a fantastic horror ride that manages to be incredibly human and relatable, a lot of the solutions to puzzles happen to be everyday household items such as air dryers, bleach, detergent, nail polish, clothes hanger, pork liver, matches and etc, this form of progression helps ground the game and give it a sense of realness which in turn enhances its already incredibly executed horror, it knows how to build up jumpscares well and the otherworld being more present and rustier and bloodier than ever also helps. Heather also has human reactions to monsters and the otherworld, not only via story cutscenes but through the feverishly personalized flavor text, contemplating on calling the cops, reactions to the variety of horrors present in the otherworld, etc all of this boils down together to create an amazing experience. The gameplay side of things has been ironed out at last, the weapon variety is appreciated and most importantly the bosses all manage to be engaging and memorable as opposed to the series's previous Mexican standoff battles. Visually its entrancing and mesmerizing, the cutscene direction specifically.

i, for one, am thoroughly appalled that this series would ever have the audacity to feature a player character who isn't a totally morally righteous person. this is a travesty. completely out of touch

and the gameplay? it's such a shameless ripoff of the last acclaimed silent hill project that was released. what the fuck were they thinking?

i'm going to go return to silent hill 2 now - the most subtle and least blunt horror game ever created. at least that game doesn't have sticky notes with "bullying" written on them (granted, this one doesn't either, but that's not what i heard from the people who didn't play it, so it must be true)

It sounded like a prophecy. My cousin, the biggest "culprit" for making me love video games so much, in the early 2000s told me about Dragoon and concluded with: "I think this will be your favorite game."
How right he could be.

Shortly after, I played Legend of Dragoon, one of the most revered cult classics in the JRPG genre. It's funny that even though I've played hundreds of games since then, it consistently remains my favorite. My top has changed a lot over the years, but the #1 spot has always been consistent.
I love everything about Dragoon: its pace reminiscent of a good shounen anime, its almost alien visuals, its gameplay system that is a pleasure to master, its color-coded and elemental-coded party, its soundtrack completely different from other games in the genre, the idea of drawing inspiration from cultures beyond medieval Europe.

And what a beautiful game cinematically, with so many beautiful cities, incredible places to explore, memorable scenes like Lavitz against Lloyd, Rose in the shipwreck and her past, or Dart and Shana in the castle in disc 2. The stakes get higher and higher. The lore is rich, with a story that spans millennia. Everything about it seems tailored to appeal to my tastes as a kid who grew up in the '90s, heavily influenced by manga, shounen anime, color-coded armored people, stories of existential crisis, the power of friendship, protagonists with spiky hair, elementals, and crystals. And Dragoon has all of this in abundance.

My strong emotional connection with it makes me understand that even though it may not have a story that reaches the levels of Xenogears or FFVII, a battle system as competent as the press-turn in Megami Tensei, a soundtrack or dungeon design like Wild Arms, the best party in the genre as in Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, Dragoon is still such a strong, cohesive, and competent package in everything it sets out to do. It transports me to such a happy time in my life, and with so many elements and tropes that I grew up loving, it will probably be my favorite game of all time until the end of my life. It represents much of what I love most about video games.