Gaming Cookies For You: Blast from the Past
Systems: PlayStation
ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)
For this review rather than finding the newest title off of the retail shelves, I plan to dig deep into the closet of my forgotten consoles and revive a title that every gamer should play at least once in their lifetime. As the year 2000 slowly started coming around and the dawn of the next generation gaming console, the PlayStation 2 was about to be unfolded, gaming company Sony Computer Entertainment stunned audiences around the world with a story filled with fantasy, dragons, and epic battle. Taking over four years to create with a staff team of 100 members, The Legend of Dragoon has since become a classic in the PlayStation era.
Focusing around the central character Dart, Dart’s world is soon turned upside down as his tiny village is attacked and nearly destroyed. Upon finding the news that his childhood friend Shana has been kidnapped, the central plot of revenge and promises of heroics soon become the main focus. As politics and fantastical dangers began showing their puppet strings, The Legend of Dragoon expands over four discs of game play spanning 100+ hours.
Classic 2D rendered backgrounds decorate the fictional land of Endiness as landscape elements similar to that of Lord of the Rings begin arising. From poisonous swamps, volcanic death lands, and busy castle marketplaces, The Legend of Dragoon designer Yasuyuki Hasebe deserves a standing ovation for the hours of interactions that went into the background of minor characters. Story development integrates immensely well as players are submerged in different towns drawing from cultures around the world. Musical composers Dennis Martin and Takeo Miratsu compose musical compositions that add to the world the players are submersed in with touching piano scores and might battle music.
However, like many video games in the past and future, every one has their faults. The Legend of Dragoon’s lies in its battle system. As players make their way through the treacherous worlds in between safe havens, random battle sequences start up. Now submersed in 3-D controls, players have turned based options as to what to command their characters to do. Physical attacking requires the player to hit the X button as a series of hand and eye coordinates begin on the screen. As the attacks progress in complexity, players begin experiencing what seems like impossible feats.
Despite horrendous hand and eye coordination attacks, beautiful cinematic sequences decorate the battle sequences as players have the option is transforming the characters into their dragoon forms. Wearing battle like armor similar to that of their respective color, dragon wings emerge from their back, adding to the feel of the battle. Boss fights also add a good addition to the game as a whole as time and strategizing is required in order to beat them.
All in all, this old generation game is worth finding to play at least once in a gamers’ lifetime. As 3-D graphics have evolved over the years, more and more games seem to be focused on experiencing the game rather than developing storylines. As a gamer that prefers the storyline blasting me with shocking plot twisters and deeply complex characters, The Legend of Dragoon offers this feel without sacrificing to much on game play.
Sometimes, old generation games are just what the doctor ordered.
Overall Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Short URL: http://www.themountaineer.org/?p=383
Posted by Jackie Steponaitis
on Feb 25, 2009 Filed under Entertainments.
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