Underappreciated
It may not have been as hyped as Final Fantasy VII, but The Legend of Dragoon is a well-made game with plenty of action to keep you entertained. The Legend of Dragoon is a 4 disc adventure where you meet many colorful characters, face off against your many foes, kill dragons, and find meaning.
This game revolves around Dart. A laid back guy who is searching for the Black Monster that destroyed his village and possibly killed his parents. The game starts with Dart getting chased by a large green Dragon in the forest, until a mysterious woman saves him. From there he finds out Shana his close friend he hasn't seen in 5 years has been sent to Hellena Prison. Dart being the loyal person he is set out to rescue Shana. While infiltrating the prison he meets a Basil knight named Lavitz. They team up and save Shana and then the journey escalates from there.
There are 2 types of Role-Play Games. Real time and turn based. The Legend of Dragoon is a turn based RPG. Instead of just regular attacking when you press a button to attack, you have to do a button combo based move. It you land it correctly you do more damage and it keeps up how many times to get it right. Don’t worry it isn’t different buttons in the combos. The X button is the only button you use in the combos. It’s highly recommended that you max out ever addition you get. This is because when you do all additions 80 times they max out. When all are maxed out you get the characters special addition. This game also has magic elements. The magic is based on elements such as Fire, Water, Earth, and a few others. During most magic you use, you will need to press the X button as fast as you can for more magic damage. During the fighting the menu of choices includes the usual: Attack, Guard, Item, Escape. On this game there is another choice. The Dragoon transformation option, which you get your Dragoon armor and powers for 1-5 turns (depending on what your Dragoon level is). Just like regular additions, Dragoon additions are done by pressing the X button at a certain point on a gauge. As for Dragoon magic, no button pressing is needed. When you do Dragoon magic it takes SP, which is gained by doing additions. The better you do the addition the more SP you get.
The most impressive thing about the game is the FMV cut scenes. There are only a few FMV scenes in the game sadly enough, but when they happen they look spectacular. The pre rendered backgrounds during game play are also very pretty to look at. The character models though aren’t that pretty. The characters look blocky and sometimes a bit glitchy, but nothing serious. I hope you can be like me and just overlook that. The magic also looks really good when you use it during fights along with the dragoon magic.
The audio is great in this game. The music in the game sounds well, and is easy to listen to. The character’s voices are decent, but could be a lot better. You mainly hear there voices in FMV cut scenes, and when you complete an addition they say the addition name. Never the less the overall audio is well done.
The weapons that characters use vary from swords, rapiers, axes, spears, hammers, brass knuckles, bows and arrows. Just like all RPG games this one has plenty of boss battles, some easy to beat, others sometimes can cause your blood pressure to raise, but nothing too bad. The main characters in the game you need to get familiar with are Dart, Shana, Rose, Albert, Kongol, Haschel, and Meru. They are the band of colorful hero’s you meet in this long adventure.
In conclusion, The Legend of Dragoon shouldn’t be missed. If you are a fan of Role-Play Games this is a must try game. This game is easy to play and can suck time away from you. This is one amazing game for a PlayStation game. The only thing I would change is the character models and add in some more FMVs into the game. I hope my review helped you in any way, thanks for reading.
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