The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion

"It's a finalist, shining like a rugged amethyst, i'm a game analyst, but I can't 'handle this'"

Wow...This game could have been good.

Before I expand on this point, plesae just remember that the opinion presented here is relative to the writer. If you think this is the cat's pyjamas, thats you view, and you are entitled to it. Anyway...Let's continue

When you see the intro, and the art work for the character profiles you think it's solid,
unfortunately, it is all downhill from there.

Many can say "it's good for a handheld," the writer does not advocate that handhelds can be exempt of of being compared to games on other systems (e.g. Gamboy Advance had Kingdom hearts and Tactics Ogre which were not beneath console games in any way really - so it shows god things CAN be done on a portable)). This game has too many 'it could have been good' points to it, to make it a good game.

Control: 3
Movement is downright terrible. There is this weird glitch that makes some versions of the game automatically scroll down (if you can press up on the analog stick it sometimes fixes it though, although temporarily; it is a real put off when trying to navigate past the monsters).

Presentation: 4
The in game art, in terms of character and enemy sprites are just awful. YOu have to battle crabs, bats, etc...who did the art work? Picasso? It really doesn't resemble anything that looks like what it is supposed to be. Even the SNES games look better with their art work. All the sprites in Chrono Trigger look like what they are supposed to be, you would think on a system that is considerably more powerful accomplishing that task would be plausible. Also, the spells are a little bland in comparison to what they could be.

Story: 3
Compelling? Don't think so. A battle between darkness and light (or Bardus and?...yeah!). Well that is new. To be fair though, no one is asking for the writer's to re-write and redefine the genre. There is no necessity for that, but they could write something that makes you somewhat interested in the storyline instead of giving you time consuming tasks that feel like a waste of time

eg. Go back to this town that was about 1 hour away when you just came from there for the purpose of getting a special metal...

The whole game is based on running back and forth. Why do they have to design the game like that? Couldnt they redesign the world to have more places so that you don't have to waste time going back and forth, so you can discover knew places? That is what made Soul Reaver 2 suck so bad, all you did was go back and forth (though the first redefined the genre and was impressive).

Nobody is asking for something amazing, nor a Square clone. Suikoden and Vandal Hearts were solid games, Tales of Eternia was pretty solid too, but something that is not so cliche would have been good. Once you learn a few of the writers methods, you learn to predict what you are going to do, and the whole playing of the game seems arduous.

Music 7
Some of the music was really good. The harpsichord style music at the churches was interesting, but when in towns and mines it was largely bland, and made the writer turn the sound down. Nothing too impressive here. Once again, you dont need power to get good tunes going...Super Mario, Double Dragon, Wonder boy, and Alex Kidd have some of the most memorable music of any games, and all were done on systems with a fraction of the power of the PSP...it just takes a bit of effort to make something decent here.

Gameplay 4
In game battles straight up are painful. For the first half of the game you don't even want to look at the screen because the graphics are horrible (how can they get such good character art for the profile and such land sprite work? It's beyond me). YOu can pretty much make it through by just pressing x and not looking at the screen. For the latter half, you need to use anti-magic or you will get eaten alive by the monsters when you go on your final assault. The enemies are really unbalanced here. YOu have super easy mixed with insanely difficult. There is no real incentive to battle either, as the even though you can learn new skills, it's difficult to know what they do. When battling, there is no explanation of what the skills do, and when you want to get through the game as quickly as possible, you dont want to use something that is just a waste of time.

To summarize here, the gameplay is kind of painful. They tried a new system here (that the writer hadnt seen) where characters had a certain attack range or the would only walk and not attack, and it could have been interesting, but the whole thing on the whole is just painful to see how its put together...Also every character is generic and has ALMOST the same set of moves (either white magic , spiritual magic <fairly useless>, or black magic).

Also, it seems pointless to go around gathering these special spells for Avin when they cost a lot of MP to use and have no real effectiveness to them. Seems like the authors of this game didnt really think too much about how these elements went together.

OVERALL: 4

This game could have been good. That is what one thinks the whole way while playing through it...'It could have been so much more.' It leave you feeling the same way as if you played the old school Saga Frontier...It could have been good, but you never play anyone long enough to care about them (party changes all the time), so consequently you dont really care about the game. To be honest, even though Wild Arms wasnt that great, the writer prefers that to this game...it was more interesting to play that this...it's too generic. It really feels like it is a 'Savings Brand' RPG and while that is cool for food, it isnt acceptable for a book or a movie. Just think of it in terms of this 'would you rather sit through Rambo or Commando or alternatively one of Wesley Snipes 'the Marksman' or Dolph Lundgren's latest movies (both were good but are churning out too much generic stuff now)...It's all about your perception of entertainment. I wouldnt the snipes or lundgren movies, but that is me, ask yourself what you would do.

Afterthought:

The translation for this game is pretty bad too. While it doesnt distract from the game, and you can get what was intended, if a little more attention was paid to making the dialogue humourous, then the game could have been a little more interesting. Having worked in Japan, it seems like one of the staff was a little over confident with there english and thought they would take a shot at it...Big Mistake.

Also the use of the cowbell was kind of tacky...The writer feels that this game had a little too much cheese in it, and it quickly made me lactose intolerant.

To anyone who loves this game...that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I love Xenogears, not many people did, but for me it had differentiation and had depth and I like that...this for me, doesnt but if you like it...good, at the very least you are entertained.

Thanks for your attention

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/06