The Legend of Dragoon suffers from a tired story, but it's production values and solid combat make it worthwhile.
The Legend of Dragoon tells the story of Dart, a young man who carries a vendetta against the fabled Black Monster, who destroyed his home. He returns to his home village to find soldiers looking for Shana, a childhood friend, he soon meets up with a few others, who round out his party, but trust me, I don’t have to explain, you’ve seen it all before. They get pulled into a plot to save the world from an evil empire who threatens to awake an ancient force, and for a portion of the game they chase an ominous silver-haired warrior. The characters are the RPG stereotypes you’ve experienced time and time again; it tries and fails at its more mature concepts, sometimes even pulling some massive punches. The story is clichéd but entertaining, and while it doesn’t offer anything profound or emotional or even original, but the story combines with the gameplay to create an experience you’ll want to see through to the end. The gameplay in The Legend of the Dragoon is definitely fun. It gives you a timed combo system, somewhat like Super Mario RPG or Paper Mario, but not really. You can do long attacks if you just keep timing it right, and you’ll sometimes have to block an enemy counter in the middle of one! The combo system adds a sense of urgency to otherwise somewhat hum-drum approach to turn-based RPG combat. That being said, not all of Dragoon’s gameplay is so breathtakingly exciting. Aside from the combat it’s the usual RPG fare. It does what it does well, but it still does what it does. You’ll run through areas so linear that even other RPG’s scoff at. But that’s forgivable once you unlock the power of the Dragoon. You basically go all power-rangery. You go from a basic badass to a flashy, dressed up, floating one. Of course your attacks are more powerful as well. Just when you start to the think the game is too easy, lo and behold, the third disc arrives, and the difficulty ramps up. All in all, I’m mixed on this section of The Legend of Dragoon, but the combat and dragoon combat make up for the story if you ask me. Besides, the true shining point of this game is yet to come.
And here it is. This game’s graphics are beautiful. The Legend of Dragoon has perhaps the best graphics the PlayStation console ever had to offer. The in-game visuals are breathtakingly clear and vibrant, and the cut-scene graphics only improve. This is the only area that Legend of Dragoon puts Final Fantasy to shame, if you ask me. And that’s saying something, because those games are straight-up graphical powerhouses. The graphics are almost on par with CGI movies of the same era. This was the selling point of the console, right here, and anyone looking for a graphical showcase for their console would have picked this up. Not only that, but the visuals lend an epic feel to the game that the story couldn’t deliver on its own. From beginning to end, expect to be awed by this game’s graphics.
The sound is equally as wonderful. It’s clear that Sony put a lot of money into this game’s production values. Explosions and other sound effects are wonderful to behold, the music stands up as well.
As for value? This game is has quite a few bells and whistles you may want to do as well as the lengthy story, spanning four discs. This game should keep you busy for about 40-50 hours, which, if you can manage to care enough to see the story through to the end, you’ll find fun.
All in all, The Legend of Dragoon is similarly under-and over-rated. Gamespot’s review seems unreasonably low, while the user score seems unreasonably high. Even so, it’s a game worth playing, to be sure.