#14: The Legend of Dragoon (Sony Computer Entertainment, 2000) - PS1
A friend of mine insisted I should play this game (seeing as it's his favorite game of all time). And I'm glad he did, as it's one of the best rpg's I've ever played. The plot is nothing mind-blowing (though it's still good and entertaining), and the soundtrack is kinda forgettable*. But the graphics are incredible for the system, and the battle system is TONS of fun, thanks to the Addition system. It's like those timed attacks of Super Mario RPG, but waaaaaaaaaaay deeper/cooler.
Critics bashed this game for trying too hard to copy FF or something like that. I never understood that, seeing as everybody who played this game agrees it's great. It's a shame the franchise died so early, it could potentially be a big rpg series. I'm talking 2-3 million per game here. This game came out in the end of the PS1 lifecycle and still sold around 2 million, and when it was released on PSN, it remained the best-selling PSOne Classic for A LONG time, finally topping Final Fantasy VII.
This game's development was actually led by Shuhei Yoshida, who revealed a sequel was put into pre-production. Seeing as he's now the big guy at SCE Worldwide Studios... there's hope.
*though it does have a delicious main theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWWgIgj3eoo
