The Tales of Destiny series or some would call it simply the Tales series has stretched through different generations of gamers through various platforms since the series first introduction in the 90s. Tales of Legendia is the latest installment from the Tales series but marks the first entry of the series on the Playstation 2 console. The previous Tales game, Tales of Symphonia, was actually introduced on the Gamecube instead even though both Tales of Destiny games prior to Symphonia were Playstation exclusive games. Symphonia received raved reviews from fans and critics alike including from yours truly. Now Tales of Legendia has to follow up on what is considered to be the best rpg game for the Gamecube. Will Symphonia fans be disappointed? No. Will Legendia be as great as Symphonia? No. The answer to how good Tales of Legendia is, lies somewhere between the answers to those two questions. We'll break it all down for you in what Legendia did right and what it did wrong right here.
STORY
On a journey to meet new friends.
I'm here to save you, don't die.
While traveling on a boat at night, Senal and his sister, was attacked by a monster. During the battle with the monster, their boat crashed into what looks like an island. As dawn arrived, the siblings were discovered by Will, a sheriff from the nearby town of Werites Beacon, on the beaches of the island. Shirley had been injured during the crashed due to being in contact with sea water. Senal explained to Will that Shirley is a Ferine, a race of water people who needs fresh water to heal them while salt water sickens them. Just as Shirley was being healed in a pool of fresh water, a bandit named Moses showed up and snatched her away from Senal and Will. Apparently it was revealed by Senal that Moses wasn't the only one after Shirley as both Senal and Shirley were fleeing from unknown assailants in the ocean before their boat crashed into the island. Moses and others who were after Shirley believed she is the Merines, a being who can control the Legacy, a powerful ship. Will explained to Senal that the so called island that they are on is in fact actually the ship, Legacy. With Shirley life in danger from assailants who wish to use her for their own evil purpose, Senal asked for Will's help in finding and rescuing Shirley. This journey will lead Senal and his friends in discovering the secret of the Legacy and the origin of the hatred that have grown between the Ferines and the Orerines, the people of the land, since the beginning of time.
Now this is a very interesting story. The entire story of Tales of Legendia is actually split into two parts in the game. The first half the game is base on the main story while the second half of the game is base on a new danger that threaten the world but yet is done in a way that it's actually a follow up of each of the characters past background. In essence the second half of the game is called the Character Quests. To help put things in contrast, we'll look at the main story in the first half of the game first. Now the main story is actually broken down into two parts itself. The first part of the main story deals mostly with the conflict between the Orerines, people of the land. War has broken between various countries and one of the countries has sent its armies under the command of Vaclav to capture Shirley because she has the power to control the Legacy. And which ever country that has control of the Legacy can use the ship power to win the war. The story here pretty much centers on Senal trying to rescue Shirley from Vaclav forces and to stop Vaclav himself. With Vaclav defeated, the second half of the main story start to focus on the Ferines side and their view of the world and the Orerines. The story itself starts to dig into the history of the two races and how the world began. We then start to get the picture that the main story is about racial hatred and tension between the Ferines and the Orerines that even led to genocide. The main story itself holds a very original plot twist near the end. It also has action, drama, and romance but despite having those ingredients, the main story seems just a bit above average at best in terms of how good the story is. This is because the main story tries too hard to force feed us a supposedly romance between two characters that you just don't see any chemistry at all for those two characters when it comes to having a romantic link between them. It also tries too hard to over dramatize the suffering of the Ferines at the hands of the Orerines that it doesn't come off well. The ending of the main story doesn't seem to make much sense too. But the good news is that the main story is only actually half of the game. The heart and soul of this game story comes from the Character Quest storylines that begins after the main story is over. Throughout the main story, the game drop hints on us about each of the main characters hidden past but never really go much deeper than that. Well in the Character Quests, this is where the game starts to take a closer look at each of the characters hidden past. It's the story telling of each of these character storylines that brings out the emotion of the gamer. You'll be laughing, crying, and cheering for joy as their individual story is told. The Character Quests start off with peace being achieved between the Ferines and Orerines but yet there's a new bigger danger lurking to come forth that will threaten both races and the world itself. The heroes will take the journey to find out more on this new danger but yet at the same time, the heroes start to take a look at themselves and where they fit in in this new world with their friends. The thing about the Character Quests is that it doesn't try to force a story line on us. It just simply show us the soul of these characters and let us judge for ourselves on whether or not we should like these characters.
When I first started playing this game, the story didn't really grab me as much. But once I started the Character Quests, I was really moved on how wonderful these characters are that I became emotionally attached to the story. It's just too bad that the whole game can't be like the Character Quests and only half of the game is. The really bad part I think that hurt the overall story is that the story tries way too hard in forcing Senal on us as some hero that these female characters need to be falling in love with or fighting each other over for. When picking up this game, don't judge how the story is until you start on the Character Quests.
Score 8/10
CHARACTERS
Is this a group picnic?
Let's not beat around the bush here, Tales of Legendia has set the standard in how character development should be done on all rpg games. This is by far one of the best casts of characters around. These characters, Senal, Will, Chloe, Norma, Moses, Jay, Grune, and Shirley have soul to them and it's the reason why this game and story is so great because of the characters here. The heart and soul of this game is the Character Quests that takes place on the second half of the game. The main story is nothing more than an appetizer to the dinner ahead. In the beginning when these characters were introduced to gamers in the main story, you don't see anything special about these characters. Some of them even come off very annoying at first but then something special start to happen. These characters slowly start to grow on you emotionally. By the time the main story is over, the real story starts to begin in the Character Quests where each character background story is told through their individual Character Quest. You get to see how each character is unique from one another and how special they are and different they are to one another. An emotional accord starts to develop between you and these characters. You start to feel sadness, joy, happiness, and laughter for these characters. You start to connect to these characters as real people. You see their insecurity within themselves about expressing their feelings to ones they love, you see how they insult each other as real friends do, you see how they ignore each other as real friends do, and you see how they have insecurity on their looks as real people do. Individually these characters aren't much but as a group, they have a special chemistry that make this cast of character special. The way they interact with each other is like how a group of real friends will interact with each other. When a gamer can relate to a bunch of rpg characters than that only can translate to an outstanding job when it comes to character development. With the exception of maybe Shirley, the voice actors of all the other characters did their job perfectly. Shirley was annoying in the main story but she comes off much better in the Character Quests where no voice acting is feature. There have never been a cast of characters that have made me laugh so hard, feel so much sadness, and feel great joy all at once. An outstanding job here. Everyone will have a favorite character here. Go Norma!!
Score: 10/10
GRAPHICS
I have a look of a goddess.
Tales of Legendia graphics aren't ground breaking in any nature but it is very stunning and beautifully to look at. The world's background environments from trees, houses, and roads are all rendered in a 3-D artwork setting. What makes this a stunning look is that the artwork style used is simple but very slick with lots of detail to them. Add into the mix is probably one of the best use of colors in an rpg game making this a rich and beautiful bright colorful world. The choice of using short deform character models fit this artwork world perfectly like a glove on a hand. While the character models may sport the short and deformed look overall, the details on them that the game designers use is the animated Japanese style look that fit these models nicely. Some of the story cutscenes have Japanese animated cutscenes to them and they are done nicely but nothing that stand out from all the other Japanese animation you see out there. Another great use of graphics is during battles when you see great magic spells being cast out and your fighters flipping and jumping all over the screen unleashing their powerful special tech moves on enemies. All of this done in real time makes the fight scenes a treat to watch.
Sometimes a game graphics doesn't have to have the latest and most realistic 3-D look to it to make it a great looking game. When done right, even simple beautiful render 3-D artwork graphics can be very visually stunning which Tales of Legendia has shown us here.
Score: 9/10
MUSIC
The BBs will sing you a song.
No disappointment here on the musical front. While the game overall doesn't have any particular mind blowing musical score that will make you take notice right away, the game does feature up to 50 different musical scores in various categories featuring pop songs to compose instrumental songs. All the songs are divided into 5 category themes and they are Events, Characters, Towns, Map, and Battles. At the beginning you won't notice much but as you get more and more into the game, you start to really notice how some of the songs are really good memorable ones. There aren't just one or two songs here that you'll like. There will be a dozen of them and each of them will play an important role in telling the story. The songs are done so good that it makes going on a journey in this game, a fun journey. Drawback is that some of the songs should be a bit louder than just playing softly in the background to emphasize the importance of the journey or key event in the story. Still this is one of the better collections of musical scores out there for an rpg game. It's been awhile but I have to say that I pretty much like 90% of the musical scores in this game and enjoyed listening to them while I play the game. There isn't one stand out song that I like the most but as a collection of songs, I like them all pretty much the same.
Score: 9/10
GAMEPLAY
Feel the fury of Talon Storm.
I hit low, you hit high.
Game Information
Genre: Traditional Rpg
Publisher: Namco
Disc: 1 DVD Disc
Memory: 27 KB
Players: 1 Player Mode
Analog Control: Yes
Vibration Function: Yes
Rating: Teen
Release: February 2006
If you've played previous Tales games before than you shouldn't have too much problem getting the hang of this game right away. It might take a bit for new players to get the hang of things but overall the gameplay is fairly easy and simple. All of the traditional Tales features are present in this game but with some changes here and there to accommodate a newer Tales game. Let's go over the basic mechanics of the gameplay first. Tales of Legendia takes place on a big ship, the Legacy that is built like a mini island. As such you only have one town, Werites Beacon that is at the center of everything. You do have other smaller villages and areas to explore on the Legacy just like you would on an actual land or country. Werites Beacon is a very big town with lots of houses and areas to move around in. You'll be interacting with your party members and other NPC characters in this center town. You can also find various shops to buy your equipment, items, and food here as well. You would be spending most of your time moving the story along in Werites Beacon. Once the story cutscenes is over and a destination has been decided by your party, you can stock up on supplies and head out of town. Once outside of town in the field area, a mini world map done in a round compass shows up at the bottom right corner of the screen. This mini map will help guide you to your next destination. Traveling along the field is a wide open space where you will encounter random battles with monsters. You can sometimes find various chests lying around in the open field too. Navigating to your next area of destination can be quite annoying at times as the mini map isn't too helpful and the larger world map is too large to be helpful. Your characters will sometimes tell you in what clock direction you should head to in order to reach your next destination but for the most part you're left to exploring on your own. Once you reach your destination which is usually a dungeon of one type or another, you are left to explore that dungeon to reach the very end of it to fight a boss. The dungeons themselves aren't too hard but they do require you to spend a bit of time exploring. Random encounters are used in the dungeons as well. When you manage to reach the end of the dungeon and defeat the dungeon boss, your party will most likely need to regroup in Werites Beacon again to sort out where to go next and you repeat the whole process of heading out to the field to the next dungeon again. This is how the story moves along in this game. Fairly simple rpg gameplay that you see in other rpg games.
Now the battle system is done in real time action sequence that is really fun to play and allow the player to be engaged in all the fights. Fans of the Tales series or Star Ocean series should be very familiar with the set up of the battle system. The difference between the Tales system and that of the Star Ocean system is that Star Ocean use a 3-D battlefield while unfortunately the Tales series including Tales of Legendia still use a 2-D side to side battlefield. The fights are still fun to play but at this stage in the video game era, why the Tales series still use a 2-D system is beyond anyone's guess. Depending on where you are in the stage of the story, you can have up to 4 party members in battle. There are a total of 8 characters overall but you won't have access to all 8 of those characters until you are on the Character Quests. You can only switch in different party members outside of the battle itself and not during battles. During battles you can only control one party member. The other party members you have to assign them what action they should be taking and the AI will control them to the best of its ability. You can assign the AI party members to be aggressive in attacking or just staying back and healing. The menu option can be open up during battles and you can manually order an AI party member to use a particular magic or tech skill that you like. But this is kind of a slow process that actually stops the flow of battles to be worth doing it all the time. You can assign short cut keys for tech moves and magic for the character that you are controlling. This way you can unleash those tech moves or magic faster. The battle system also allows you to have 2 extra short cut keys that you can use to assign a tech move or magic from the AI party members. This is a limited way for you to have quicker access to special techs and magic of your party members. Unfortunately having 2 extra short cut keys isn't enough to make the battle system more user friendly. In previous Tales games, you are able to switch control of one character to another in mid battles allowing you to control any one party member in dire situations at all times. Here you can't do that. You are just left with control of one character and at the mercy of having the AI control the other characters. This can be very frustrating at times as the AI doesn't always do a good job of controlling those other party members, especially when the AI is controlling the mages. Nothing is more annoying when you don't see the AI casting enough healing magic or moving the mages away from the monsters like it should be. And the fact that you can't switch control of one character to another means you are left to watch those AI party members getting killed because the AI is too dumb to do the right thing. Very frustrating indeed. This is a set back in progress from previous Tales games. But even with this set back of not being able to switch controls to other party members, the battle system is still fun to play and very engaging. Nothing is more fun than having fast pace action fights where you are unleashing cool fighting techs combo and magic spells on your foes. The fact you can hear your party members chanting magic spells to rain down on your enemies and your fighters shouting out their tech moves as they unleashed them makes all the fights more realistic and enjoyable. The battle system is the heart of the gameplay and despite the lack of a friendlier user system, the game is still enjoyable to play till the very end. The pace of random battles are done in an even flow that you won't be escaping from battles too much nor will you need to waste time endlessly on having to level your party members up to ensure they are at the right level for each boss fights. Now most of the usual traditional Tales features have returned here but have been changed a bit to offer something new in Tales of Legendia. Here's a quick overview on some of these features.
Skits: If you played Tales of Symphonia than you should be familiar
with skits. Skits are mini cutscenes of your party members talking to one another
if certain conditions are met. Skits themselves don't offer anything to you if
you manage to activate one, nor do they affect the story at all. Due to this fact,
there's no real reason to try and activate all the skits in this game. Ducts: You can find ducts right outside of each village and dungeon. You
can also find ducts inside a dungeon. Ducts that you find outside of a village
or dungeon serve as a quick teleport back to Werites Beacon. You activate these
ducts just by going near them. However the ducts inside a dungeon serve a different
purpose. These ducts will warp you to a different area of the dungeon. In most
cases these will warp you near the boss fight area that you need to go to. However
before a duct can be activated for warp usage in a dungeon, the duct will teleport
you to a puzzle booth. In the puzzle booth, you are required to solve the puzzle
first in order for the duct to be activated for usage. But the game actually gives
you the option of actually skipping the puzzle solving aspect and just warping
you to the other side of the duct. This actually makes the puzzle booth feature
meaningless. Cooking: One of the traditional feature of the game is the cooking feature
that is seen in all Tales games. If you have the recipe and the ingredients, you
can cook various foods that will help restore HP, MP, and TP for your party. The
change here is that party members no longer individually cook and master a recipe
on their own. This is now done as part of the gameplay system outside of party
mode in its own cooking system. You can learn and master each recipe by baking
a particular recipe for a set number of times. Titles: Another standard feature is the Title system where each of your characters can learn various titles in numerous different ways. Each title will give a character a different stat boost. You can equip a title of your choice in the equip menu. Customization: Once the Character Quests begins, the customization shop will open up for you. Here you can customize some of the best equipment, accessories, and weapons in the game. This is assuming you have the necessary parts that are needed to customize an item. You can find these parts in shops or chests. Iron Eres: Iron Eres is another word for Technique Skills. Iron Eres are
actually broken into two categories, Base Eres and Arcane Eres. Base Eres are
standard technique skills that your fighters will learn as they gain in level.
Arcane Eres is a bit different in that it's not base on reaching a certain level
to learn but base on having to master certain Base Eres first before an Arcane
Ere is unlock. You master a Base Ere by using it a set number of times. In this
case all Base Ere is master once you use it 50 times in battle. Arcane Eres are
actually technique fighting skills that are a combination of two Base Eres. Crystal Eres: Magic in this game is called Crystal Ere. Only your magic
users can learn Crystal Eres. As your magic user gain levels, they will learn
a Crystal Ere scroll. Just because they have learned a Crystal Ere scroll does
not mean the magic is unlocked. Each scroll will require you to meet a certain
amount of Ere stones requirements to unlock a scroll. Once you have met those
stones requirements, the scroll will than unlock the Crystal Ere for you to use.
This can be quite annoying as you'll going to need to spend some time killing
certain types of monsters and hoping they will drop some rare Ere stones for you. Ere Stones: Each monster in one way or another belongs to a certain family type. Now each of these families will drop some rare Ere Stones that belong only to that particular family type of monsters. This is important because Ere stones are used to unlock Crystal Eres for your magic users. The problem here lies in the fact that Ere Stones are rare dropped already but having to try and find the monsters that dropped a particular Ere Stones that you need to unlock a magic can be quite a daunting task. But this is how the magic system is worked into this game. Combos: Creating combos is base on creating a chain of attacks where the enemies don't have a chance to take an action. This is best done by chaining different Iron Eres together in a massive long attack. The concept of doing combos is taking down enemies faster without having them take a swipe at you as well as getting better grades and bonus experience after the battle. Climax Mode: A new feature is the introduction of Climax Mode. At the bottom
of the battle screen is a Climax Gauge which usually start at zero. As you give
and take damage, your Climax Gauge will slowly fill up. Once your gauge reaches
100%, you can enter Climax Mode. There are two options in Climax Mode. The first
option is once you enter Climax Mode, the screen will freeze up, like a stoppage
in time. Only your party members can move around while the enemies are frozen
in time. The Climax Gauge will then slowly start to decrease from fill to zero.
During this stoppage in time, you have the option of doing as much damage to the
enemies as possible before time restart again. This is a great way to set up a
massive long combo chain of attack. The other option available during Climax Mode
is to unleash a Climax Combo that consists of all 4 party members doing one massive
attack on an enemy for major damage. Using Climax Combo is a great way for boss
fights.
Despite the fact that there have been some changes on certain features, the gameplay doesn't really offer anything new that long time Tales fans haven't seen before. Making minor cosmetic changes to the gameplay isn't really an overhaul of offering new things for Tales fans. In fact with the change in the battle system where you can't even switch control to other party members is more of a drawback than an improvement. The magic system of having to farm for certain ere stones in order to unlock an ere magic is more annoying than fun. Other features such as skits and puzzles seem to be pointless. The game wouldn't miss a beat if the skits were removed from it. And as for the puzzles in the duct… what's the point of offering gamers to solve a puzzle if you give them an option to just skip it all together. People would rather just skip solving a puzzle than waste some time solving it. And the reward for solving the puzzles is a meaningless title for one of your characters if you chose not to skip any puzzles. Even with all these complaints, the gameplay is still better than most rpg games out there and still a whole lot of fun. It just doesn't live up to standards that were set by other previous Tales games such as Tales of Symphonia.
Score: 8/10
EXTRAS/REPLAY
It's not over yet, a new evil has risen.
Most of the side quests and extra features won't get unlock until you finish with the main story and begin on the Character Quests. Most of these side quests require you to spend some time finding and collecting things along your journey in the Character Quests. These will net you various prizes that you can use in the game. Treasure Hunting, Kaz &Alfread Journel, Quiz Grandpa, Caroline, and Baker's Hat are examples of some of the smaller side quests that you can do to be rewarded with good rare items in the game once the Character Quests begin. The Battle Arena gets unlocked once the Character Quests begins too. The Battle Arena consists of single and party battle modes in various difficulty stages. Each battle mode has various different prizes as rewards that are handed out if you beat them. The music and artwork extra features are also unlocked once the Character Quests begins. You can talk to certain NPC characters to view various game artworks and listen to the musical scores in the game. This game also has a New Game+ feature for those looking for a replay chance. Once you beat the game your first time, you will be given a grade score. The Grade Shop will open up with various extra features you can have unlocked when you try a New Game+. However those various extra features must be brought for a certain amount of grade points which will be deducted from your grade score. Sure you won't be able to start a New Game+ with all the available extra features but with the Grade Shop, you can buy which extra features you would like to have in your New Game+.
The extras and replay won't overwhelm you in this game but there's enough here to keep you busy in a game that's already a long game as is without all the extras in it.
Score: 8/10
The sad truth of Tales of Legendia is that it really is a great rpg game. A very long exhausting rpg game with great characters and a good storyline that will give you over 80 hours worth of gameplay time. Tales of Legendia is a true rpg game for rpg fans out there. But despite all of the raving one can give this game, it will always be an underrated and little known rpg game among the masses out there. One of the misfortunes this game has is that it was release on a date at the wrong time on a console that has so many rpg games released for it that there isn't enough money from fans to go around and spend on all the rpg games being released on the Playstation 2. Unless you are consider rich, fans won't have the kind of money to spend on every 2-3 rpg games being release each month on the Playstation 2. Fans will have to save their money on the one rpg game that they really need and want the most. Unfortunately, Tales of Legendia was released smack in the middle of Grandia III and the upcoming released of the mainstream rpg game, Kingdom Hearts II, and other smaller lesser known rpg games. With rpg fans saving their money for the bigger SquareEnix rpg games, Tales of Legendia gets lost amongst the rpgs out there. And it's too bad too but that's the way life is for rpg games these days. Survivor of the fittest is how one can call it. Still if somewhere down the road and you have some extra money to spare and time to spend on another rpg game, Tales of Legendia is a great catch if you can still find copies of the game down the road. Highly recommended and highly graded is the word on this game.
