Mega Man Legends

Megaman Legends was overall a pretty enjoyable RPG.  The graphics were impressive, the load times were short.  The cutscenes looked amazing.  The dungeons were fun to explore.  The dialog was quirky, the towns folk were interesting.  This was a fun world to be in, to bad the game was only 10 hours long.   My only other two complaints is the ugly dungeons generic look of the dungeons and the terrible controls at times.  

----------Battle System----------
Megaman Legends is an action rpg.  You don't gain experience in this game, but when you kill a monster they drop Zenny.  Zenny is money on this island, but the only thing you can do with Zenny is to buy power ups or enhancements, so you might as well consider Zenny skill points if you want.  You can go to shops to boost your max HP, or buy armor.  You can visit Roll to boost your abilities too.

You can find useless items in dungeons either in treasure chests or hidden in walls.  Once you give these items to Roll, she can make useful items for you to use, depending on what you give her.  She can make new Blaster weapons or new Special items.  Blaster weapons is what Megaman can attach to his right hand.  Blaster weapons have a different skill levels depending on what you equip.  Some weapons have extremely high power, others have high rapid ability, others have high range, whatever.  You can level these powers up buy paying Roll to enchance them.  Special items are items you can equip, just like armor or weapons in an RPG.  These items can boost Megamans power, rapid, range and engery.  You can equip up to 3 items at a time to mix and match powers.

Boss fights are similar to Zelda, although different at the same time.  Similarly, you have to find the weak spot and exploit it by picking it apart or waiting to pounce on that weak spot.  Differently, because Megaman fights with guns and not weapons or a variety of items.  Megaman is a 3rd person shooter at heart, but my biggest beef with this is the BAD camera control.  Overall Megaman Legends is pretty easy, but the camera is your biggest enemy.  There is no analog control, so you change the direction you want with the L and R button.  If you want to lock on to an enemy, you use the R2 button.  When locked on you can run, you have to stand still.  This is the biggest problem overall.  If you can't run while locking on, then what's the point.  You can however run and vaguely shoot, there IS an autolock system, but it's mostly terrible.  

----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Megaman Volnut (huh?).  You're a treasure hunter with amensia (what?).  On a treasure hunting mission, Megaman's ship gets shot down from the sky, so him and his team crash land on a small island.  Megaman with friends Roll (Pilot / Engeriner) and Barrel (not Dr Light), they discover the island is holding a secret but has alot of undiscovered dungeons looted with treasure for them to pick.  

The Story wasn't bad, the dialog was good actually.  There are a ton of interesting characters.  The game was kinda funny at times with alot of in-jokes and gags.  The towns folk were even interesting.  There isn't anything to shocking about the storyline besides the fact that his barely has anything to do with the Megaman universe.  Besides Megaman, his blaster and Roll, there really isn't anything in this game that relates to Megaman.  I have feeling they just slapped in on this game to get a sales boost.  This was still a good game, Megaman or not though.


----------Graphics----------
The character models looked great.  The towns were huge, with little load times between them.  The cutscenes were fun to watch with great camera angles and direction.  My one and only complaint towards the graphics is how generic the dungeons were.  I mean, they're fun to play in, puzzle solving and stuff, but if you look at the first dungeon to the second to the third, they're basically all the same with a different color background.  There wasn't much that seperated them.  They didn't have 'character' like a Zelda game does.

----------Sound----------
The sound quality for the most part is good.  The music was rememberable.  All the main characters have voice overs.  The acting is (mostly) good.  Megaman sounds a little like a girl (and so does the final boss).  The sound effects are tight.  There are a few times when some voices were distorted or very low on volume compared to some characters, even within the same scene.  Otherwise it was all good.

----------World Map----------
The world map is kinda like a Ocarina of Time map, although maybe 1/4th the size.  Maybe even smaller.  Once you read the island, you can go a few places, but you'll eventually unlock new areas overtime, gaining access with key cards or finding new weapons that grant you special abilities to get to new areas.  It's the basic Zelda formula, which isn't bad.  The thing is, the world is really tiny, and you unlock most of it early on.  There aren't alot of things to do besides finding the next hotspot.  

Dungeons are short, and towards the end of the game you basically realize all the small dungeons you have been completing is just one large dungeon.


----------Time to Complete Game----------
11:09

I put slightly more than 11 hours into the game, but you could easily beat it with far less time.  I dilly dalled towards the end money grinding and secret searching.  Either way, it was a short experience but fun overall.