Editor’s Note: Thank you to everyone for the comments on this feature. Our retro game reviews are not really meant to be “reviews” in that sense, more of just a look back in nostalgia at some games from long ago. We will consider changing the name of the feature to reflect this in the future.
Hey all I’m back for this week’s Retro Game Friday with a game I played a couple times at a friends house way back when I was a kid. It’s The Legend of Dragoon!
Plot: The plot is okay, but not that amazing either. It’s got a fairly stereotypical plot, and honestly if I hadn’t come across the name dragoon and had a flash of memory about this game I would probably not remember it at all, let alone set myself a reminder to write about this for a Retro Game Friday post.
Gameplay: What little I remember about this game was that it was mostly Turn Based and had what we now call Quick Time Events in it’s combat. Frankly I’ve always hated QTEs, a sentiment shared by many gamers I know, so the precision required for these particular ones stuck out to me as being particularly frustrating. It’s probably why I didn’t bother playing it more than a couple times at that friend’s house. The fact that the dragon transformation was rather pointless was just further incentive to disregard the game.
Characters: Dart is our lead, and honestly is as stereotypical as you can get, destroyed village, kidnapped friend and overall lack of parental figures all make him one of the more bland characters from what very little I can remember. Honestly if I hadn’t read up on the plot while finding the producer and developer information for this post I probably wouldn’t even remember his name. The rest of the cast is little better.
Art: The art is very polygonal, which means it’s aged incredibly poorly since it was released, and the CGI movies are even worse in that regard.
Overall: A very skippable game and definitely not a must play game.
For those who like: JRPGs, Mediocrity, Stereotypical Stories and Cast of Characters.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.
This would be such a greasy game to remake on PS4/PS5
Lol. Great* Not greasy
Your review is a joke. Coming from someone who is an active part of the LOD community- we are offended. Not by the article- BUT your laziness not to fully play the game you reviewed. It’s like me cooking a steak saying I’m a chef. Finish the game next time and maybe next time your review may have validity. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk
Maybe replay it instead of just bashing it. You obviously don’t remember why it was a good game because you didn’t give it a chance. 0/10 Effort put into this review.
So you only played it a couple of times and based what “review” you have here on memory? You shouldn’t be writing reviews for games you’ve barely played. And the gameplay is better than most RPGs of that time. Fun fact: the director and writer for this game is the same man who created the combat system in the Super Mario RPG games. It was far more engaging than just attack over and over. It required skill at the same time as strategy. Really the only negative criticism I can give to this game is the localization team and voice actors needed to be thrown in the desert.
“What little I remember about this game” lol, finish the game at least and give me a proper opinion about the game. I know we have different point of view, but man, that sentence makes me want to punch a wall.
Bro, I don’t know what world you live in, but the plot is insanely complex towards the latter half of the game. The beginning is stereotypical, but it develops incredibly well. As for the graphics, they’re far more detailed than Ocarina of Time and FFVII and are on par with that of FFVIII, all of which of considered well-aged classics that all well-rounded on all fronts. Try playing it and actually finishing it and come back with another review. Needless to say, you lost a subscriber. #poorcriticism
You shouldn’t be trashing a game you hardly even remember and barely played.
Jfc
Not even a review
You’d be better off slappin titties and writing a review on that, than a game you never *really* played.
So you’re reviewing a game you’ve basically only read about? Find another job, you clearly can’t even do this one correctly.
Wtf is that Review, Lod Was a Best Seller in North America. QtE combat ? Rhey called it Addituon systems and it oretry cool for Rpg style Game . For real Maybe u dont like those tyoe of Game but your Reviews it Mediocre at Best
This entire review sounds like it’s based on 3 hours total of game play lol this game is great. Sorry you missed the train.
Crap review. Replay the game before bashing it. Rather than criticizing a game you likely didn’t even play all the way through. Review games you actually played. And for the record, for the time the cutscene cgi was actually ground breaking. Compared to everything else at the time that the game was made. The cgi in this game isn’t bad at all.
Just a thought but MAYBE YOU SHOULD PLAY THE GAME MORE RECENTLY THEN AT YOUR FRIENDS HOUSE BACK IN THE DAY!! Not to mention how can you possibly review a game while saying “what little I remember about it” It really makes you look like a fool and unprofessional!
Overall : a very skippable review with no information
For those who like: Reviews about games the writer hasn’t played in years!
Horrible review, if you can hardly remeber ANY game why would yoy try to review it without giving it a try again.
Wow. How can you review a game off of a memory of playing small bits of it 20 years ago? That’s exactly like writing an entire scholastic book review on just the cliffnotes of the first chapter of the Odyssey. You have no idea of what happened in the story, the depth of the plot, no where close to the entire plot, no recollection of the other releases for a comparison, no grasp of the time and games of the era. If this were a student’s submission I would have failed them miserably and be having a talk with them and their parents if it were primary education. You should be ashamed of this garbage you have passed off as a review of a game. Go play it, and some other games from the early 2000s and come back with a better submission. Who reviews these?
I got excited when I saw this in the email newsletter. Then read it. I’m not going to bash you. Others are doing that. I will simply say that Legend of Dragoon is in the top 5 of my favorite games of all time. The battle system was fun and pulled you in trying to master the combos and unlock the higher ones. Did you know that is how the combat system worked?? I would agree that this game does not age well ITS HOW OLD?? Expecting it to age well against new games and new technology makes no sense. For its age the graphics and cinematics were awesome!!
You’re Editors Note says this wasnt a review, but a nostalgic look back. So let’s look at it theough the eyes of our youths. Why compare the graphics or story to what we have now? It may fit a shell but to say its bland because it fits an RPG mold is silly. That’s what was popular at the time and it was great.
I have this game on my top shelf amongst my most beloved collectors games. Please, please sit down and play through this game.
I agree completely
Wait, what!?
I may agree on how the story starts out being stereotypical, however LOD is a grate game, and Ipersonal bileave it should get remade. Reason? Well ff7 is being remade is it not? Sadly the a** hat owners of LOD doesn’t want the game to be remade. Hell I’d personally be willing to work on making a remake for it if I had a team to work with, and remake it anyways even if the own of it doesn’t want me to. I mean it’s not like he can stop me if I had a team. The only think he can stop me from is making money of it. If I had a team to work on the game, I’d ask the owner if he wanted to make 50% of the profit if he let my team get the other 1/2, but again the owner is an idiot. And this coming from some one that is a heavy FPS player. Ps I think the quick time events for the combat made it feel more realistic like today games where blocking and dodging in the middle of an attack combo. Again this you would know if you played throw the game.
I feel like you wrote this when you needed to post something and you didn’t want to actually put any work into it. Maybe you should spend a few hours researching and doing your job instead of just half baked reviews something you barely remember playing you haven’t even recently played it. And obviously you only got a few hours were into the game, the game had four disks. The game actually had a great storyline you just had to get through the basic apart that is classic of that time. Next time you decide to write an review at least put 10 hours of gameplay into it. Otherwise you kind of just look like a fool