I won’t mince words, I am unapologetically nostalgic for this Power Rangers video game and I’m not going to go the extra mile to hide it. Legend of Dragoon is your quintessential PS1 generational RPG adventure, a four-act structured chronicling a group of misfits who band together to save the world from nefarious plots. Truth be told, when I call Legend of Dragoon’s plot a take on Power Rangers, I genuinely don’t mean that as an insult. There’s some depth of humanity, heroism, and self-sacrifice in the story, hidden behind an unfortunate series of translation errors. You have your friendship speeches, your ridiculous, slapstick nonsense, et cetera. It rules and who cares.
The real meat of the experience lies in a context-sensitive turn-based system. You see, player actions aren’t simply a menu-dependent series of decisions; you will have to press button prompts in timely fashion to execute your moves correctly. For the main attacks, additions, the idea is to increase their potency; a successfully-inputed addition means you deal more damage this time - and next time, it could do more as you level it up. And, once you unlock Dragoon forms, the more additions you complete, the more of a chance you can get to use Dragoon forms. For role-playing games whereupon menu attacks can feel like strategic-based decisions, Legend of Dragoon asks you to not get cloud-visioned and be incentivized to use your most basic tool. Eventually, you may find additions themselves surpass magic-based attacks Dragoons have in certain situations. And I think that’s one of the game’s subtle strengths: Legend of Dragoon gives you options to play with and all of them are viable in some way. Whilst being forced to use the lead, Dart, means a player can’t be as creative with their lineup to maximize creativity, there’s still plenty to appreciate between elemental attributes, recognizing each character’s particular value in set encounters, how enemy types affect combat, etc. Legend of Dragoon’s system ultimately does what any competent RPG should: It makes you think about your decisions and doesn’t necessarily limit your answers. You want a team build for beating down enemies with additions, you can. You want a team that exploits the speed stat and items, you can. You want a team that is balanced, you can. By the time you have five or six of the core team, the sky is the limit on your success. There are built in mechanics to prevent too much power, namely a set item limit of thirty-two, but an observant player will note that any struggles are probably going to come down to their own lack of engagements and failed preparation. Bosses can and will be the main obstacles, even having AI script changes and phases that may change the dynamics as they progress. Though, for my money, Legend of Dragoon succeeds in what it wants with its battle system.
There are a few barriers to entry for this game: For one thing, this title’s pacing is inevitably sluggish, even by its own generational standards. While it does feel like the party is on an adventure, progression in certain areas doesn’t yield a great amount of rewards narratively or mechanically. Battles, like I said, are engaging, but they can become monotonous with the load times between the many animations. I genuinely don’t think there is a single battle, from the start to the result screen, that is capable of lasting under 30 seconds, most of it being wait time. This may not seem like a big deal and it's excusable for the hardware, but, if you’re a bit on the inpatient side, this can be noticeable. While the game does kick up with its pace and battles as it goes on and side missions (namely optional battles, some of the best of the game) open up later, the main story may not grip most for the first two discs - possibly in its entirety. Whilst none of the party are uninteresting (one of the leads is quite the opposite), one later addition feels like an obligatory replacement with a forced arc to just be there. I don’t think Legend of Dragoon’s pacing is inherently negative of the sort personally, but I can see a number finding it tedious.
That said, this game was extremely precious to me and my younger days. As an adult, I appreciate it for what it was. As good as my memory said? I wouldn’t say that, but it’s charming, unique, and entirely itself the whole way through. I remember it for a reason.
The real meat of the experience lies in a context-sensitive turn-based system. You see, player actions aren’t simply a menu-dependent series of decisions; you will have to press button prompts in timely fashion to execute your moves correctly. For the main attacks, additions, the idea is to increase their potency; a successfully-inputed addition means you deal more damage this time - and next time, it could do more as you level it up. And, once you unlock Dragoon forms, the more additions you complete, the more of a chance you can get to use Dragoon forms. For role-playing games whereupon menu attacks can feel like strategic-based decisions, Legend of Dragoon asks you to not get cloud-visioned and be incentivized to use your most basic tool. Eventually, you may find additions themselves surpass magic-based attacks Dragoons have in certain situations. And I think that’s one of the game’s subtle strengths: Legend of Dragoon gives you options to play with and all of them are viable in some way. Whilst being forced to use the lead, Dart, means a player can’t be as creative with their lineup to maximize creativity, there’s still plenty to appreciate between elemental attributes, recognizing each character’s particular value in set encounters, how enemy types affect combat, etc. Legend of Dragoon’s system ultimately does what any competent RPG should: It makes you think about your decisions and doesn’t necessarily limit your answers. You want a team build for beating down enemies with additions, you can. You want a team that exploits the speed stat and items, you can. You want a team that is balanced, you can. By the time you have five or six of the core team, the sky is the limit on your success. There are built in mechanics to prevent too much power, namely a set item limit of thirty-two, but an observant player will note that any struggles are probably going to come down to their own lack of engagements and failed preparation. Bosses can and will be the main obstacles, even having AI script changes and phases that may change the dynamics as they progress. Though, for my money, Legend of Dragoon succeeds in what it wants with its battle system.
There are a few barriers to entry for this game: For one thing, this title’s pacing is inevitably sluggish, even by its own generational standards. While it does feel like the party is on an adventure, progression in certain areas doesn’t yield a great amount of rewards narratively or mechanically. Battles, like I said, are engaging, but they can become monotonous with the load times between the many animations. I genuinely don’t think there is a single battle, from the start to the result screen, that is capable of lasting under 30 seconds, most of it being wait time. This may not seem like a big deal and it's excusable for the hardware, but, if you’re a bit on the inpatient side, this can be noticeable. While the game does kick up with its pace and battles as it goes on and side missions (namely optional battles, some of the best of the game) open up later, the main story may not grip most for the first two discs - possibly in its entirety. Whilst none of the party are uninteresting (one of the leads is quite the opposite), one later addition feels like an obligatory replacement with a forced arc to just be there. I don’t think Legend of Dragoon’s pacing is inherently negative of the sort personally, but I can see a number finding it tedious.
That said, this game was extremely precious to me and my younger days. As an adult, I appreciate it for what it was. As good as my memory said? I wouldn’t say that, but it’s charming, unique, and entirely itself the whole way through. I remember it for a reason.