The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion

"Yet another bland RPG for the PSP"

Legend of Heroes was one of the first role playing games on the PSP. It was the second one I started but to be honest it sat there for a good two years without me playing it again until recently. This seems like a love it or hate it game but why? Read on!

The story follows Avin, a young boy who is sent to leave far away after his sister has been taken and now he sets out to find her. Have to save the world. blah blah blah. It's your typical story. The characters are some what interesting and the world the game creates has a bit of life and history to it. From what I can gather those who have played the Japanese version and understand Japanese found the dialog to be poetic and the best part of the game. However, this is a review of the American release and it has bland and lifeless dialog that never seems like it will come to an end. The story is some what interesting though but nothing new.

Graphic wise this game has had an update since its original release way back in the mid 90's. To be honest the game looks rather good. Not wet yourself good but it can hold its own. It has a drastically different look than Popolocrois. Character models look pretty good and their anime inspired portraits are pleasing. The cut scenes look good and as you advance in the game you can tell that a lot more though went into the locations. The final area in the game makes the early parts look like crap.

The sound in the game is a bit bland. Music did nothing for me. Not even the battle theme did anything for me. There is no voice work and the sound effects are your usually RPG flare. Nothing new here really.

The control in the game is alright. It's easy to learn and combat is all menu based so you don't need to worry about anything except traveling towns and locations. Problem is the controls feel a bit floaty, not only with the analog nub but also with the d-pad.

Legend of Heroes has your typical game play. Turn based combat. At the start of a battle you select the actions for each character and then it all blends together and I guess whoever has the best speed attacks first. There is no way to see who will attack before a boss or anything so some guess work is needed for the first round or so.

The game offers magic but it felt like you have too many white mages and not enough black mages. But at other times it feels the opposite. It would have been nice if everyone could use both kinds of magic but also if there was a life spell. Is it so much to ask for a life spell at all? Would have saved me so much frustration. You also have a set of moves that can only be used when your power meter is full. You will need to just save those for bosses. You also have skills like steal and what not.

I think the games biggest problem and the reason I couldn't enjoy it is the fetch quest idea of the entire game. After doing three lame quests I figured I could advance with the game but oh, before you reach the next town you must go back to the previous town and get a book to the library to take it back to the outskirts of that new village. That's annoying and it's a constant theme in the game. Mundane task after mundane task does not equal fun.

The game doesn't use random battles like other games. You can run into monsters on the field and enter battle. Fans of the Grandia series will know what I am talking about.

Another problem I have with the game is that you not only level up very slowly but you gain so little that it's annoying. By level 40 you'll be lucky to have 300 HP and the final boss can deal over 400 in one turn to everyone unless you have cast the correct spells to stop it. That's annoying and it never seems like you do enough damage and the fights, even the normal ones, feel like they drag on forever.

The game is fairly long and it does have a number of extra side quests but really, when a game is pretty much one giant side quest there is no real reason to do the extra ones. It is a longer RPG than Popolocrois though.

I honestly can't recommend Legend of Heroes. It's not that it's a terrible RPG but it seems to suffer from a few annoying problems that drag it down into the pits with games like "Beyond the Beyond". If you're looking for a PSP RPG than I recommend looking else where. For those who are wonder about the time line for this series. Legend of Heroes 2 comes before one and three takes place between the two and should be played last as it fills in gaps.

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 7/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 2/10

Final Score - 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/12/07