The Legend of Legacy - The legacy of the classics

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Hello everyone! Did you try already Momodora, the charming Metroidvania game I talked about in the last entry? If you haven’t, I really commend you to give it a try, especially if you like classic style games. Actually, for this new entry I’m going to talk about yet another classic style game that, despite having been released pretty recently, it could have been released during the 32-bit era, a game that we can find inside Nintendo’s latest handheld system, the Nintendo 3DS, for Nintendo’s portable platform seems to be aiming to become the “new house of the JRPG,” just like its predecessor, the Nintendo DS, did before. The game is called The Legend of Legacy. Let´s see what this little tribute to classic JRPG games has to offer.

Published exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS in 2015 by Furyu in collaboration with Grezzo, two small Japanese developing studios, The Legend of Legacy is a classic style JRPG game inspired by the golden era of the JRPG genre during the 16/32-bit era. Although at a first glance the game could seem just your typical generic chibi style JRPG game, The Legend of Legacy is a game that created a lot of expectation back when it was first announced, and it was precisely because of the "legacy" the team behind the game has left in the video game industry, for it includes some of the masterminds behind some of Squaresoft’s master pieces such as Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana o Chrono Trigger, names that still nowadays are praised as some of the finest JRPG games ever created. In fact, The Legend of Legacy is considered as the spiritual successor of the Saga series, one of Squaresoft’s cult series that never enjoyed much popularity in the west. The story of The Legend of Legacy tells that the mysterious island of Avalon has appeared all of sudden, and the myths and legends surrounding the island speak of unthinkable treasures, and so a series of characters set on a journey to the island to unveil its secrets. To be sincere, the story of The Legend of Legacy is not the game’s best aspect. In fact, it is quite weak for the genre’s standards, almost as if it was staying on the background on purpose in order the let the game’s gameplay shine, and luckily for us, the gameplay of The Legend of Legacy does indeed shine.

The 7 characters available in The Legend of Legacy. I think I´ve seen that frog in another RPG...

Regarding the title’s gameplay, although The Legend of Legacy bases most of its gameplay elements on the classic JRPG games, do not expect your typical JRPG, after all, one of the game’s main source of inspiration was the Saga series, and if there was something Squaresoft´s series was well known for, that was its constant “reluctance” to join the mainstream of the genre. To begin with, in The Legend of Legacy we won’t find several towns, instead of that we will have THE town, which known as Initum. We will be able to explore the town of Initum with complete freedom, allowing us to talk to its inhabitants in order to gather information about the mysterious island, buy equipment or recruit new characters for our party. The next difference we can in The Legend of Legacy is the game’s structure, which opts for an open world style structure rather than the more linear structure that we can find in most of the titles of the genre. However, we won’t be able to travel freely around the world map. Instead of that, once we leave the town of Initium, we will have the select the area of the island we want to explore. Once in the area, now yes we will be able to explore it with complete freedom, and this is precisely of the game’s main features: exploration. As we unlock and complete new missions (either by talking to someone in the town of Initium or by completing other missions), we will obtain maps to unlock new areas of the island that we will be able to explore with absolute freedom, and by absolute freedom, I mean exactly that, for the game will barely give us any hints as to what order we should follow when exploring the island o Avalon, so it will be completely up to us to decide which is the best way to approach our quests. Just like in many other open world RPG games, we will find areas in which the enemies will be just too powerful for us to handle, forcing us to retreat and come back later once we are strong enough, and we better do so, for if we insist on exploring an area we are not ready for, it won’t be long before we bite the dust. Despite its charming presentation, The Legend of Legacy is one tough cookie, and it won’t hesitate to unleash hell on of us it we give it any chance to do so, so if you are looking for a pleasant “walk in the park,” I’m afraid you are in for nasty surprise. The combats in The Legend of Legacy will be turn-based, although they won’t be random, instead of that, we will be able to see the enemies roaming across the map (or at least their silhouettes), however, we won’t be able to know what kind of specific enemy it is till we start the combat. Once we start a combat, we will be able to choose from the typical options of the genre in order to perform an action with our characters. Our party will be composed of three characters, our main character, which we will be able to choose at the start of the adventure from among seven characters, plus other two characters that we will be able to recruit in the town of Initum, although the groups of enemies we will face could (and many times will) be far superior to us in number. As I was saying before, The Legend of Legacy is a tough game, and that is something we will be able to appreciate right away during the battles. On top of your typical JRPG actions, the Legend of Legacy includes a feature that we will need to master if we are to be successful during our adventures, and that is the formations the game will allow us to during the combats, for in The Legend of Legacy, focusing in an all-out attack will normally have the same result; the death of all our party members. The option to customize our formation will allow us to assign specific roles to our characters, which will improve their stats. On top of this, all the areas in the island of Avalon will be influenced in bigger or smaller degree by one of the four elemental spirits: fire, water, wind and shadow, with each spirit granting different skills to the characters. During the battles, the effect of our powers will vary depending on which elemental spirit influences the area the most, thus we will have the option to summon an elemental spirit during the combats to tilt the elemental balance to our side in order to get edge over our enemies. However, our enemies will also be able to summon elemental spirits (or try to steal ours and vice versa), so on top of the normal battles, from time to time we will get involved in “elemental battles” and we will need to get the hang on these if we don’t want to bite the dust really bad, and although at the beginning it can all seem a little bit intimidating, we will soon get used to read all the icons that will tell us about the elemental spirits that rule each area.

We will be able to explore the town of Initium (and the whole islandof Avalon) with complete freedom.

The exploration and combat systems are not the only ones that are different to anything we have seen previously in the genre, as the level up system of The Legend of Legacy is not far behind. I guess you are all familiar with the saying “practice makes perfect.” Well, that could perfectly be the motto of The Legend of Legacy. Opposite to what we often see in most JRPG games, where the characters level up and unlock new skills automatically by accumulating experience points, The Legend of Legacy uses a system in which, the more you repeat something, the better you will become at it. When it comes down to improving our characters’ stats, the characters will improve those stats that they use the most during the combats. You have a character that tends to take many hits from the enemies? Then their defense will improve. Your character tends to attack? Then it will be their attack that improves, and the same goes for the special skills, for the more times we use a same skill, the more efficient this will become. And talking about skills, which skill we will learn will completely up to the kind of weapons we will be using. The characters will be able to use different kinds of weapons and shields, and each of them will allow the characters to learn different skills by constantly using the same item, and if attacking if your thing, then don´t worry, for you will have also the option to equip the characters with two different weapons at the same time in order to be able to learn more offensive skills faster, so when it comes down to choosing our equipment, we will have to keep in mind not only the improvements it will bring to our stats, but also the skills it will allow us to learn. As you can see, nothing is easy in The Legend of Legacy, and although it is true that at times the games seems to make just too much emphasis on grinding, making the game a tad repetitive and boring, the freedom the game grants us in order to customize the characters is truly addictive.


Regarding the graphics, the art direction of The Legend of Legacy is a true delight for the eyes, delivering some of the best graphics to ever grace the screen of Nintendo’s portable machine, with a style that reminds a lot of the one used by the astonishingly beautiful Bravely Default or even the Final Fantasy titles for the Nintendo DS (specially The 4 Heroes of Light). The game displays chibi characters in a colorful world full of details in every corner that make the game’s world come to life. Another point worth to mention is the presentation of the game’s world map, which will “unfold” as we explore the different areas of the game just like those children pop-up books, which helps to give a lot of personality to the title on top of emphasizing the feeling of being in a fairy tale. There is no doubt the team paid a lot of attention to the game’s presentation, achieving a charming style that fits perfectly the game’s world and that will make you fall in love with it right from the very beginning.

All in all, The Legend of Legacy is a great JRPG game, especially in these dark times for the genre (at least in its most traditional style), although it’s complexity will surely feel intimidating for many players. However, that is precisely what gives so much personality to the title and sets it apart from the rest, and although some aspects could need some polishing, I personally think it is nice to see that there are still teams that decide to take their chances instead of just delivering the same thing again and again, something that, unfortunately, seems to have become the tendency in the industry in the recent years. If you are looking for a JRPG that gives you “something different” while keeping the essence of the classics, The Legend of Legacy is deliver just what you are looking for. Enjoy it!


GAMEPLAY VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljNlG_uppjA

Special edition of The Legend of Legacy