The Legend of Dragoon
Reviewed by Michael LoCascio
Game companies are wise to exert caution when promoting
their upcoming releases. Obviously, the desire to generate
as much interest in their titles as possible exists, but an
overabundance of hype can lead to unrealistic expectations
(not to mention intense scrutiny) from game players. Every
once in a while, a company will decide to push the limits of
prudent advertising and declare their game to not only be
groundbreaking, but also a major threat to the established
kings of the industry. More often than not, these products
fall flat on their faces (remember Bubsy the bobcat, the
supposed Sonic-killer?). Despite the risks, Sony was so
confident in their long-awaited role-playing game, The
Legend of Dragoon, that they hailed it as the adventure that
could surpass Square's Final Fantasy titles as the one game
that stood head-and-shoulders above all other games in the
genre. Thankfully, the time and effort that Sony devoted to
The Legend of Dragoon are quite evident, as they have
crafted a very high quality product. Unfortunately, in the
harshest of ironic twists, The Legend of Dragoon tries so
hard to show its competition up, that it ends up, in many
ways, emulating the very titles that it is attempting to
outdo. As a result, Sony ended up creating a spectacular
game that, because of its lack of originality in certain
respects, falls short of the 'Classic' status that it so
passionately strived to attain.
The story behind The Legend of Dragoon is utterly
fascinating, and held such great promise that the adventure
itself couldn't quite live up to. Sony takes us away to an
august fantasy world where life is brought about by a single
magnificent object known as the Divine Tree. The tree began
giving birth to various species thousands of years ago, and
the world as it now stands contains 107 different races. The
last three races that have been created, the Dragons, the
Humans, and the Winglies, had at one time been embroiled in
a bitter, bloody war, that featured the alliance of Humans
and Dragons and concluded with the Humans gaining
independence from the powerful Winglies. The Humans had
lived in prosperity and peace for centuries following the
war, but as this involving adventure commences, the
tranquillity that the world has enjoyed for so long is about
to be threatened by the extant evil that had never been
fully vanquished. A 108th race is about to be born, and if
this race ultimately does come into existence, all of the
other races, despite their many differences, will meet the
same, horrifying fate.
Despite such a deep, intriguing premise, The Legend of
Dragoon treads over the same, familiar paths that we've all
grown accustomed to in video RPGs. For one thing, with the
world's entire population staring right into the face of
peril, who better to save everyone than a rag-tag group of
bumbling young adults. It's a shame that with so much
promise contained in its main plot, Sony felt the need to
take gamers through one hackneyed, unoriginal event after
another during the early segments of the game. As a matter
of fact, not only does The Legend of Dragoon take after many
of the more prominent RPGs that are already on the market,
but Sony even decided to lift scenes or sequences directly
from other titles and stick them in here. I won't give away
any specifics, but fans of the genre will undoubtedly
recognize events from games such as Final Fantasy VII and
VIII, Star Ocean 2, and Grandia in The Legend of Dragoon,
with minimal changes. The similarities don't stop with the
inevitable love triangle and the Sephiroth-like villain,
either. (Note to game designers: Could we possibly call a
moratorium on all of these cliched scenes of tragedy that
seem to be appearing in every role-playing game since Final
Fantasy VII? Since everyone expects them to occur, they are
completely void of any kind of real emotion, making them
absolutely unnecessary. The time for another Aeris has not
yet arrived, folks).
It can be said, however, that the characters that make up
your party in The Legend of Dragoon are unique enough to
stand on their own. Unfortunately, Sony apparently felt the
same lack of confidence in their characters as they did in
their story, because it seems as if they attempted to model
certain characters according to a pre-established mold, even
if the actions and thoughts of these young Dragoons aren't
entirely conducive to those ideas. For instance, besides the
fact that he is a courageous male warrior, Dart (the hero of
the game) really doesn't share much in common with Cloud and
Squall, the protagonists in the most recent Final Fantasy
games (and anyone who thinks there was anything remotely
original about the character of Squall should think again).
Unfortunately, Sony felt compelled to make Dart seem as much
of an introverted loner as possible (he is even referred to
as a 'lone wolf' at times), even though most of his
actions don't indicate that he is that type of person. One
need only look at the close friendship that immediately
forms between Dart and Lavitz (the first character to join
Dart in his quest) to realize that Dart isn't completely
adverse to company or camaraderie. One never even gets the
impression that Dart would deny the significant bond that
develops between the two warriors - compare that attitude
with, say, Squall's thoughts concerning Zell for the greater
portion of Final Fantasy VIII, and then tell me who the
'lone wolf' is.
While most of the characters in The Legend of Dragoon may
not have been lifted from other adventure games, the
character designs are still flawed in many respects. The
Dragoon crew is undeniably likable, but they are not
particularly endearing. Character development is one element
of the game that could have used drastic improvement. Near
the conclusion of the game, it becomes necessary for each
character to confront and deal with specific painful issues
from their past. Unfortunately, some of these issues had not
even been touched upon in the slightest until the entire
adventure is about to come to an end! It's as if the
designers procrastinated when it came to developing the
characters, and then decided to jam everything about them
into the last few minutes of the game. Needless to say, this
aspect of The Legend of Dragoon is severely flawed. What
little you do get to learn about the characters isn't even
all that interesting or original; most of them are motivated
by vengeance or driven by 'fate'. The one character in the
game that is extremely intriguing is an icy young warrior
named Rose, as the struggles that she must overcome are far
more striking and complex than the typical inner strife that
the other characters must deal with.
The actual adventure proceeds in typical, role-playing
fashion. You'll come across a wide variety of locales,
ranging from towns and castles to forests and ruins. Along
the way, you'll discover more information concerning the
ultimate purpose of your adventure, and you'll meet up with
other characters who wish to join your group on its quest.
As one might expect, the game switches to a world map screen
when your party is making its way from one important
location to another. For some reason, on the world map
screen Sony decided to provide dotted lines that connect
adjacent locations. Your party can only travel along these
dotted lines, eliminating any possibility of independent
exploration. While I don't at all approve of this concept, I
also won't penalize the game greatly for it. Most of the
role-playing games that have been released for the
Playstation are quite linear, and The Legend of Dragoon is
no different. The inclusion of these dotted lines makes its
linearity all the more obvious, but it really isn't that
much more straightforward than any of the recent Final
Fantasy titles. When you arrive at a new location, there
will be plenty of exploring to be done anyway. Even the
layouts of certain towns are extremely complex (which isn't
necessarily a good thing). There are also a few side quests
that can be completed during the journey. If you choose to
thoroughly examine every single nook and cranny that you
come across in the game, you'll inevitably find portions of
'stardust' which can be given to a certain character in
exchange for valuable items (it's somewhat reminiscent of
the Skulltula aspect of Ocarina of Time).
The most unique (and highly scrutinized) element of The
Legend of Dragoon is its interesting battle system. Combat
is turn-based, and for the most part, your characters will
have the typical RPG battle options at their disposal. They
can choose to make use of items that they have obtained
along the way, or they can choose to guard themselves from
attack. Guarding is an intriguing option, as it not only
increases the defensive levels of the character that uses
it, but it also restores a certain amount of hit points.
It's possible to completely restore each character's hit
points in the midst of battle without using a single item.
Of course, the tougher villains in the game will unleash
devastating attacks that guarding will not be able to make
up for, but it's still a very intriguing and useful option.
Things really begin to get interesting when you choose to
attack one of your foes. Most of the characters that will
make up your party perform physical attacks through
techniques called 'Additions'. Successful execution of
these additions is completely reliant on timing. When you
choose to attack an opponent, a small square will appear in
the middle of the screen. A larger square will rotate around
it, rapidly shrinking until both squares overlap. Your
responsibility will be to hit the attack button just as the
larger square is about to cover the smaller one. Depending
on what type of addition is being performed, you may have to
pull off this timing tactic a number of times in a single
attack to do the maximum amount of damage that your
character is capable of. Each character that is able to
perform additions will learn stronger, more complex ones
during the journey, and each addition increases in strength
when it is successfully executed a certain number of times.
One gripe that some players have with this attack system is
that, regardless of how much experience their characters
have attained, a single mistake in timing can result in a
ridiculously low amount of damage being done. I rather like
the fact that success in battle is completely in the hands
of the player. If your attack fails, you have no one to
blame but yourself, which isn't the case in most turn-based
RPGs. With a bit of practice, there isn't a single addition
that is all that difficult to pull off. It's particularly
gratifying to be able to easily pull off an addition that
had originally seemed so incredibly complex. Granted, there
will be instances where your characters will completely
botch their attacks due to no fault of yours, but without an
element of probability thrown into the mix, it wouldn't be a
true role-playing battle system.
Of course, your characters will eventually have another
option at their disposal in the midst of combat: the power
to transform into Dragoons. A Dragoon is a winged human
warrior that feeds off of the powers and capabilities of a
dragon. While in Dragoon form, your characters can pull off
devastating attacks, as well as use magic. Before they can
transform into Dragoons, however, they'll have to acquire a
sufficient amount of Spirit Power, which is awarded for each
successful attack that is made. They can only remain in
Dragoon form for a limited amount of turns, however. Most of
the enemies that you will encounter are quite easy to
dispose of by using normal attack methods, so you'll
probably wait until you reach the spectacular, dramatic boss
battles to unleash your Dragoon capabilities.
The one complaint that I have concerning combat doesn't even
involve the battle system itself. The experience points and
gold that your characters are rewarded with after a typical
battle are simply insufficient. You could take part in
dozens of random battles without attaining enough experience
points to advance a single level. Also, the prices that the
designers assigned to items in shops are rather curious.
While most items are incredibly cheap, some of the more
useful pieces of equipment are insanely expensive. You can
walk into a shop and find all of the items on sale to cost
either thirty gold pieces... or 10,000 gold pieces. Well,
since you given such a puny amount of gold for victory in
battle, chances are you'll never be able to afford those
expensive items anyway. You'll always have enough money to
be able to afford the little items that are necessary for
survival... but you'll never have enough cash to buy the
stuff that would really make your journey a lot easier.
To return to the positive elements of The Legend of Dragoon,
the graphics in this game are absolutely mind-blowing. I
especially appreciated the outstanding cutscenes, not only
for their visual appeal, but for the fact that they don't
dominate the game, especially when in comparison to similar
scenes that take place in some other well known RPGs (Final
Fantasy VIII comes to mind). The cutscenes are used only in
places where they truly compliment the plot and the game
play. I always felt like I was kept busy while I was playing
The Legend of Dragoon, whereas in a game like FFVIII I felt
as if I were spending more time watching than playing.
Also impressive are the incredible animations that take
place when you make use of your Dragoons' special powers.
While these Dragoon scenes will undoubtedly remind you of
the Guardian Force animations that Final Fantasy VIII
contained, you'll probably resort to using your Dragoon
capabilities far less often than you utilized the powers of
the GF's . Thus, you may not get tired of watching them quite
so quickly. Since the abilities of your Dragoons will
probably be used mainly in boss battles, and since the
mighty bosses are absolutely enormous, you will be treated
to some brilliant, spectacular fight scenes in which the
artwork is incredible and the capabilities of the PSX are
truly put on display.
The music in The Legend of Dragoon is almost as outstanding
as the visuals, with the audible highlight of the game
possibly being the mystical song that plays when the first
CD is initially inserted. The range of the tracks in this
game is amazing; compare the sinister, devilish tunes that
play in some of the game's darker locales with the majestic,
melodious track that plays in the Twin Castle.
Unfortunately, while there are two different themes that are
played during battles, both of them are repetitious and
neither of them are very good. The two boss tracks, however,
are superbly done, even though one of them is basically the
same old 's cary hard stuff' that is featured during most
RPG boss battles.
While the music is spectacular, the voice-acting in The
Legend of Dragoon is rather poor. Only Rose has a truly
listenable voice; the rest are either emotionless or
annoying. An interesting sidenote: I believe that the actor
who provided the voice of Shana also did the voice of Rena
in Star Ocean 2.
Once The Legend of Dragoon truly gets going (near the end of
the second disk), there's really no stopping it. The plot
becomes more and more fascinating as the many mysteries in
the game are unraveled, and there are a few surprises that
even role-playing veterans will find incredibly shocking.
Still, the fact remains that most of the earlier sequences
are terribly unoriginal; you'll definitely get the feeling
that you've experienced certain segments previously in other
video games. The text translation has also been harshly
criticized. Granted, there are numerous instances where the
dialogue is imperfect, but it shouldn't really affect
anyone's understanding of the plot, and the translation in
this title is far better than that of many other games (such
as Final Fantasy VII).
All in all, while The Legend of Dragoon is certainly a very
good game, it falls a tad bit short in some crucial areas.
Rather than building on the promise that was contained in
their own creative ideas, Sony chose to delve into concepts
that had already been explored numerous times. It is almost
a certainty that we will one day see a sequel emerge for
this game. Let's hope that Sony decides to stick with their
own ideas the next time around; perhaps then, they will
finally create a game that will achieve the greatness that
managed to elude The Legend of Dragoon.
Overall: 9 out of 10
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