"A Fitting Conclusion for an Underachieving Series"

While The Legend of Heroes series as a whole has not exactly provided anything innovative to the genre, the previous installments have both done a good job of capturing the feel of classic, old-school RPG gaming. Thus, with the release of The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean it could safely be assumed that you would be embarking on another standard RPG adventure that would maintain the status quo within the genre. As Legend of Heroes II borrowed almost everything from the first title and added very little in terms of gameplay elements, it was no surprise that…wait, what's this?

A new and improved battle system?

Greater freedom in party customization?

The inclusion of actual sidequests and material that can be completed outside the main storyline?

After checking the case to make sure I had actually purchased LoH III, I was forced to accept the improbability that the developers were actually trying to make some progress on the quality of this series. While the only differences between the first two games were really the story and characters, the developers actually improved upon many of the faults of these two titles and LoH III: SotO represents a significant jump forward in the evolution of this series. Unfortunately, the area that most desperately needed an overhaul, the translation, appears to have received no additional attention during the development and production of this game. As such, the potency of the story and the effectiveness of the characters are both hampered, leading to another disappointing gaming experience.

LoH III: SotO is the third and concluding chapter of the Gagharv trilogy, a series of games involving the lands surrounding a great cleft in the land named Gagharv. Chronologically, however, it falls between the first two titles and resolves some loose ends from both games. This game has been advertised as a stand alone title, but more entertainment can be derived from the story if you're already familiar with the plot LoH I and II. Not only do characters from past games make appearances, many aspects of the story really build off the past titles and the plot is far more interesting if taken in context of the events from the first two games in the series. This time around, you're thrust into the role of Forte, an innocuous youth with a zeal for music and adventuring. Forte's grandfather decides he wants to go on one final quest before he goes to that big venue in the sky, and Forte is solicited by his parents to accompany the elderly troubadour on his quest to find and collect pieces of a lost musical score written by a famous composer known as Leone. Your quest starts off simple enough, as Forte travels with his grandfather McBain, best friend Una, and his grandfather's dog Jan (every good traveling band always has a dog, right?) collecting pieces of the song from items called resonance stones and solving occasional dilemmas as they arise. Like previous LoH titles, the early portions of the game are spent completing simple tasks that are frequently either entirely irrelevant to the plot or depressingly tedious, before reaching the true meat of the story. However, before long Forte and crew must not only rock out across the continent of Weltluna and outperform other, less righteous musicians, but save it from impending doom using their musical talents and fighting skills. You cannot fault this game for lack of originality, as there really aren't too many games where you play as troubadours and the fate of society as a whole relies on your capacity to learn and play a song that can save the world. In fact, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this very well might be the first. However, while certainly unique, the story tends to drag too often and everything except the last half hour or so of plot is far too predictable. There are a few segments of genuinely good storyline and compelling action, but these are too frequently trapped beneath hours of mundane traveling and dull segments of story.

Large traveling and adventuring segments are nothing new to RPG aficionados, as most RPGs have lengthy segments that serve to flesh out your characters and further develop their individual and unique personalities. As such, even these slow segments of the story can prove to be interesting as they are played out by characters you empathize with and support. Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the story of LoH III is that the lead characters fail to be particularly compelling and many of the supporting characters did not receive enough attention and their development isn't as intensive as it should have been. This isn't to say that LoH III is without any characters of merit. New character such as Palman and Aria are well developed and likable; sufficient back story is given to each to allow insight into their motives and it really helps flesh them out as characters. The token comic relief duo that has appeared in some form in all three of the titles in the series is resurrected again, this time as the father and daughter duo Shao and Rachel. While their routine seems somewhat forced and the comedy often proves to be more miss than hit, they manage to fill their role adequately. Unfortunately, with the exception of a couple of the villains and some other party members you acquire later in the game (who I will not name in order to preserve the surprise), the noteworthy characters end there. The other secondary characters are either uninteresting and one-dimensional or just plain annoying and obnoxious (I'm looking at you, Aida). Too many of these characters are painfully underdeveloped and are at best forgettable. Too many characters are introduced only to advance the plot and are not given the attention they deserve. As such, many of these secondary characters will most likely be forgotten soon after the credits roll.

These dismissible characters could have easily been forgiven had the primary characters been more unique or impressive. However, besides the occasional laugh caused by the interaction between Forte and McBain, the staring cast is remarkably dull, especially in comparison to the stand out characters of this game. The interactions between these characters often seem shallow and it is difficult to feel anything besides apathy towards them for much of the game. They fail to develop the lead characters as well as in the previous games, which really proves detrimental to the quest as a whole. The game feels more as if the adventure is occurring around these characters, rather than as if they actually serve as the galvanizing forces behind the quest. Very few of the characters in the game provide any sort of genuine entertainment. As such, the story is forced to carry itself off of its content alone, which proves to be too difficult of a task for much of the game.

My dissatisfaction for some of the characters and plot most likely stems from the one aspect that has plagued this series since the first title was released: the translation. Any interaction you might have had with the past two titles should have alerted you to the fact that the people translating this series must have had better things to do than their job. It appeared as if all they did in the previous titles was dump the entirety of the text into Babelfish and then went back later and make some parts worse, just for kicks. While the shear quantity of spelling and grammar mistakes seems to have decreased somewhat from the previous iterations, they are still obtrusive and some dialogue is impossible to decode. This proves detrimental during the crucial story sequences and also during the interactions with all of the various townspeople. While there are some funny or interesting people to encounter in each town, from people concerned that the “old man” in your party will hurt himself falling down the stairs to a guardsman more concerned with fighting the city's trash problem than the invading armies, too many of these interactions seem very awkward due to what appears to be another lazy translation job. Sometimes the translation seems too literal (one woman laments that her hands are always full of her child) while other times it is oversimplified and inane. What is truly devastating is that once again I'm sure that subtle nuances of the character's personality are lost in translation. Once again, there is a really good story hidden somewhere under all of this poor dialogue and occasionally the story and characters still manage to be potent in spite of the very best efforts to sabotage the game by the translation team.

The best addition to this game is the inclusion of actual supplemental content to the main quest. This time around, there is more to do than simply travel and talk. Throughout your quest you search for and collect both artwork of your characters and sonomemories, which allow you to replay the tracks from the soundtrack at any time. The soundtrack in this title is even more impressive than in the previous two titles, and it is nice to be able to replay the tracks at your convenience. While some of these can be found during the main quest itself, a lot of this extra content can only be collected by completing the many various extra scenarios the game offers. Unlike past titles, there are a number of extra bosses and monsters to fight by playing in front of one of the many tuning forks scattered throughout the land of Weltluna. By playing in front of these forks, Forte and company find themselves transferred to an extra scenario room where you can actually explore dungeons and fight bosses from previous games. While this is a nice touch itself, LoH III even also allows you to join with members of the past two titles to explore these areas. Some of these characters I didn't particularly enjoy traveling with the first time around, but it is nice to reunite with your favorite characters from past titles to form a dream team of sorts and temporarily ditch your less interesting traveling companions.

While not as impressive as the soundtrack, the graphics and artwork are both of fairly high quality. There really isn't much difference in terms of quality in comparison to the second game. The character sprites have once again returned and they're all well done. The surroundings are all incredibly detailed and the extra little details are impressive, from the reflection of the sun on the water to the shadowing of rocks and the ground. Just as in the first two games, all of the main characters have portraits to accompany their text during in game conversation. This is still a nice touch, but they seem to lack the quality from the first two games. Although this is only a minor complaint as most games lack these entirely, it seems as if the artists got slightly lazy on LoH III and many of these portraits lack the quality observed in LoH I and II. Some do a very poor job of conveying the emotion that they're supposed to and there are only very minor differences in expressions between most of the character portraits. Once again, this is only a minor complaint and would not have been problematic at all unless you consider how effective these had been in the previous two titles.

The pet system has also returned, but is even worse than it has been in the previous two titles. Early on the game, you get a second pet to accompany you. The difference between this pet and Jan is that Jan is actually useful. While you have the option of selecting cat, dog, or rabbit, there really is not any difference and you will most likely forget about your pet immediately after they join you. While you could feed them pet food you bought from the food stores in the previous games, nobody sells pet food in Weltluna, probably because the pets in this land are incredibly durable and can either go for long periods of time without food entirely or munch on whatever garbage you happen to be carrying. Have excess magic potions? The dog will eat them. Those marbles just wasting space in your inventory? Give them to your pet. Forget to sell the Sworder Sword (which is a real weapon in the game, by the way) at the last weapon shop? Your pet turns it into poo without even whimpering. Mmmm….taste that delicious steel. I have to admit, I did enjoy the pet system in this game more than in the first two because I got some amusement watching what my pet would eat. It is just slightly bizarre that you're towing around a portable disposal system, but it did really help conserve space in my inventory.

The atrocious battle system also received some notable upgrades to make it somewhat less atrocious. While the core of the system has been conserved from the previous games and you have a turned based experience, a number of small tweaks end up having a big effect. Instead of getting a set party of four, you frequently have a group of six to choose from and can switch them in and out during the course of battle. Unfortunately, the character pool is so diluted that you still are most likely going to be stuck with a character or two or three or four that you do not particularly care for. Like the party system, the finishing moves have been modified to add a bit of strategy to battles. Now, after the character's power has reached “full,” you can trigger the move anytime during battle by pressing the square button. What is particularly clever about this is that not only does your character perform an attack, it also cancels whatever action was occurring at the time. This effectively allows you to block opponent's attacks if used properly and makes the already easy battles even easier. Additionally, there is actually some customization allowed to the lead characters this time around. While the supporting cast often comes with a predetermined set of moves which is learned as you progress through the game, Forte, Una, and McBain all can hold resonance stones which allow them to learn various attack spells or support spells as well as boost some of their stats. Not only do these attacks spells prove more effective against select groups of enemies (and absolutely necessary to some enemies that are immune to other forms of attack), you can also combine these spells into a more powerful spell if two are used in conjuncture. Finally there are also more boss battles this time around and the game seems to progress at a better pace. In addition to improving all of the bad aspects of the gameplay, LoH III still implements all of the good aspects from the past two games. Enemies are still visible and can easily be avoided and…well, I guess that is all that the previous two titles did right. While any one of these changes really isn't that significant, when considered as a whole, this is a far more effective battle system than the one featured in previous games. However, this is sort of like giving an award for being the most handsome of the three stooges as the battle system still is too oversimplified and somewhat boring. The lack of a difficulty in this game almost makes all of the additions superfluous anyway, as there are still only a handful of battles where anything besides the standard attack option is required.

This is unquestionably the best game in the series from a mechanical standpoint. With an improved battle system, amazing soundtrack, and a decent amount of additional content, many of the nagging little problems from the past two titles have been remedied. Despite all of these mechanical improvements, LoH III: SotO still falls short of being truly great or even the most enjoyable title in the series. Despite all of these improvements, the story and characters failed to captivate me like the first game in the series and the plot, while not terrible, dragged too often. Like its predecessors, the ineffective translation ends up hampering the story and LoH III falls short of being a top tier RPG. However, this is by no means a bad game, and any fan of old school RPGs should enjoy the adventure. The last couple of chapters are genuinely enjoyable, despite the horrid translation and subpar characters. While the first game is my personal favorite of the series, LoH III is an enjoyable experience and wraps up the trilogy as well as could be expected.

Epic Ballad (THE GOOD):
+Minor tweaks end up having a significant effect on the quality of the game
+Lots of extras and fan service aimed at fans of the series
+Story wraps up well, despite all of the slow patches
+Amazing soundtrack, one of the best you'll hear on a handheld

Lullaby (THE BAD):
-Worst set of characters in the trilogy
-Ineffective lead characters hamper most of the quest
-Yada yada yada translation still terrible yada yada yada
-Story fails to be interesting for much of the quest
-Pet system should have been discarded long ago

Mexican Polka (THE UGLY):
My party at one time consisted of two prepubescent teenagers, two men over the age of sixty (one of whom was one cheeseburger away from a heart attack), a scantly clad eighteen year old female, two dogs (one of which eats swords), and a squirrel. The dream team for any hardcore RPG aficionado? Most likely.

THE VERDICT: 5.75/10.00

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/07, Updated 08/28/07