Back in the early 2000’s I borrowed a friends PlayStation and games for several months. I played several RPG’s from the 90’s that have become classics today such as: Final Fantasy 7,8,9 & Tactics, Breath Of Fire 3&4, and my personal Favorite Legends of Dragoon( released June 2000). While all of these games are solid games something just spoke to me in LoD.
For starters what set LoD apart from the others is the combat you had rhythmic based combos called “additions” that added a new layer to melee combat.
Early in the game your magic was limited to consumable items. Some of which(multi items) when used during combat you had to press the X button rapidly to build up their power.(This may or may not have been abused by an auto-fire controller)
Not too far along in the story you start to Unlock each characters Dragoon powers through various plot scenarios(Except for Kongol’s his is obtainable multiple ways). Once unlocked you had to charge up a meter in order to transform into a dragoon. Each transformation had a short sequence that really made it feel powerful and gave a good show case for what element they possessed. Your characters had separate levels for their dragoon forms that relegated how many turns they could stay transformed and what spells they could use.
Plot wise the game hit the ground running and had dramatic turns at several key points in the story that made for an rather engaging story. The game boasted several high quality but sparse fully voiced and animated CGI cutscenes rare for a PS1 title. That being said the translation for the English port of the game could have used a little more polishing. Another point worth mentioning the games title scene and music is quite memorable. The character specific musical themes were spot on and the background music used in combat lent itself to the rhythmic style of the additions used in melee combat. All in all it was a memorable experience for me and Legend of Dragoon is one of my favorite RPGs of all time till this day.
Dungeon Dudes Tryo 