The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion

"If you like RPGs and need a reason to buy a PSP, this is it."

The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion may take a few hours of gameplay before it really starts getting good, but after that it's amazing. It features bright and colorful graphics, an excellent soundtrack (which is no surprise considering the people who made the game also made the Ys games), an excellent story and basic old-school gameplay. On a handheld with so few original RPGs (meaning non-ports), this game really stands out.

Gameplay: 9.5/10

The gameplay is pretty simple and straightforward. The battle system reminds me of Grandia with its range-based combat, only it feels like it's more of a turn-based system than the Grandias. .5 of a point is knocked off due to the way spells work. There's no way to set up where your characters are standing before battle, so there are many times when you're out of range for spells. The spells that only work in an area around the caster could have been done differently too. I do like the fact that there are no surprise encounters like there are in most RPGs though. This makes battling less hectic, and due to the way the experience system is set up you don't really have to fight a lot of battles to get to the proper level to proceed.

Sound: 10/10

The sound in this game to me is absolutely perfect. The sound effects are well-done and it features some really awesome music. You can tell the people who made the music for the Ys games had a part in making this game's soundtrack. There is music for every type of scene in the game, whether it's a tragic story event or a hectic battle.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics are 2D but they're very bright and colorful and everything is detailed. When you're walking around outside the way the sun's rays shine is pretty realistic. I hardly ever see a SNES-style 2D RPG that has ugly graphics, but this game is exceptionally well-designed in that department.

Story: 10/10

Despite the poorly-handled translation, the story is easy to understand and is the strongest part of this game. There are a lot of emotional scenes in it and a lot of history can be discovered on the past of El Phildin if you search hard enough. The game may have some of the standard RPG character types, but they're all well-developed.

The cons of this game don't affect my enjoyment of the game, they're just small things that could have been done better. The spell and positioning system in battle is one example. Another example is the lack of ability or item descriptions in battle, which leaves you confused most of the time as to exactly what the ability you're using does. I also don't like the fact that most of the swords are two-handed and don't allow for the use of a shield. I spent about 85% of the game without a shield equipped on Avin, and that makes a difference when you fight hard-hitting enemies later on. Then there's the poor translation, which is filled with incomplete sentences, misspelled words and poor grammar. It doesn't really hurt the ability to understand the story though, so it's not that big of a deal.

Overall my score would be a 9.875/10 if the translation were cleaned up, but for the sake of the score requirements and due to the bad translation the game gets a 9/10. I really wanted to give it a 10/10, but the translation hurts it a bit. However, I wouldn't enjoy it a bit more with a proper translation, because this is truly a great RPG. Thanks for reading my review and I hope you enjoy The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/07