/vr/ - Retro Games

Yes. I think a lot of people only shat on it because it was apparently marketed as an FF7 killer. Of course it didn't deliver on that hype so the result was THIZ GAYM SUKKZZZ.

I went into this game not knowing one damn bit about its marketing history, just accepted it for what it was - an RPG was a then-unique battle system and cool dragon armor, and had a blast with It. Still in my PS1 top 5 list.

Absolutely.

>>2701851
>everyone else

No. A very vocal minority liked it and everyone else didn't because it's blander than mashed potatoes.

It's my favorite PS1 game.

>>2701851
Play it. If you like it keep playing, if you don't then drop it. How hard is this?

>>2701851
I guess it's worth checking out if you're into PS1 era JRPGs, but you'll enjoy it more if you lower your expectations.

>>2702028
thats not /vr/ mentality

here we need to have at least a dozen threads about a game first detailing and explaining every reason why and why not to play a certain game.
then we judge the game based on the fanbase it has acquired since release.
then we play the game and pause every ten minutes to makes a thread and ask "does it gets better?"

Anyone who listens to video game "critics" is as retarded as they are.

God Hand never forget.

>>2702272
That's more like "the internet in general" mentality though.

>>2702280
God Hand not retro.

>>2701851
It's decent. I personally found the combat DDR more tedious than exciting, and the "dragons" were a bit disappointing. But overall, it was decent.

>>2701851
It's a love or hate sort of thing. Mostly because of the battle mechanics being different.

Use a fucking Stardust guide when you play, it's the most bullshit sidequest ever made because they don't have any sign of being on a map along with some of them being missible.

I couldn't get through disc 1. The combat load and unload sequences were longer than the fight, and the chains get stale fast. Plus, there's zero exploration.

>>2701851
Eh not really. Like the other anons said the novelty of the rhythm minigame combat wears off rather quickly, the story and characters were blander than bland, the world map is on rails, the graphics were 3 years out of date by that point in time and there's only 1 sidequest in the whole game and it's shit. Even ignoring the usual Final Fantasy there's so much better stuff on the PS1 more worth your time.

I played this game with a very fresh mind. I own most of the 'best rpgs in the ps'. So, when I played for the first time,
I thought: Well... this is like FFVII, so it's ok.
The story is fine, but the game is very unbalanced. VERY. The random battles give you very little EXP and the bosses give you a lot. Sooo... I never cared about grinding. And it worked just fine, until the last boss.
Anyways... the game is just fine, but if you find a hard boss and want to grind a few levels, you have to play about 6 hours to make any difference.
The rest of ok... not great.

The game was Sony's competitor to FF7, when it was originally gonna be a Nintendo project. Priority and quality of LoD's development took a drop when Squaresoft defected anyway, which explains the missing VA work during battle cutscenes and the VA that did end up in FMVs.

Really? I seem to remember it getting scored pretty decently.

>>2702428
For the time it was compared to VIII actually. Kinda ended up taking elements from both though.

>>2702482
I remember Playstation Magazine at least gave it a decent mark. Something along the lines of "normally this would be bland as white bread but it works because everything is in the right place."

>>2702521
Even then as flawed as VIII was at least I can admire it for daring to take risks and break the traditional FF formula, LoD doesn't really do anything new aside from its rhythm minigame combat gimmick.

>>2701851
>Critics shat on this game

it got pretty decent reviews when it came out

>>2701851
First CD is definitely worth it. You'll just be disappointed with the rest.

>>2701851
I know I liked it, but I literally can't remember a single thing about the game now. How should I interpret that.

>>2702637
Depends how long ago it was.

>>2702664
5 years.

>>2702637
That your assessment of it is spot on: It's a very forgettable game.

>>2702813
A very forgetful game that was good enough for him to keep playing instead of quitting an hour in?
All I got from it is the dude has bad memory.

The battle system is annoying

The exp and gold you get from grinding away is ridiculously small, making it take hours and hours

Shana is pure irritation. Half the game revolves around dealing with her bullshit, and what do you get out of it? The weakest character in the lineup.

But other than that, the game manages to pull through it and still be a very decent and memorable game.

And it must not have sucked too badly if 15 years later it's still memorable, still drawing in new players, and still being discussed.

>>2702837
Bland, inoffensive things are often forgettable.

>>2702856
Neither of those things mean the game is bad. You're going to have to come up with something better than that to shit on this game.

>>2702863
Who's saying the game is bad?

>>2702864
You know who you are.

>>2702837
Just because you liked it as a kid doesn't make it good.

>>2701851
>Is it worth a play?
If you haven't played many JRPGs, yes.
If you're already very familiar with at least the classics like DQ, FF and all that jazz, it's bland and forgettable.
The game shines in a few points though, the henshin is a nice idea, some locations like Zenebatos are pretty good looking and the music isn't entirely garbage.

Talking about the system itself, the game's a mess, it's not just severely unbalanced, but the combo system, which initially is a novelty and is pretty fun mainly to the atrocious american VA(HARPOON/BLAAAYZING DIENAMOWWW anyone?), makes the system dull, excessively slow and longwinded, there's no customization at all and the graphics are kinda subpar considering how late it came out on the system. No subquest to speak of except Stardust collecting and getting some Dragon forms earlier makes the game a boring linear slog with a story that's far from original or unpredictable

Other than that it's an enjoyable little game which is pretty much on par with the non FF games on the PS, like Legaia, a 6.5/10, 7/10 max, you can find much better games overall.

Lavitz best bro.

Legend of Dragoon has one of the most engaging stories I've ever experienced in a game. The mystery of the Black Monster was a fantastic prod which kept me playing, and I was genuinely shocked when its mystery was finally revealed. A 2nd playthough was also satisfying when I had hindsight to work with.

I feel like this game does well only because it's part of that period of vidya history when excellent RPGs came out.

My first PS Final Fantasy was 9. I played the fuck out of it and then went on to beat 7 and 8. After beating that last one, I remember still wanting more RPG to play so I got this game and beat the fuck out of it a couple times too.

Compared to the heavyweights of the time like FF8 and 9, its graphics are pretty bland. It sits somewhat uncomfortably between 7 and 8 in that department.
Story-wise, it has its ups and downs. I remember the beginning to be quite engaging. The end of disc 1 was quite shocking at the time.
The battle system is alright, just too repetitive. The ideas behind it are sound, it's just that it's too limited in scope. There is absolutely no customization beyond character equipment. Also the battles take a bit too long. It suffers from the same thing FF9 does : battle transition -> battle field camera pan -> camera settles -> battle finally begins -> battle ends -> victory pause -> fade to black -> battle spoils screen -> load screen back to field.

Despite all this, it's still a great game. A great addition to any worthy vidya library, especially in the RPG department. A lot of games are much better than this one, like Xenogears, Vagrant Story or Valkyrie Profile but they don't quite have that special "something" Legend of Dragoon does that make it so popular to this day.

>>2702917

>No one will ever make dragoon-mode LOD action figures


>>2702919
>and I was genuinely shocked when its mystery was finally revealed

I thought it was pretty obvious.

>>2702919
>I was genuinely shocked when its mystery was finally revealed.
Bro, it's so fucking evident after the first related cutscene and a certain party member reactions.

Anyway...VOLCAYNOW

>Rose
>be thousands of years old
>when she joins the party she's at level 5 with no skills learned

This is one of the worst parts of JRPGs. I get they do it because it'll destroy the balance of game to suddenly have a high-level character join your party, but it's so unrealistic.

>>2701856
Or maybe they hate it simply because it's a shit game?

>>2702943
>but they don't quite have that special "something" Legend of Dragoon does that make it so popular to this day.

What's that? Childhood nostalgia? That's the only reason I can gather as to why it's held in such high regard.

rpg system is great and challanging. story is great. interactions between main characters is fucking awful. tried to pick it back up not too long ago, couldnt get pst the highschool relationship crap.

>>2703176
What was so great about the story?

What was the funniest voice byte in the game?

"THE BLACK MONSTUR"

>>2703205
HARPOON>MADNESS HERO>VOLCANO>SPINNING CANE>BLAZING DYNAMO>Everything else

>>2703176
Guarding makes you completely invincible.

>>2702917
I actually wish more games played with that henshin idea a little more. SaGa Frontier did it with Alkaiser and it was pretty fun.

>>2703697
Not completely invincible, but it's pretty damn OP. Reducing damage, recovering a percentage and being invulnerable to status is just too much.

It was one of the few games when Defend was actually viable though. Not many tend to make it the best option except for only a couple of scenarios. FFV did Guard on the Knight but that's all I really remember.

>>2703205
Albert's GUST OF WIND d-dance.

>>2703214
Madness Hero was fucking gold, but it was also the most ass addition in the whole game for me. I always got it too late for grinding SP, it did nothing in damage, and I could almost never pull it off.

I remember liking the world and wanting to see more of it, maybe not during Dart's time though.

I liked the whole DDR mechanic in combat idea. I mean a lot of RPGs now just have you select attack and that's it, it's all up to the numbers from there on.

I liked being able to transform into a more powerful state for a turn or five depending on how high your DG level is and how well you are at the DDR mechanic.

I just wish it had a sequel to iron out the kinks. Like only being able to hold 32 fucking items at a time.

>>2702919
>I was genuinely shocked when its mystery was finally revealed.

If they used a different model for the monster other than just Rose but completely blacked out then maybe.

>>2703059
>Rose
>gets the Dragoon Buster
>looks just the same as her other rapiers

>>2703059
Good thing it's only a problem for people with severe autism.

>>2704207
So it's only a problem for the people that play RPGs?

>>2704213
Now you're thinking.

>>2703059
MORE AND MORE

>>2703202
you know...its been like 15 years since i last completed it and the only thing i can remember is dragons and a giant tree. so theres that.

>>2704045
Well, except SaGa Frontier there's Wild Arms 2 with Knight Blazer which is a pretty good henshin.
>>2704054
Madness hero is the best art for charging up your dragon form, it almost completely fills one meter, of course you get ass damage in return but you can get to your Dragon Form very quickly.
But yeah it's pretty much useless anyway.

>>2701851
I tried it several years ago, and never got past the prison. I didn't like anything about it.

>>2702943
Well to LoD's credit the loading times were nowhere near as horrendous as FF8's or FF9's.

>>2701851
i started playing it recently. good game if you can look past the ff7-like graphics and feel. great music, and interesting battle system, too.

>>2701851
Well to be fair it is pretty meh, even for its time. I'd say it's worth a play if you've already played all the good JRPG stuff the PS1 has to offer.

>>2701851
Critics gave it average review scores because it was a really run of the mill JRPG with nice looking cutscenes.

>>2701975
>mashed potatoes are bland
what?

>>2701851

It's still the only game that I have fallen asleep playing, to this day. I traded it in shortly after for Chrono Cross and never looked back.

>>2701851
The addition system is cool, but it turns random battles into a fucking slog.

I literally used gameshark to get money to buy the War God Icon or whatever that makes additions automatic. Also Lavitz dies so early and they go on and on about it for basically the entire game.

I liked it very much when i 1st played it. I couldnt get past disc 3 though. I liked the story and this was the 1st rpg game i played on ps1

>>2701851
You could write an essay on everything wrong with the core gameplay, let alone the plot, script localization and voice acting. It's fine as someone's first JRPG, but it's solidly mediocre as a whole.

>>2710235
>Also Lavitz dies so early and they go on and on about it for basically the entire game.

You hating on Based Slambert, nigga?

GUST OF WIND DANCE the fuck out of here.

>>2701851
It's alright as babby's first JRPG, but if you think it's anywhere near the best of what the PS1 has to offer you really should remove your nostalgia goggles.

>>2701975
>mashed potatoes being bland

What mashed potatoes you eating

>>2710656
You just described the entirety of 90's rpgs

>>2710226
>>2710797
They're just starch and butter with no flavorful ingredients or spices. It's the very definition of bland.

>>2710810
And just like LoD most of them are looked too fondly upon through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.

>>2710830
>Not putting bacon or chives or cheese or ANYTHING on your mashed potatoes.

And even then, they aren't that bland. I'm sorry that you've known shitty mashers in your childhood anon.

>>2701851
Additions are a good idea in theory, but in practice are more tedious than anything since it's just pressing X and maybe O once in a blue moon over and over.

Out of the six non-permanent characters, only two (Meru, Haschel) are worth using at any point past disc 2. Rose and Lavitz/Albert are the disc 1 crutch characters that get shat on quickly. Kongol and Shana/Miranda are useless at any point due to their respective mechanics and stats.

Once you hit the halfway point, there's absolutely no reason to use dragoons (the big selling point of the game) or magic items. This is because every fucking boss in disc 3 is specifically designed to shit all over dragoons, and by the time you hit disc 4 your normal additions will outpace dragoon additions. Magic is useless because bosses have a high magical defense, and limited inventory space means there's no point wasting inventory spots on magic items just so you can kill trash.

Once you get Dart, Meru and Haschel's final additions, which is easy as fuck to do near the end of disc 3 and/or start of disc 4, the rest of the game becomes a cakewalk. JRPGs are stereotyped as having a lot of grinding, but you don't even need that much to make disc 4 a cakewalk. The only real challenge is the bonus boss.

And that's not getting into the generic story, terrible localization, and ear-grating voice acting. At least the music and graphics were good for their time.

>>2711509
Shana and Miranda hit really hard but you need to stock your inventory with items and organise a way for them to stay in Dragoon form.

>>2710932
damn plebs with no UK heritage

>>2702403
That said, most of the cast was interesting by virtue of not fucking around. Dart was whipping his sword out and busting into/out of places all the goddamn time, and insulting villains. Manly guy. Lavitz had great exposition and the friendship between him and Dart was realistic for 20 year olds with interests in common. There's the "I used to practice swinging my sword in front of the mirror in the bathroom" talk, and the "I wanna be like my dad" talk, and the "just date her already!" talk and not to mention the foreshadowing.

Dragoon is much better than anyone gives it credit for. Sure, Rose is a bit of a generic femme fatale before her twist and Meru is just comic relief... but when you know everything about Haschel and Rose at the same time you realize there's some deeper stuff going on. Ending is an asspull, I admit I remember it that way though I haven't seen it for years. The aesthetic in Doel's castle is amazing (if you want to talk about Disc1) and the Virage were such a cool enemy idea.

LoD is really great. Just because the comparison will come, I had more fun fighting and customizing materia in FF7, but that was all grinding and customization. Aside from navigating the menu, I didn't have any skill input to win in FF7. In LoD there was the sweet counter mechanic and the varied and interesting Dragoon Magic and then Dragoon Additionals (which were hype but you didn't get much practice because of how rarely you went Dragoon).

LoD is excellent in many ways that FF7 is not, and although the FF7 cast is much loved and admittedly very well designed, there's no shortage of personality in LoD. It just isn't very cartoony. I remember Disc 1 and 2 pretty well and compared to FF7 whose plot 'moseys' pretty regularly, your goal is always relatively clear and immediate in LoD. Play it.

>>2702856
>inoffensive
>brutally kills the most well-developed character
>main love interest absorbed by monstrous parasite
>main rival is redeemed through the plot while your first ally is revealed to be the monster you were hunting

Maybe you're just fucking slow

>>2713591
>LoD is better than people say
>in fact it's really great
>in fact it's excellent

Now you're just getting overexcited.

>>2701851
>but everyone else seems to like it.

like 3 people in this thread enjoyed it, lol.

>>2713627
It's hard not to remember what I enjoyed when I started thinking about it. You can't say I wasn't pretty fair about the comparisons that were likely to come up. It's maybe an 8/10 but it's not very "fantastic" in some senses, so people don't always like the style. I really like the royal palace design in the first nation from disc2 and the dragon designs were original and cool. The Green Eye dragon being styled like a preying-mantis and spewing poison was awesome -- that part where the soldier dies of the poison while warning you to watch out was crazy. They could have just had a character say "oh no, watch out for the poison!" but that wouldn't have generated as much interest.

That game was pretty hype sometimes. Some of these memories may not be interesting to everyone, yes - nostalgia is leaking through now, but if any of this sounds remotely cool then play the game.

>swapping discs to move about world map

>>2713591
The inability to use magic outside of items and dragoon form really hurt the game, since LoD actually ENCOURAGES you to spam Attack to win.

And I think the lack of personality is mostly due to the shoddy translation, though Shana would still be a bland love interest in any language and Dart himself was the generic JRPG protag archetype, the side characters like Lavitz, Rose, Haschel etc. were far more interesting and entertaining.

>>2702280
God Hand is shit.

>>2710932
So your argument that mashed potatoes without any spices aren't bland is that you add spices to make them not bland.

Right, OK. I'm getting off this crazy train where people use my exact same argument to somehow prove the polar opposite of what I used it to prove.

>>2713649
>moving about the world map at all, outside of backtracking to Lohan and the former Dragoons
There was next to no reason to do so.

>>2714238
Why did they even bother having a world map in the first place? Might as well have just made it a static map screen with list of locations you can choose where to go.