Legaia 2: Duel Saga

The original "Legend of Legaia" was a delightful game. Started out feeling simplistic and child-like, ended up surprisingly stirring and sophisticated. The graphics fit the style of the game, and it was the first game I ever played where the characters' outfits changed drastically in combat as they got new weapons, armor and accessories. It was truly a gem for the PSX.The new game sacrifices most of the charm for "improved" graphics, which are shockingly bland. The colors are very drab, the characters festooned with strange lines that are supposed to delineate muscle tone, and the camera just sits squarely on the floor, with very few dramatic angles used throughout the game. It's a very boring game to look at, honestly.The music...how can I say it? I understand reusing themes in new arrangements, but they've reused the music with no improvement in instrumentation or arrangement. It was a marked disappointment.The only good thing this game kept from the original is the combat system, and the improvements made there are dubious at best: I liked the concept of "charging up" your AP gauge and your arts bar with a "Guard" move...it required me to make decisions about how to fight every single turn. In the new game, the Normal Arts moves add AP, and the Super Arts and Hyper Arts consume it. With special items, the length of your arts bar changes, but is always fixed, otherwise. As a result, I can set up an efficient combination of Normal Arts and Hyper Arts that will prevent my AP gauge from dropping at all. Entire lengthy battles played simply by mashing the X button repeatedly. Yawn.Cooking is a fun addition to the game, as is combining to improve your Weapons, Armor, Items and Accessories. With Cooking, you can bump your stats up (and sometimes down) for several battles, plus get a little conversation going with your characters. The major complaint I have about Cooking is that the game doesn't keep the effects of Cooking a secret: the very first time you cook something, you know what impact it will have on your characters. Combining--particularly for Weapons and Armor--greatly resembles the weapon upgrade system in Final Fantasy 8, but with a lot more options available to you. It would have been nice to find a manual of sorts to tell you what could be upgraded to what, what you would need to make the upgrade, and where you'd be likely to find it. To fill my needs, I simply bought or traded for junk whenever I could, then tried to see what new combinations I could produce. Fun, but a bit aimless and frustrating. Combining Acessories was the most enjoyable to me, because I could always see what new skills I'd get before making the combination, and the skills can make-or-break your combat (for example, you really need anti-berserk to win the fight in the Gambler's Arena mini-game).The story was...mmm...okay. I kept waiting for it to get started, or to throw a twist or two my way. As it is, the primary story consists of exactly what you expect it to: main character meets some other characters after initial meeting with the main bad guy, then goes and collects some stuff in the process of undermining the main bad guy's plan. No surprises.The characters are reasonably interesting, and I really liked the firecracker attitude they gave Sharon (though her in-battle quips got seriously annoying after the thousandth battle). There does seem to be a lot of depth about the characters and many side opportunities to discover hidden surprises about them. I especially liked the consistent approach to responding to questions that was employed with Lang: whether you chose to have him agree, disagree, or tell someone off, his responses to questions posed by the NPCs were credible and in character. It was easy to make him a smart-mouth sometimes and have him be understated at other times without feeling like he was suddenly a different character.Overall, it was an entertaining game, but a little shallow and with combat that looks spectacular but which was ultimately tedious--it was generally more entertaining to set the characters to Auto combat than to watch them perform the same moves over and over and over and over again.If you liked the first one, you'll enjoy this one, yes. If you didn't like the first one, you'll like this even less. If you haven't played either but are interested, get "Legend of Legaia" instead--it plays well on the PS2 and has a much more engrossing storyline.

Shipment was prompt and quick however the disc was unreadable in a SCPH-30001 model Playstation 2, even after cleaning the laser. Others discs work, the one sold only provides a red screen error on boot.Thankfully the disc appears authentic and works with an emulator which saved me the trouble of having to return the item. Would ere on the side of caution and encourage other buys from this seller to verify any game discs are tested on original console hardware.

While by super gamer standards this game would be frowned upon, I like it.It runs on the older PS2 platform; cheaper that the new game systems by far.While the graphics are not smooth and flowing, they are reasonable.Problem solving skills are honed as you navigate your way through multiple lands, meeting new friends,upgrading weapons and armor, and battling monsters.Some of the commentary sets in the mini-movie snipets really busted me up.If you HAVE TO HAVE the newest, fastest, and bloodiest game out there, this is not for you.But if your an occasional gamer who likes puzzles, this is a definite must!P.S., get a good wireless controller for more comfort.

A good game called Legend of Legaia 2.

Disc plays, there's hardly any wear marks, and it came complete with cover and manual. The only mark off is that there are two large stickers on the back, for warehouse purposes, probably. Not a huge deal, since you can just swap out the case with a blank one. Thanks!

I love this game so much I love the fights the voice actors the arts I like the graphics I could not keep my hands off of this game so much fun. My favorite Charters are1 Sharon2 Kazan3 Lang4 Maya5 AyneOrigin's I like best1 Galea Lang's2 Deva Kazan's3 Arrode Sharon's4 Rivas Maya'sFun game I love it so much.

Well I'll start with this. This game doesnt hold a candle to Legend of Legaia at all, but it has hooked me just a little. It looks like the makers of this game didnt really take their time with it. It seems to have kind of a generic story and emotionless characters. It could have been much better, but it has a few little interesting points so I will play it all the way through.

Why did I consider four stars? You can make meals, create weapons and create clothes that is why I like about this game. I would recommend this game if you still own a PlayStation 2.

Item delivered WAY ahead of schedule (on Tues, March 17). Played it over the weekend and worked perfectly fine up until the part of the game where the player first enters the Darakin sewers: the game still plays normally but the connection to the controller cuts off, causing the game to continuously run without having the ability to move the character (if navigating through the dungeon) or access menus (either on screen or in battle). Problem does not appear to persist in other (discovered) areas of the game. Will investigate if it is just a controller issue rather than a game issue.

Great disc but no original case and case it was sent in was an Xbox case which is a bit of a taboo