If persisted with, The Legend of Heroes is a rewarding experience, but most will lose interest soon before.
If an RPG is to be remembered many years later, then it must have a deep and immersive storyline. This is common knowledge, and while the story is far from comparable to a Tolkien masterpiece, it’s clear the developers have put some thought into it. The story begins with a young boy named Avin, who clearly has a strong bond with his younger sister Eimelle. It is this relationship- a focal point throughout the adventure- which Bandai uses to exploit your emotions. Shortly after this connection is established, Eimelle is separated from her beloved brother. Therein lies the reason why Avin must venture away from his comfortable hometown, and embark on a quest of great danger. As with most RPGs, Avin will be accompanied on his travels by many other unique characters who will all gain experience points, battle ferocious beasts, and upgrade their equipment. Despite first venturing on a simple rescue mission, Avin soon finds himself swept up in a whirlwind of chaos throughout the world of El Phildin, as the followers of light and darkness prepare to clash.
LoH plays very similarly to most RPGs, and this involves a lot walking from town to town. As a result, it’s often very easy to forget the direction you should be travelling in. Thankfully though, the characters in this game don’t forget, even if you dozed off during a long conversation about your next mission. This means that when you attempt to go the wrong way, Avin will quickly advise you on the correct path to take. At times this can be a blessing, but it does limit the freedom that you have in this fantasy world.
Even the most perseverant, whilst reading the dialogue, will find their mind wandering. It's not that the story isn't immersive; rather, the problem lies in the poor English localization - a problem so easy to fix yet so detrimental to the gamer's experience. As a result, subtle characteristics of Avin’s personality are lost during the translations, so even the most determined will fail to appreciate him.
Despite the early problem, the most refreshing aspect of LoH is the absence of random battles. Instead, every monster is visible when exploring, and- here’s the best bit- they are all avoidable. The monsters aren’t going to let you pass that easily though. Depending on your character’s levels and statistics, or the monsters own abilities, they will either pursue you or attempt to move out of your way. While it’s possible to travel great distances without the need to brandish a sword, your characters will fail to level up. This poses as a critical problem when confronted by a difficult boss battle, and it will be fatal for poor Avin. It’s clear that this system cannot be cheated, but it does give you a lot more control over events that could otherwise be wearisome. When you find that you must quickly get from one area to another, it is much better knowing you don’t have to fight, instead of being forced into constant random battles. It really does give the you the power over the game, and not the other way around.
If and when you do decide to charge into confrontation with an enemy, then a battle scene will occur. This will be very familiar to any RPG gamer, but the events that follow do have small variations. While the system is still turn based, the battles in El Phildin are slightly more realistic than two sides exchanging blows until victory is won. Each individual character is given the basic freedom of being able to move around, but this adds very little to the gameplay value. The battles throughout are displayed from an aerial viewpoint, and consist of melee attacks, magic and deadly finishers. To begin with you’ll find yourself opting for the melee option continuously, since the initial spells are fairly useless and take a long time to cast. Sure, this may sound lazy, but most of the time the battles serve little purpose, except for levelling up, so you’ll want to get them over and done with. However, as battles become more challenging, the role of spells becomes much more significant. Every monster is categorised into elements- be it water, fire, wind or earth, and certain spells cause more damage to certain monsters. This hardly qualifies the action as strategic, but it does make the battles more enjoyable, especially when the more decorative, yet deadly, spells become available when the characters increase their levels.
What is a warrior in battle without his sword? It is important that Avin and friends equip themselves with the latest items from the armoury, since the outcome of battles will not be decided by statistics alone. As the story unfolds, more powerful equipment becomes available, but this comes at a increasing price. There are times when you must pick who gets the newest body armour and who must go without, and this adds to the experience of life travelling perilous lands. Equipping a new item does add to the character’s statistics, but it’s disappointing to see no visual change during a battle. This would have added a shine to what is already a very well presented game.
Despite lacking the finishing touches which would have made this one of the most visually pleasing games on the PSP, it is still very easy to marvel at. The main appearance follows a blend of realism and cartoon. Upon hearing this you might think it would look strange, but the anime characters work in harmony with the three dimensional world they are set in. The environments utilise the graphical power of the PSP, and the level of detail is almost faultless, with touches such as characters leaving footprints behind in the fresh snow. Combine this with beautifully drawn anime artwork used during conversations, and you have a game that is very pleasing to the eye.
The visuals in this game are certainly needed when listening to the sound that comes from the PSP’s speakers. There are instances during LoH where no sound is evident, except for the beeping of newly displayed text. There are no character voices, and during the long conversations it’s like reading a poorly translated electronic book. But even the background music fails to make amends. Despite having its moments, the background tunes are embarrassing at best and should be ignored as much as possible. The music does vaguely match the on-screen action, but when something sounds so bad it’s hard to notice something so minor. The sound effects are better, although this improvement is only to the point of average. However, as with the graphics, the detail is good to the point where grass rustles when run on, so there are some positives to be taken into consideration.
Hopefully the audio qualities- or lack of- won’t drive many gamers away, since this really is a substantial, portable RPG. As promised on box, this is a very long adventure, even if you try and rush through the dialogue, and the story has just enough twists and turns to keep you interested. Nevertheless, even the story won’t be sufficient to convince players into completing this game twice, due to the subdued action throughout. There are no features other than the main story mode, so the replay value suffers for this, but only very slightly. If persisted with, The Legend of Heroes is a rewarding experience, but most will lose interest before they can appreciate some of the hidden qualities that this game has to offer.