26
In my humble opinion: This game sucks. I mean REALLY sucks. I'm not sure what everyone is raving about but trust me, if your over the age of 18 especially, this game blows dolphin nutz. Let me start by stating that my favorite all time game is Dragon Warrior for NES....I've played most every RPG since and I can usually find something fun. This game is one of the worst ever; I should have known when it took 1 hour of reading text and watching the character move around before I could even do a thing, that this game was bogus.
Heres why:
The graphics are ok, kinda cutsey and Japanese looking. B+. Now that Ive said something nice, let me say the rest.
The story is super annoyingly linear. There is no customization AT ALL. You have limited choices for weapons and armor etc.... So you are Avin, and you will go down this road and that road, no straying off the path, you are stuck following the game. There is no free roam at all in this game. The fights with the enemies are way, way, way, wayyyyy too easy. No challenge hardly at all until you've played the game for 6 hours at least.
Here's a great example of this. Your first mission is to collect roses from the town folks. And if you miss one person, you'll be forced to go through the entire town over and over and over again trying to find someone to give you a rose for the Priest. Its sooo lame. I can't handle it at all.
The sound, oh my god, shoot me!!! all you hear are foot steps and piddy paddy click click walking around which is amazingly archaic. Don't get me wrong, I love 8-bit sounds, but the sound and music is very bad. There are no voice overs at all, every person just talks and you hear little blips. It is somewhat nostalgic of NES days but NES did it because of system limitations, there are none with PSP so there is no need for it here.
The gameplay is pretty standar stuff of old-skool RPG's. Nothing, and I mean nothing fancy or new.
Thats enough I think. I should never have bought this game but luckily I bought it from EB games used and they allow you to return them for another game.
55
Finally, an old-school RPG for the PSP! I had been waiting patiently mostly for the release of Legend of Heroes, and having finally played it, I can't seem to remember what all the fuss was about.
Well, first things first, let's get into the good things about LoH. One of the main things the game has going for it is its graphical style. The 3/4 view, 2D RPG has always held a special place in my heart, with the greatest entries in the genre being among the greatest games ever created (FF 1-6, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire series). Anyone that immediately thinks that the 'look' of the game is a detractor probably won't give the game enough of a chance, though, which is quite a shame. I have always been a big believer in the 'less is more' style of video game design and feel that it is perfectly utilized here in LoH.
The game's story doesn't disappoint, either. The tale of young Avin and Eimelle's separation is certainly one of the better RPG storylines of late (The confusing and pretentious politics of the more recent FF storylines come immediately to mind). All the emotions that are portrayed by the characters involved are believable, and I maintained an honest interest in how the protagonist would come to find his lost sister. Certainly the high point of the game.
Also, it should be noted that I thoroughly enjoyed the encounter system. Being able to avoid fights when I needed to by physically staying away from enemies is a godsend in RPG's. So many times in other games have I gotten frustrated when I just wanted to pull into a town, wounded, only to meet a Level XX creature that saps most of my parties remaining resources and all of my patience.
I suppose first I should establish what I was looking for when I picked up LoH. I was expecting a game starring strategic battle sequences, where creativity and forward-thinking would be rewarded. I was expecting exploration and difficult item/equipment choices that could make or break your band of fighters. In short, I was expecting a game that wouldn't feel like I was being led around by the hand; being shown each portion of the game when it was good and ready.
First off, the main offender in the game was the battle system. While, yes, it might seem strategic at first, what with your one or two main fighters, your support character, and your magic wielder, very quickly the fights breaks down into a guessing game. With no indication of which characters perform actions in what order, setting up enemies for combos is completely impossible. The worst part of this infraction is the fact that all of the actions in the game are ranged, meaning that if you want to cast a spell on your entire party, you must first assemble them into a tight group before casting. If your caster decides to use the spell before your party is assembled, only one or two nearby members receive the spell, and your frustration will grow. Also, the fact that your enemies appear to be able to perform several actions per turn, such as moving and casting a spell subsequently, confused and frustrated me even more.
I suppose the lack of exploration in the game needs little explanation. To ease development, the creators built an entirely linear game with no chance of straying from their neat little path. The game map is literally a row of towns that you must visit in sequence to progress throughout the game. Anytime you wish to go someplace other than your next waypoint, your friend Mile will pop up on screen to remind you that you shouldn't paint outside of the lines.
Finally, and probably not the most surprising of complaints about the game, is the inventory/weapon system. It's pretty standard fare for an RPG, so I guess I shouldn't criticize the game too much over it. Basically, you go to a new town, they have your next level of sword/shield/armor/etc. And you purchase it and equip it. Every time this gives you an incremental advantage over the last sword/shield/armor you had equipped but still, the materialist in you wants the new one. I only wish that there was some sort of visual reflection of the different weapons in battle. Every sword looks like the very first one you got at the end of the tutorial.
In summation, I gave this game a 55%, which I feel is pretty generous. While there were a few victories for the RPG genre on the PSP, I still couldn't sit through anymore of this game if I tried, and wouldn't suggest you do it either. In short, Legend of Heroes is frustratingly simple, and assumes you've never played another RPG in your life to compare it to. If you don't mind having all control taken away from you in a game, then LoH might not annoy you as much as it did me. However, I think I'm probably in the majority here. Hopefully PoPoLoCrois will be better.
70
Hands down, if you are an RPG fan and need something to satisfy your thirst, get Legend of Heroes. This is the story of a young man named Avin and his friend Mile who are searching for Avin's sister, whom he was seperated with at childhood. There are some good things and some bad things about this game.
The main problem with this game is the translation. There are tons of mistakes in this game where you feel like you are reading caveman dialogue. It's never so bad that you can't figure out what's going on but it's bad enough to make you laugh at how supid it sounds when something serious or sad is happening in the game. Another bad thing about this game is that it has tons of errands. You may be given an objective to complete and by the time you have finished it you will have found that you've also completed like 7 other "mini objectives" along the way. For example, let's say someone asks you to go to the next town and get a key item. You go to the town and before you can have the item, you need to get something from somewhere else, you go there and need something from somewhere else to get that, and so on.
One last thing I noticed is that I seemed to go through the whole game without any problems but at the final boss I was slaughtered. I was only level 34 so I leveled up to 48 and still was beaten. It may be possible that in the final battle winning is purely luck, kinda like fighting Ozma in FFIX.
The best thing about this game is that you really get the feel of an old school RPG when you are playing it. Despite the translation errors, the storyline is pretty good. It's good enough to make me want to play more games in this series, which I will when the time comes. The graphics may not be outstanding compared to other PSP games but they do the job wonderfully. It looks so crisp and beautiful when you control Avin running through the forest, and through puddles of water. This game is 3D with 2D characters, somewhat like the first Grandia. I loved the graphics.
The sound is decent, it was pleasent and seemed to fit with the game. Although, it was obvisouly not a Nobuo Uemetsu written soundtrack, it was still good enough to keep the volume up. If you enjoy voice acting you will be missing out in this game, for there is not a single droplet of voice. I didn't bother me too much because I have been playing RPG's since the first Final Fantasy, although I did hear a few complain about it.
Load times are quick, I never found myself annoyed by load times once throughout the whole game. As for the battle system, in this game the enemies are on the map and when you touch them it loads into a battle screen. It plays like a standard turn based RPG battle, but the characters move around to different locations to attack. This sort of annoyed me, but beggars can't be choosers.
I give Legend of Heroes a 7 out of 10, it's a great first RPG for the PSP. If you don't already own it, I reccomend you do!
89
I think this game is great. It has a lot of dialoge wich makes the game longer and I think that the story is good to. But it's booring that you don't see any changes on the character in the game when he changes weapons, etc. Your character looks the same the whole time and that's a little boring but the game itself is great.
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