Zoids: Legacy

"Hmmm, an RPG... with bots!"

Aha, another RPG in the gaming world. Zoids Legacy is actually Zoids Saga 2 (with Zoids Saga 1 never released in English), and because of the reason stated just now, this is the one I played first (and boy, playing Zoids Saga 1 afterwards without any Japanese knowledge is quite a pain..), and in my opinion:

Plot/Character: 4/10
This game is said to actually be a mix of multiple Zoids game in one. Sadly, if that's true, those multiple appearances don't even help the story from being too plain. Zoids Legacy, in general, revolves only around one story, and that story is saving a damsel in distress. Well, at least it's one of the kind of stories which makes sense...
The characters are almost all too uniform, that is, everyone's a good guy or everyone's a bad guy, and there's just so many of them. How unfortunate... I love grey.
To make things worse, while you get to face different enemies, you'll practically fight two major organizations only: One during the first half of the game and the other during the last half. This is very annoying, since this game is quite long.

Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay is often easy to figure out, except when it comes to your own asset: The Zoids. Basically, this is an RPG and a half, that is, You have human (and some inhuman ;) characters who grow just like most characters in RPGs, that is, gain experience and level up to 99 etc, and also Zoids (bots) which grow only to a certain extent. So basically, you characters are played like RPG charactes, while your zoids are grown in action way, that is, once they're of no power they're dumbed. Sounds simple?
Okay, levelling up is simple, but since your zoids only grow to certain extent, you'll have to change them after some time (though I keep my starter zoid, due to lack of knowledge, until halfway of the game...). Here comes the problem: Choosing the zoid. Each zoid has a horde of stats which will seriously confuse you if you're not a zoids expert. If that's not bad enough, not all of the stats matter to you, as for which doesn't, it depends on your play style (speed master may care nothing about defense since they'll be killing first the whole time, right?). Though actually, figuring out some of those stats aren't that tough, pretty much speaking. You'll get to know once you get about halfway into the game, really.

Playability: 7/10
This part is best described with this phrase: "From one end to another". Most parts of the game is hell easy, even RPG beginners can make it with ease, while some other parts are hell hard, you may need luck to beat it. Still, it's playable by everyone, so chill.

Visual: 6/10
The still images are not that impressive, and the zoids look and animations are quite plain. But at least, they look good.

Audio: 7/10
The sound effect is the saving grace in this part. The music isn't anything impressive, and there's no speech here.

Replay value: 6/10
With the nearly non-existant story and long game, you'd better not play this multiple times, unless when you accidentally miss an irreversible, that is, some parts of the game can never be accessed anymore once you get far enough. Annoyance.

Overall: Shame. This game could have been good, but too many things ruin it badly...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/04