Tales of Legendia
February 13,2006 -

The Tales series of role-playing games has been captivating fans of the genre for quite some time now.  It wasn’t until 2004, however, that the series really made its mark with the casual masses when Tales of Symphonia released on the GameCube here in America.  Tales of Legendia is the newest game to bear the Tales name, and to put it simply, it’s not the best.  Legendia is a fun, albeit completely unremarkable RPG with standard conventions, a weak battle system, a sub-par presentation, and a weak story.

Let’s get this out of the way; if you are done with Dragon Quest VIII and are looking for another game in the genre, this is your best bet at the time being.  But let’s also say this; with the new Shadow Hearts and Grandia games just around the corner, you may be best off to wait. 

The game starts off with a boom.  It’s fast, it’s interesting, and it grips you right away.  You are Senel Coolidge, a young man who is protecting his sister in a dashing escape from your enemies.  Aboard your ship you are suddenly taken over by this huge continent type thing, which actually turns out to be another ship but more like an ancient artifact called The Legacy.  Confusing, isn’t it?  Well, you soon find your sister Shirley to be exposed to all these things that make the natives of The Legacy ship very infatuated with her, and soon after you land, she is kidnapped.  Who’d have thought!  As Senel you are given the daunting task of rescuing your sister, finding out why these people are so intrigued by her, and in typical RPG fashion, saving the world.

Easily, the game’s high point is its cast of characters.  Senel is an enjoyable protagonist due to his unique way of shoving off everything that he doesn’t care for and just having an all around cocky attitude.  It’s a nice stray from the silent-but-deadly or internally-tormented protagonists most RPGs have.  But as great as that may be, it’s hard to be too wrapped up in things because, even though the surroundings are a treat to your eyes, you get a little bored with the happenings and the pacing of the plot.  That’s okay, though, there’s a good battle system backing it up so it doesn’t really matter, right?

Not really.  The battle system is okay.  If you’ve played any Tales game in the past you more or less know what to expect.  But also, with that, if you’ve played any Tales game in the past you know that there are several other games that do the action-based combat just a little better than they do to make you wish there was more to it.  Shallow is a good way to describe the battle system.  They still fight on a 2D plane, unfortunately, and that makes the combat a little overly chaotic.  Striking your opponents can get a little hectic at times due to how much you’re seeing at one time.  It does have one interesting element to it that does feel a little unique, though, and that’s the climax meter.  The meter is used after you unleash a barrage of combos on your enemy that ultimately fill it up.  Once you do so, in a Viewtiful Joe sense, you can stop time and pummel your enemy to the ground.  That, to tell you the truth, is the best part of the gameplay all together.

Battles come overly frequently in this game, and given the nature of the fights, it’s not all that fun to have to put up with that every minute, give or take.  If they would have toned down the amount of fighting and fleshed out the combination system as well as the magic system—which is just your standard set of commands—the fighting element would actually have been pretty good.  Not just that, but probably the best the series has had to offer thus far.

As stated earlier, its presentation is a little lackluster.  It’s not really its graphics or visual appeal, but rather how it all comes together to show you just another one of those anime-influenced RPGs.  The scenery in the game is nice at times, but at other times it feels like you’ve seen it before, not just in that game, but in dozens of other games you’ve already played.  But when the scenery is good, it’s great.  It’s a pleasure to check out how well-thought out some of the areas are and it’s really a shame they didn’t give that level of attention to the whole game.  Now from an audio standpoint, it’s at a deadlock.  Its voice-overs are really good.  The general cast is done well throughout the whole game, and most of the non-star characters in the game are also pretty good.  However, on the downside, the sound effects and score for the game is a little, well, boring.  The soundtrack in Symphonia was much better.  They probably would have been better off just reusing that one.

Tales of Legendia is not a bad game.  It’s got a charming cast of characters, some cool environments, the making of an okay battle system, and a somewhat intriguing premise.  However, after all is said and done, Legendia is not the best the makers of this game could have offered and had it had another few months to develop, it probably would have wound up to be a much better game.  If you’re interested in this game, by all means, check it out.  But if you’re on the fence, you’d be better off waiting for one of the better looking RPGs coming out this year.

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