Legend of Legacy Review

Tue Feb 09, 2016 7:30 pm by Becky

Legend of Legacy is an old school styled RPG developed by FuRyu, you may think ‘I’ve never heard of them, I don’t really care.’ Well that would be foolish as staff at FuRyu consist of former Level 5 staff and staff who worked on Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger.

The mystical land of Avalon has finally (well 10 years ago) shown itself, no one knows what awaits, it could be treasure, dungeons or Elton John riding a golden lawnmower no one knows. We pick one of 7 heroes ranging from a girl with amnesia to a frog prince of a forgotten kingdom, obviously I played as the frog prince. The great thing is they each have their own story adding oodles of replay value. You start off with two other heroes in tow and quite quickly unlock the rest to choose to make up your party of three.

Legend of Legacy Review Filmia10

Why play as a human when I can be a frog


Graphically Legend of Legacy is Bravely Default's brother from another mother and it looks fantastic on the 3DS. With a simply beautiful pop in system so the world pops up like a 3D story book. The 3D looks great and I really enjoyed just looking at the game.

There isn’t much only voice acting, only some occasional narration. Otherwise it’s just reading text on screen which there isn't loads so you’re not missing much without voice acting. The music is a calm orchestral score which fits an RPG just fine.

Battles in Legend of Legacy are initiated when an enemy on the map walks into you, there are lots of monsters out and about on their daily business of terrorising humans. So many that at the start the game it even tells you to avoid as many fights as possible and it wasn't kidding you really will try and avoid as many fights as possible as you explore the treacherous land of Avalon.

In battle you choose a formation which you set up beforehand yourself, choosing whether each character attacks, supports or guards, this is the characters stance. Attack obviously throws everything bit the kitchen sink at the enemy. Support makes your character faster, good for getting a quick heal in. Guard is for when you know you're going to take damage and want to survive or getting your tank to take others damage. Then each move has a stat based on the characters stance. It sounds like a lot but is very straight forward after a few hours and adds a lot of tactics and tough decisions to battle. Then as you play you can unlock more stances that have various effects such as increased speed and attack, these still fall under attack, support and guard though so you don’t need to worry about millions of different levels for each move. As you will be doing a lot of battling it’s very handy that you can fast forward by holding A or L.

Legend of Legacy Review Clay_d10

Which formation to choose to best take down a creepy clay doll?


At the end of each fight you get all your health back, there's a reason for this. Legend of Legacy is hardcore, no one holds your hand or teaches you how to play effectively, you work everything out for yourself through trial and error and exploration and quite simply the game is better for it. When you get knocked out the consequence is reduced max health till you go back to the inn so get your tanks in there absorbing those blows (something I've never needed to do in RPGS before this one).

Everything in Legend of Legacy levels up separately and randomly, your health, SP, each attack, blocking, everything. There are no experience points you just have to hope RNGsus (the random number generated Jesus) smiles upon you and something levels up either a move mid fight or a main stat (HP, SP, attack, support, guard) after the fight. You also randomly learn new moves for the current weapon you are using and on top of that there is a skill system in which you have to gather singing shards to summon elementals and then whispering shards to use elemental skills and yes if you pray to RNGsus enough you can learn a skill permanently so you no longer need to equip the whispering shard.

Legend of Legacy Review Lv_ups10

Thank you RNGsus for bestowing me with this bountiful blessing of level ups


Fights can turn from going no problemos to being in a tight often fatal spot within one turn and when your party is knocked out the game is soul destroying. You just have to reload your last save losing all your leveling up and new moves that you randomly acquired probably not to acquire the next time you try. This coupled together with not knowing when an extra difficult fight is round the corner the risk of staying out in the field a long time is a high one. The risk/reward style gameplay is a big factor in Legend of Legacy with you learning new moves quicker against harder adversaries so you can use a new weapon and learn a few moves quickly at the cost and risk of doing less damage, luckily you can wield two weapons at once and choose which one to use each turn.

When adventuring you fill out maps as you go then sell then to shopkeepers, this in turn allows NPCs to go explore the areas and they may offer you a new stance, if you’re lucky. There's so much exploration left down to you, I completely missed the first ruin until after I had already explored the second ruin as I didn't realise to go back to an area I had already explored

There is only one town in Avalon, Initium which barely constitutes a village, there's an inn to heal and save, a bar with a few people in, a shop, a port to send ships out for supplies (the best way to get new items and keeping with the randomness of Legend of Legacy, you never know what you'll get) and the King of explorers house (he's pretty much the mayor of the village).

Legend of Legacy Review Initiu10

The village of Initium, there's barely any more to it


Legend of Legacy is an old skool JRPG with an interesting twist on leveling up made for the hardcore. It becomes very addictive as you get into the game and you want learn all the different moves of different weapons and see what the trade ship will bring you, a testament to the quality of this game is every time I played, I played for much longer than I had intended. Though Legend of Legacy lacks the constant story telling of other RPGs, the beautiful graphics and addictive gameplay will keep you coming back to Avalon for more.

8.5/10


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