you’ll see throughout the whole game, is made into a mess during battles and looks more like brick walls instead.

Of course, given that Legend of Legaia came out in 1999, such poor visuals shouldn’t be so surprising, although I’ll admit that the whole game could certainly have looked better. Thankfully, its game play more than makes up for all its glitches, and the first thing that will show you this is the battling system, which is extremely refreshing amidst the usual “Choose Attack and slash once (or whatever)” Final Fantasy-like method. Instead, you now actually input commands by pressing on the directional buttons on your controller with the logical Up, Right, Down, Left commands. Additionally, the game implements its unforeseen Ra-Seru system to replace the Right blow with a superior one. You will thus actually find yourself delivering multiple blows instead of watching single animations, and the scope for combinations is wide since your characters can input several moves.

Each direction input is saved into your Attack Bar, which is determined by that character’s agility. A higher agility means you will be able to pile more hits onto one another and moreover, the Spirit command allows you to willingly sacrifice a turn to earn a longer bar for the ensuing one. It’s a feature that comes in handy against bosses, and one that needs a great deal of strategy and timing since its misuse will guide you to your death. As in Tekken, strings of moves will result in moves. Each character has several moves that are broken down into Arts, Hyper Arts, and Miracle Arts, which use all of your AP and require around ten command inputs. AP is that requirement which will enable you to pull such moves, and each will consume a definite amount that fortunately never changes.

Legaia’s battle system will shock and charm you at the same time. Again, it’s refreshing, and strategy is primordial while playing the game. Getting to know when to use moves and when to save your AP soon becomes absolutely necessary against Legaia’s millions of bosses who are infuriatingly hard, and discovering the moves and combinations is FUN! As your characters become more agile, it even becomes possible to chain various Arts together, which result in powerful Super Arts provided you have enough AP.

The dedication involved in battles is thus a demarcating factor from games where randomly making choices is enough to enable you to go through. Of course, it’s still a good idea to put in random combinations early on in the game, as it’s a good way of stumbling across the Arts. Fortunately, there are also people who will teach you new Arts such that you can actually say you have most of them halfway through the game. On the other hand, Hyper Arts can only be learned by getting the appropriate item and using it on whoever it concerns (just like the fourth Limit Breaks in Final Fantasy VII – will the comparisons ever stop?).

The magic system contributes to make the game even more different, as you are now asked to ‘absorb’ foes to gain the magic to which they are related. Successfully doing so implies you can now use these magic whose levels and effects increase as you use them more often. Any character can learn any magic although some are more familiar with a given type such as Vahn’s (the main protagonist) affiliation with fire and Gala’s ease with thunder. Uber powerful spells, known as Ra-Seru, finally complete this exhaustive system, and their importance is made clear through the story and the daunting way you have to gain them in certain cases, with some of them being almost impossible to get.

Battling is thus extremely fun, but there’s a lot more to Legaia. As in a traditional RPG, your characters can equip armor, weapons and accessories, and can buy or find items in chest. The amount of accessories available will blow you away, and each character can equip three of those, which is nice compared to the traditional “Stick to one” approach.

Another thing that makes Legaia so special is its sheer length. Dungeons are extremely long, and yet manage to remain exciting throughout. Quests will require you to go around the whole world in search of an elusive person or item. Some items will even require you to visit some previously saved towns in quick succession. Legaia also has the most charming mini-games I’ve ever seen in a role-playing game, easily topping those of Final Fantasy VII. The Baka Fighter is particularly enthralling, and, like me, you’ll probably find yourself strangely attracted to it without being able to explain why this is occurring.

The whole game itself is made even more exciting thanks to the amazing music and sound, which is surprising considering how Legaia is barely decent visually. The whole soundtrack touches on almost every genre with melancholic themes dropping in the sad cutscenes, orchestrated ones prevailing in the dungeons, and happy tunes hopping in once you’ve accomplished something, such as finally liberating a town and allowing its inhabitants to turn back to humans.

Reviewing Legaia without mentioning its battle music would in fact be a crime. It owns. Forget all the battle themes you may have heard before (except Chrono Cross, which is a close second behind Legaia!) because this game contains the most impressive ones featured in an RPG. The up-tempo beat is marvelously kept enticing by the fiery piano strings, and it is one of the few themes that doesn’t ever get annoying and repetitive, which is an extraordinary feat given how often battles pop up during the game.

Even more impressive is the final boss music, a powerful orchestrated theme that will compel you to beat the game over and over just to listen to it. Legaia’s soundtrack is simply fabulous, and among the best you’ll get for any PlayStation video game. In addition, sound effects contribute to make the game almost perfect in the audio department. There’s no real voice-acting, but the onomatopoeia used during battles is stellar. Listen to Vahn cry out ''Tornado Flame!'' as he sends the enemy to a poor demise with a flaming uppercut, and you’ll understand why I’m nevertheless sad real voice-acting was never implemented in the game.

Considering how perfectly appropriate the voices are for the three characters, it’s indeed sad that such voice-acting was not kept throughout the whole game and only used during battles. The reason behind this might be a lack of space, which is understandable given the sheer size of the game with its dozens of side quests and dialogue. Sound effects are extremely well done too with realistic blows and nice thumps and thuds punctuating each action. Some Arts have superb effects, which will very likely lead you into performing them whenever you can. I know I did!

Many have regarded Legend as Legaia as yet another “Go and save the world” stupidity. It is not! While the game starts as such and this aspect is kept until the end (what game doesn’t, really?), there’s much more to it. Vahn, the main protagonist, is the only one that falls victim to this stereotype, as he merely lets himself dragged along by the Seru and their appeals, never really stopping to contest their pleas and decisions. Later on, Noa joins him and at first shares Vahn’s will to kick the bad guys’ ass. However, the game takes a more serious approach later on, and the focus soon switches to Noa.

It soon becomes apparent that Noa is more important to the story than you’d think, easily surpassing Vahn who is nevertheless the main character in the game. Her quest for her parents and the mystery around her dreams constitute breath-taking parts, and yet she manages to remain enthusiastic in spite of all that is revealed about her. On the other hand, Gala’s rivalry with one of the bad guys is fuel for an interesting quarrel that unfortunately loses its charm halfway through the game. It’s still nicely done though, and prevents Gala from becoming a mere fighter with only the love of punching and kicking guiding him. Additionally, be prepared to have all your theories and assumptions torn to shreds, as the game has a few vicious twists.

The fact that the game has only three playable characters is hardly noticed, as each character has his own motives and past constantly questioned (although Vahn is still somewhat clichéd). The non-playable characters are nevertheless impressive, as each important one will require you to do something for him, and that thing will always pertain to the real plot in a way. It’s a rare facet of an RPG, and one that makes the story unfold at every instant.

Shunned by many because of its poor graphics where blocky polygons and weird designs abound, Legend of Legaia is nevertheless a damn fine RPG, and my personal favorite. I’ve played this game well after popular releases such as Final Fantasy VII, VIII & IX, Lunar 2, and even lesser famous games, but this has always remained my favorite RPG. It’s not the best title technically, as it has a few flaws, but all these are made up by the best character development I’ve ever seen in a role-playing game, a memorable soundtrack, and a stupendous battle system. Legend of Legaia also has a wicked atmosphere, one that instantly chokes you and releases its grip only after the game is over. It’s a classic that unfortunately failed to make much impact, but RPG fans will probably adore it as long as they are not put off by the poor visuals.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/03, Updated 07/08/03