The Legend of Legacy is one of those games that you really have to understand what you’re getting into before you get into it, in order to appreciate the experience. Considering the game’s obvious limitations, namely platform and budget, and taking into account the kind of game Developer FuRyu set out to make, it is obvious that they succeeded.
The Legend of Legacy won’t be winning any Game of the Year awards simply because it won’t appeal to a wide range of gamers. And that’s OK. It is built for a very specific target audience, and if you are the type that lives and breathes a good challenge, I recommend The Legend of Legacy to you.
The Positives
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It’s a good thing that The Legend of Legacy’s battle system is rock solid in its turn-based mechanics, because you will be spending most of the game in it. The rewards of engaging in combat are what can make the game addictive. Sure, you earn money, potions and the occasional item drop, all staples of the genre, but the best reward you can get is the progression of your characters.
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Progression in The Legend of Legacy is so open ended, that no matter who you pick, you can configure your team’s strengths and strategies anyway you want. Each character comes with three base statistics, Attack, Guard, and Support of varying levels and your party holds only three characters at any one time. While it helps to hit the ground running with characters that specialize in each facet from the get-go, it’s not an end-all, be-all system.
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How your characters develop is entirely dependent on what abilities and weapons you use. The more a character uses a sword, the more sword-oriented abilities they unlock which couples with the growth of their base Attack statistic. The character that you choose to absorb damage for your allies with the Block ability, will in turn grow more proficient in the Guard statistic as well as unlock more HP to be able to absorb more damage, and so on, so forth.
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It’s very satisfying to achieve the “perfect system”. You will constantly find yourself tinkering with equipment and abilities that gradually iron out the flaws in your battle strategy. Part of this is due to the frequency of battle, so you won’t really have a choice but to tinker. With the amount of effort you will inevitably put in, the payoff of dominating challenging opposition with good tactics is immensely rewarding.
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What’s also rewarding is how the game makes exploring every nook and cranny completely worthwhile. You won’t earn a ton of money defeating enemies in battle, but one of the game’s primary mechanics is Map fulfillment. Each area you explore is attached to a percentage, and as you traverse each new area, your map fills out the details. You can then take these maps to the shopkeeper in the main village and sell them for large chunks of money. This ends up being your primary source of income, and the best way to purchase the best gear. You can also buy ships in the harbor (which require a large sum of money) to venture back to the mainland and bring back better gear. In short, if you want to do well in The Legend of Legacy, it helps to explore everything.
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The game has no shortage of difficulty spikes, so you will never feel like you are unchallenged. Each new area you explore immediately throws some new danger at you, whether it is a new enemy type in battle or an avoidable, but OP monster whose shadow lurks ominously above your head. These monsters eventually become beatable with time and training, but the danger they present when your first encounter them creates an authentic sense of tension.
The Negatives
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It could be argued that the frequency (and sometimes length) of battle is simply a means of extending the game’s playing time, and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. Outside of battle and exploration there’s literally nothing of note that the game does exceptionally well. Sometimes environments can be so jam-packed with enemies, you can find yourself taking on two or three battles in a row without moving your character in the game world, simply because there is so little space and so many enemies on screen.
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While there are seven playable characters, you likely won’t end up deviating much outside of your initial party of three, unless you are really that devoted. With the game’s constant difficulty scaling, your initial party will never become over-powered to the point that you are mopping the floor in every encounter. It’s also a little frustrating that you can’t rotate out the character you picked as your initial protagonist, which wouldn’t be such a big deal if the choice to pick them actually mattered from a narrative perspective (which it doesn’t).
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Speaking of narrative, I find the game’s title to be a bit of a misnomer. There isn’t much of a “Legend” or “Legacy” to speak of, outside of the general details you get about the Holy Grail or the previous inhabitants of the island at the outset of the game. Sure, you get the occasional cut scene here and there, and seeing the dilapidated ruins throughout the various environments can be used as a replacement for spoken dialog, but the story is so far in the background, the context of the details that get revealed can be easily lost on you. The characters are more of a vessel for player action, rather than active participants in something greater. This is a bit disappointing considering the development team had Masato Kato, who penned the great Chrono Trigger on board.
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Grinding is one of those things that many players feel like should be an optional thing, generally reserved for side-questing or deviation from the main game. For The Legend of Legacy, grinding is the main game, and that will likely lose a lot of people’s interest. Not only are enemies generously plentiful throughout the levels, but retreating from battle will force the player to return to the beginning of the respective level with respawned enemies. And you will find that retreating will be necessary on multiple occasions.
The Legend of Legacy is built for a very niche kind of JRPG fan much like its unofficial predecessor, the SaGa series. Traditionally, when we think of role-playing games, we think of complex characters and engrossing story-lines. Sometimes so much to the point that the narrative can overtake the importance of gameplay. This is not the case with The Legend of Legacy.
You begin the game by picking a protagonist from one of seven different characters, each with a different backstory and explanation of how they ended up on the island of Avalon that the game takes place in. All you really need to know is that the King of Adventures discovered the seemingly uninhabited island of Avalon and it is believed to be the location of the Holy Grail. There are rumors of something (or someone) proclaiming to be a false god, and several of the playable characters are here to investigate or eradicate it. That’s about as far as the narrative goes, as the majority of the moment to moment gameplay is predicated on player exploration and battle. Lots and lots of battle.
In what is generally thought of as a narratologically focused genre, it is refreshing to see a more ludological take in what has become somewhat of a dying breed of video games. It should be noted that The Legend of Legacy is not for everyone, and at times can do its best to alienate some of the most devoted players, with its unrelenting challenge and grind. But it’s unabashedly narrow focus lends itself to be a more addictive experience rather than an emotional one.
Let’s take a look at the positive and negatives of The Legend of Legacy.
