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Forums - Sony Discussion - Legend of dragoon is an awful,uninteresting slog of a game and i don't like it

Average games made based on current trends is not a complain that will go away ever in this industry, but every once in a while i have to remember myself that this isn't privilege of the current evil CEO lords trying to destroy gaming. And to do that i just think about playing LoD again, because those were the most wasted 20-25 hours i ever had in my life.

A lot of jrpg's have some huge flaws(a lot of padding, a combat system that requires more grinding than strategy,etc) but at least the good ones will have ambitious behind some aspects of it, the story, the customization, the atmosphere, or all of them. But LoD is not one of those. Playing this game is like looking at a faceless version of someone you love. It has som of the features i come to expect from the genre, but without the interesting or meaningful parts. Nothing interesting ever happens in this game after the first time you see the combat and get your hopes up for a more interactive version of a turn-based rpg, just to discover later you're playing the slowest post-child collection of it's tropes. 

Combat is easily what makes this game unbearable to me. While it also has the absurd amount of random encounters every bad jrpg has, it is made much worse by the simple fact every single of those encounters is tedious and makes me want to die. Sure timing combos is a neat idea, but what is the point if after it you have to keep pushing the same button forever until your attack ends. And yes,of course you have to do it every time, why wouldn't you want to deal more damage and end this boring ass game faster?. It's obviously an exaggeration, but it felt like i had to wait the length of final fantasy VII Remake development for my attack to properly end. That without counting the Dragoon form attack animations, which also can take an unappropriated amount of time given the already slow pace of every hit.

And of course, this game had the brilliant idea of making you regain health by guarding, and since heal spells are kinda rare you will need to do that, which will consume even more turns since you only regain a small amount of health back after each one(because of course). And yes, you can cheat in this game pretty easily, since most enemy attacks deal less damage than you regain per turn, so if you play properly you can just wait and regain health enough and win almost every battle. And also yes, because of this some battles take even longer, because if you don't grind enough you will have to use this strategy in bosses and stronger enemies, which means you can spend almost 50 minutes in a boss, most of it guarding.

"Well then just grind" is what you usually do in games like this, and you would think that with the amount of random encounter you have in this it would not take that long. But you silly reader, of course that isn't the case. And it isn't the case because every battle will give you almost nothing in experience. You better prepare a podcast to hear while playing if you decide that i'm not worth trusting and go for it, because you will need a lot of time to gain a single level.

The worst part is really that, after getting through all of this, you don't even have a story or characters that are anything more than bland, mediocre and forgettable. Dartz's silly name is the only charming or even memorable thing about him, and i can't even say the same about the other ones(however, look up rose demon's gate on youtube). They're a collection of tropes and cliches that i'm sure were already tame in 2000. The love interest is the love interest for no other reason other than that's how these games do it. The big guy is heavy and dumb, the funny guy says funny things(or try at least), and so on. All of this delivered in the most by the numbers badly localized dialogue ever.

i summed what really kills this game for me already, but i could go on about how the music is forgetablle, the battles and menus take forever to load, the backgrounds are not impressive for a game released after ffVII, the fact that evey map, be it a town or a dungeon, has awful layout so you waste even more time lost and not knowing where to go, etc. Hopefully you got my point already. I think this is the example of a generic bland waste of a game and it's the worst type in gaming, because a game being bad is not as damaging as a game being bad and boring.

If you want a turn-based games with timed combos done better play paper mario. If you want a more traditional fantasy rpg you can try shadow hearts or even chrono cross. I just wanted to voice my opinion that LoD is really not worth even the time i wasted writing this. Have a nice day.



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Ahh, I've been a little bit interested in trying it out, but reading these impressions don't give me much hope. The combat, healing and grinding sounds very very boring.



It was awesome when it came out but it hasnt aged well.



If it isn't turnbased it isn't worth playing   (mostly)

And shepherds we shall be,

For Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee And teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritūs Sancti. -----The Boondock Saints

You know my biggest gripe with that era till the current era (playstation) is always going to be insane amount of load times and yes I do remember it being horrible. It really does need makeover for the modern era just make that bearable.

Last edited by Acevil - on 25 May 2019

 

I honestly never felt like the game required any kind of grinding. Just fight the battles you get into naturally and you're pretty much fine against all but maybe the most difficult optional superbosses. As far as the healing by defending goes, I can remember exactly two bosses in the game where I had to do that even in my first playthrough, and even then it was just because I didn't yet know how they should be fought. In the end, the only real issues I've ever had with the game are its awful voice acting, which was pretty much the norm at the time, and the graphics which are naturally dated these days.



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@BraLoD



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Blasphemy!

Just out of curiosity, have you played Vagrant Story or Final Fantasy Tactics? If yes to either what do you think of them?



Darashiva said:
I honestly never felt like the game required any kind of grinding. Just fight the battles you get into naturally and you're pretty much fine against all but maybe the most difficult optional superbosses. As far as the healing by defending goes, I can remember exactly two bosses in the game where I had to do that even in my first playthrough, and even then it was just because I didn't yet know how they should be fought. In the end, the only real issues I've ever had with the game are its awful voice acting, which was pretty much the norm at the time, and the graphics which are naturally dated these days.

When the combat is this plain i don't even want to do that tbh. And to be really honest, this game released after chrono cross,FFVIII and just some months before FFIX. The "graphics" were already not that good at the time. But i should have clarified this on the post, the artstyle is the problem here more than the shading and/or polygon modeling. Everything looks bland besides some parts of the opening.



Intrinsic said:

Blasphemy!

Just out of curiosity, have you played Vagrant Story or Final Fantasy Tactics? If yes to either what do you think of them?

Tactics is great,but i never properly played vagrant story.



Finale said:
Darashiva said:
I honestly never felt like the game required any kind of grinding. Just fight the battles you get into naturally and you're pretty much fine against all but maybe the most difficult optional superbosses. As far as the healing by defending goes, I can remember exactly two bosses in the game where I had to do that even in my first playthrough, and even then it was just because I didn't yet know how they should be fought. In the end, the only real issues I've ever had with the game are its awful voice acting, which was pretty much the norm at the time, and the graphics which are naturally dated these days.

When the combat is this plain i don't even want to do that tbh. And to be really honest, this game released after chrono cross,FFVIII and just some months before FFIX. The "graphics" were already not that good at the time. But i should have clarified this on the post, the artstyle is the problem here more than the shading and/or polygon modeling. Everything looks bland besides some parts of the opening.

Well, that's really a matter of personal opinion. The Legend of Dragoon is literally my 2nd favourite game of all time, so there's very little about the game that I don't like. The battle system is among my favourites ever, as it doesn't just sit you down passively selecting things from a list but actually demands you to do something in battle. As far as the visual style is concerned, I've always liked it a lot.