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Let's be real here.  You can't be someone that claimed to enjoy a good RPG on the PS1, and not know this game.  It's game that you'll hear about quite a bit when people mention some of their all time favorite RPG games out there, and it's actually really easy to see why.  The story was surprisingly captivating, the gameplay itself was phenomenal, and I still find myself enjoying the CG cutscenes when they happen.

Well, most of the time.  Let's be honest, there are many amazing aspects to this game...but boy is it dated in others.  It's a PS1 game that offered something normally unheard of for an JRPG at the time (except for Lunar and Grandia games mainly), which was voice acting.  However, unlike Lunar and Grandia where it happened in random moments, voice acting was limited only to when CG cut scenes happened (and for battles).  And before you think "Oh wow, that's really awesome!" Ha. Ha. Ehhh...  Remember: this is the PS1 era, when voice acting in games was still in the early stages and it normally showed in the games.  And boy...did it also show in this game at times.  But, is that enough to really knock the game down?

Well, no.  In actuality, for the most part the other aspects of the game were so engaging that the "Meh" to "yikes" voice acting could very easily be forgiven.  Are there other gripes?  Absolutely, and I'm going to dive into those.

Story
You play the role of Dart, a knight who wears red armor just because, out just enjoying his adventure as he makes his way to his current home village that he hasn't been to in roughly 5 years.  On the way, you're encountered by a green "dragon" (I use the quotations for reasons I'll get to later) and are saved by a passing warrior...only to find out that your destination has been burned to the ground with most of the people slaughtered, and your childhood friend that you were going to see has been kidnapped and taken to the worst prison imaginable for unknown reasons.  Now making it his goal to save his childhood friend Shana, Dart finds himself in one of the biggest conspiracies to destroy the world unless he, and others like him, can save it.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "God, that sounds so cliche."  But let me be clear, that's the only way I could really explain the story without going on too long or ruining any twists (and this game has some serious twists).  In reality, this game actually has a surprising amount going on.  Remember when I mentioned the bit in Legend of Legaia about you going to different places and clearing the mist one by one?  Well, that's basically Legend of Dragoon in a very basic way: You're spending 1 disk (and there's 4) going around and fixing problems in the towns in that disk on your quest to save the world.  Disk 1? That's all about stopping a war on the continent that you're on.  You really don't even start to learn the true nature or force behind it all except in snippets in the first disk, learning that they're the driving force behind everything that happens.

And the neat thing is that there is this overall story about the Dragoons and the Winglies.  You learn about the Dragoon Campaign where the two sides fight, and you learn that you in fact are one of those Dragoons in this day in age as the stone you carry has chosen you.

But at the same time, each disk has its own contained stories and problems with very little bleeding out to the next disk unless it's because you heard the main antagonist went somewhere and you're following him (but even then, I can't remember the game ever telling you that bit...the new disk just starts out with you in a new place where your characters go next).

In many aspects, it's just kinda neat.  It has a ton of lore when it comes to the Dragoon and Winglies, and even though the Dragon Campaign was 11,000 years ago, you see how it still affects the world of Endiness during the current time period: towns are still recovering, Winglies are supposedly extinct with them being considered those scary fairy tales you tell your kids.  There's still remnants of the weapons laying around, and even certain areas have been damaged so badly that the very earth itself has been altered (such as the Valley of Corrupted Gravity where the very gravity itself is literally corrupted with pieces of earth floating).

It's also one of the only PS1 JRPG games aside from Final Fantasy 7 that makes you both love and really hate how well they develop the characters.  I'll let you take from that what you will.

But overall, I think Legend of Dragoon has one of the best storylines that you can get lost in when it comes to the PS1 JRPG games.  And it's probably the strongest element of the game, along with...

Gameplay
Alright, so it's a JRPG, so what does that mean battle wise? Did you guess turn-based random battles?  Well, you're only half right on that one.

So yes, when you're walking around on the main map or in a non-town field, battles are absolutely dictated randomly.  On the field, however, it's slightly different as you'll notice a blue triangle pointing down at your character.  As you walk, you'll know you're in a monster infested place because the triangle will eventually turn yellow to let you know.  When you're about to enter a battle, the triangle will then turn red, and a battle will be merely 2-3 steps at most away at that point...regardless of where you decide to move.

There are many exceptions to the field rule, where some areas will have monsters running around, and you just have to hit one of them to initiate a battle.  It's sort of 2/3 random battles, and 1/3 monsters-can-chase-you-into-battle when it comes to the field areas.

During the battle, it's set up much like you'd expect a turned-based battle: You have your attack, guard, items, and run commands.  Once you get your first Dragoon Spirit (and can use it) and have a full SP bar, you'll have access to the Dragoon command.  Once three of your fighters have and can use their Dragoon Spirit and all have full SP bars, you'll get access to the Yin-Yang/Taijitu symbol.

Defend, you'll guard of course but also recover a set amount of HP that turn depending on your level.

Item usage is pretty self explanatory but also worth noting, since there are a plethora of battle items that do damage.  You can also continuously press X until it doesn't let you anymore, and the damage percentage will increase with every press.

Run is also self explanatory.

Attack, surprisingly, is less self explanatory.  Your character will run up to attack, and at the same time a small square will appear in the center.  If you hit X in exactly the right moment, your character will successfully land the hit and do another, prompting you to hit again just in time.  Continue to do this successfully, and your character will successfully perform what is called an "Addition"  Do enough successful Additions and you'll increase both the damage done as well as the SP gained (which you won't start gaining until that character has an active Dragoon Spirit).  Additions can be learned by leveling up, and can be changed in the inventory menu whenever you want.  Some Additions are long and require really quick timing (especially the later ones), and some are short and sweet.  At the same time, certain additions...especially the longer ones do better damage, while others can be better for getting SP faster.

There is an item you can get actually fairly early in the game (roughly around Disk 2 at the start) called the Ultimate Wargod, which will always make sure an Addition never fails by having the character just do it automatically without you having to button prompt.  If you're looking to get a lot of SP with a higher level version of a long Addition, it's an incredibly useful item (and you can buy several of these from a vendor for a high price).

Dragoon, as you'd expect, turns your character into his/her Dragoon form: your character in more extravagant armor as they hover in the air with their dragoon wings.  In this form, you have 2 options only: D-Attack, and Magic.  Magic is pretty self explanatory as you'll use a Dragoon spell which costs MP, and the amount of spells you have is proportionate to your Dragoon Level (which you have 5 levels).  D-Attack is a little different than the normal attack feature, as you're given a circular thing with a line at the top and a blue light over it.  Your goal is to press X, and every time that blue light goes around and hits that line, you have to hit that X (even though it goes slightly faster after every successful hit).  Hit that 5 times successfully, and your character will do his/her full attack for the highest damage.  Anything less, they'll do all parts of the attack up to the point that you failed at.  Before you ask, the item I mentioned that makes all Additions auto-successful will not work with D-Attacks.

the Yin-Yang/Taijitu symbol will turn all of your battle party into their Dragoon selves.  The field itself will then change into a sort of spacey-looking field taking on the colors of the Dragoon that initiated the whole thing (so if you chose that symbol with the Red Dragoon character, the colors would be more red).  With this, the strengths of that Dragoon's element would be heightened, while the weaknesses of that Dragoon's opposing element would also be heightened.  On top of this, using D-Attack with that Dragoon will always result in a successful complete 5-hit outcome for as long as that Dragoon stays as such for that battle.

And that brings me to the point about Dragoons: You don't get to have the character in their Dragoon form for the entire battle.  As I mentioned, much like you can level up your character, you can also level up your Dragoon level.  One of the reasons SP is so essential is because whenever you use your Dragoon form, it knocks your SP gauge down by 1...which is all that you start with.  Whenever you gain SP, it not only builds that gauge back up, but it also counts toward your Dragoon leveling, which will both add another rank to your gauge...but also teach you a new spell.  What these spells are depend on the type of Dragoon, ranging from singular high damage to all-field lower damage to health draining to health restoring and so on.  Considering you lose access to item usage if your party is all in dragoon form, it's crucial to learn all the spells you can and vary your characters as such if they're 5-gauge dragoons...since you can't leave Dragoon form until that gauge is gone, the right boss turns it "off" for the moment, or you die.

And let's talk about items a bit more.  So as I mentioned, there's a huge amount of battle-usage items.  Likewise, there's also many types of healing items, status removing or revival items, and the like.  But what gets me is the space.  If you're like me, when you see a game that offers a lot of different battle-usage items, you'll want to stock up on many types of those as well as your normal healing and revival items, right?  Well...there's a downside.  For some reason, a decision was made that 32 items total is a reasonable amount.  This means if you're like me and stocking up a lot, grabbing items on the field is always going to be difficult because you'll get a message every time saying "You're carrying too many items."  Now, battle wise after the EXP and everything, if a monster drops an item and you're carrying too much, you have the option to discard something to make room for it.  Field wise? Nah, it won't ask you that or if you want to switch the item in the chest with something.

But let me also be clear when I mention how that's just general items.  Armed items (aka weapons, armor, and accessories) have their own section.  They don't affect the general inventory count, and you can have hundreds of different weapons/armor/accessories and the game won't care.  General inventory though?  32 items total only, please.  What is this, The Legend of Walmart or something?

Outside of the battle and inventory, general gameplay is fine...however I will go into a few gripes:

*Firstly, there's absolutely no method of fast travel.  You can go from City to Field to Secondary field, possibly even to Third(y) field, finish the task that was asked of you...and then you have to hoof it all the way back to the City.  This may not seem much from a glance, but keep this in mind: Legend of Dragoon does a map style way of traveling, where you follow a straight line on a map-looking area directly to the destination in front of you.  Sometimes there's branches that open up to other areas, but the game very, very rarely opens up shortcuts to backtrack (I think I only count it happening twice).  So rather than being able to free-walk around a field to get back to town, you normally have to backtrack through every field and dungeon-area you went though to get back to that town.  Really, this didn't bother me until disk 2 and 3, where backtracking is incredibly common (especially disk 3). 

Now, okay, I say there's absolutely no method of fast travel, and that's not entirely true.  Around the 4th disk mid-way, you get access to something that lets you visit previous cities.  But here's the thing, the only reasons you'll ever want to revisit the towns is to grab any missing "Stardust," a highly elusive item that will net you a reward if you snag it all.  Once this method of travelling has become available, all the story bits from the towns have been finished, and this is basically just setting up for nearing the end of the game when you get to that point of no return.

"But what if you wanted to go back to a previous field to get treasures/access a dungeon that you couldn't before?"

Well that goes into my other gripes:

*In order to go back to those areas, the game makes you insert the disk in which that dungeon took place in.  While it makes sense that you wouldn't have the "new" areas in the earlier disk, I always found it annoying that you had to backtrack a disk to access one of the older areas, especially if you already accounted for revisiting the towns and allowed that in the same later disk.  So if you want to area-backtrack in that fast travel, be prepared to reinsert Disk 2, and then reinsert Disk 4 when you want to get back to the main story.

*But you know what? Even with that "fast travel" method, that only applies to towns.  In disk 3, there's a quest where you're specifically asked by a previous character you meet to come back and take care of things in that area once you've done your business.  Only problem? Once you've "done your business" in the main quest of that area, that disk ends, and you have to move on to the next disk, not being able to go back to that quest until mid-way through Disk 4.  But even then, you have to fast travel to the nearest town and go through 2 field areas (which prompts you to enter Disk 3) and then re-trek through that 3rd area to finally do that quest.  Is it worth it? Eh, in a way, though it's honestly not as worth it as I was hoping (like, it could have been a quest to get a certain-character's Dragoon Spirit rather than getting it "by chance" in a sale or right near the end of the game...but whatever).

Also, I'm sorry but I just hate linear maps like that.  Maybe it's because I'm so used to games like FF7/FF8/FF9, Lunar Silver Star Story (despite Harmony taking it out), Skies of Arcadia, Tales of Phantasia/Destiny/Eternia/etc... having these big open maps that you can run around and get into battles in, so closed off maps just bother me in general...with Legend of Dragoon's being no exception.

I also wasn't fan of the Ship bit in...I want to say Disk 3, where you're consistently running up and talking to a party member as a different party member, and then taking that party member to go talk to another party member.  I get character development, but god was that part tedious.

Outside of that, the game has a few sidequests, but except for the Stardust Sidequest (which even that didn't catch my attention greatly), you'll be wanting to focus on the more compelling main quest even more.

Graphics
Okay, this is always a spotty category to talk about in PS1 games, because Playstation and Nintendo had an interesting idea of what constituted as "3D" back then.  A lot of games looked blocky and the style generally just looked odd.

That being said, there were always games that sort of pushed the limits both in CG and general gameplay to look exceptional despite the obvious limitations at the time.  Was Legend of Dragoon one of those games?

Eh...most of the time.

I mentioned earlier about the "Dragons" with the emphasis on the quotations, and I do mean that.  Their dragon design was baffling to say the least, and I say that because LoD had some really great looking dragons, and then some head scratching ones.  The very first dragon you see, known as Feyrbrand, I was like "That's a dragon?"



Then you see the Water Dragon, and it's the same question.  This was what they were going for when they thought "Dragon?"



But then you meet the Divine Dragon, and my first thought was "That's a dragon!"



Now, you're might be thinking "Hey now, it's a PS1 game and they were being as creative as possible with their limitations" And sure, I can go with that.

However, there was another game that came out a month before that also did the 7 Dragons (though LoD was technically 8 ): Chrono Cross.  Like LoD, Chrono Cross had 7 dragons (although unlike LoD, you're required to fight all 7 eventually): Fire, Earth, whatever green was (LoD attributes it to "Wind"), Water, Holy (or Sky in CC's case), and Black/Darkness...and then all 6 of them (and Harle) form the Time Devourer, basically the Divine Dragon (whom admittedly had a kinda ugly design...but you really can't top the Sky Dragon in terms of grandness).

Spoiler

The problem is, Chrono Cross uses Dragons on a lesser scale, whereas Dragons are the forefront of LoD because they're what make up the Dragoons.

So seeing this compared to CC's designs was odd, to say the least.

But I digress.  Like a lot of JPRGs including Legend of Legaia, the characters are semi-chibi version of themselves, although you're not really going "Ha ha, look how goofy they look" since even in smaller form they actually look pretty okay.  Plus, the sets around them are appealing enough to where you forget that they used the smaller version of characters.


(My favorite city in the game)



There's also gameplay cutscenes to where it'll use their battle looks and the text is unskippable, usually either during battle or something pretty important.  These actually look fine enough, and even the battles themselves can be pretty.  Monsters/enemies have a little detail to them and look nice, although the way they disappear is weird (but that's also a common oddity in jRPGs...the weird way the enemies "die" by disappearing some odd way).  Magic usage is normally very pretty to watch, even battle item usage is nice.





But naturally the best looking thing is the CG cutscenes.  These were always a step up looks wise compared to some of my favorite CG cutscene PS1 games.  I think the only 2 that really came close for me were Final Fantasy 8 and Chrono Cross' CG cutscenes, which could be downright gorgeous and thrilling to watch at times (FF9's were excellent as well, but I always felt like even FF8's just overall looked better).  What I particularly liked was, like FF9's, there was always a lot of action going on with the cutscenes...they were never just a CG cutscene to reveal a character or a place.  The designers knew that they wanted to keep the really intense action bits to CG cutscenes, and they did exceptionally well with that.





I mean, the first scene of the game is a CG cutscene (naturally), and what is it?  Soldiers marching into a town, burning it to the ground as people are running in terror, your childhood friend (that you learn moments later) is examined and kidnapped, the kidnapper questions what he's doing, the soldiers take off toward where they're taking her.  It's just such a thrilling first cutscene to start with...and that's just the first one when you start the game...don't even get me started on the pre-game intro with the first disk.  But admittedly, I'm more a fan of that one because of...

Music/Sounds/Voice
Legend of Dragoon actually has a really nice soundtrack.  Unlike a lot of PS1 RPG games aside from maybe the FF and Chrono Cross games, there's actually a few standout songs that made me really enjoy it.  Area songs such as Shirley's Temple, Basil Castle, and a lot of the bad guy music was just enjoyable.  It was normally never too showy or trying to be big, the point the soundtrack was making was simply to fit within the style of the game, and it did it exceptionally well.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

But, a particular favorite of mine was the pre-game intro/ending credits song: If you Still Believe.  It's the game's only vocally sung piece (which all the RPGs at the time save for FF7 had at least 1).  It made the pre-game intro so much better because it was sang very well while the CG bit shared some bits from the game, and even the ending bit with the whole song was lovely.  Is it one of the best VG vocal pieces I've heard? Eh, no.  I've definitely heard better pieces, but damn was it still a good song.

Spoiler

Sound wise, I was a little more impressed with this one.  I actually really loved the sound when you hit a save point, and the sounds for casting a dragoon magic spell were also pretty nice as well. Overall, I had no issues in this area, and actually liked a few of the chosen sound effects, feeling like they enhanced the experience a bit more.

Voice wise...*sigh*  Well, Battle wise they were okay, and really the only time when most of the characters spoke, thankfully.  Battle wise, I actually really loved Dart's voice, and Shana/Miranda were actually not bad either...Lavitz, Albert, Haschel were also not bad.  Kongol was tolerable, though he sounded off for being this big intimidating looking Giganto.  Meru and Rose ranged from tolerable to cringe-sounding.

Rose outside of battle was absolutely cringe-sounding when her character had speaking moments.  I remember in Disk 3 when there's a big twist, her voice sounds completely off in terms of the moment, how her character is, and just overall.  It's just another one of those games that I wish they hadn't gone to voices and had stuck to purely dialogue...but at the same time the way the game was done, it would have been really difficult to pull that off (especially since a lot of the twists and big exposition happened in CG cutscenes).

Replayability
There's mini games, there's sidequests, there's gathering-all-the-startdust-in-the-game-and-getting-your-reward quests.  But overall, the story and overall gameplay is engaging enough to where it'd be worth a replay.  Are there bad bits? Absolutely, and the lack of true fast travel, quick dungeon escape, and the lack of minimal backtracking might put people off from wanting to play through it again.  But there's no denying that the world of Endiness is a bit more dense and full of adventure and items beyond the main story.

Overall
It's entertaining, and it's dated.  Overall, it's still a very masterfully done dated game with some smaller gripes here and there.  Is it one of the best on the PS1?  Eh...no.  It definitely had a lot going on and arguably does have one of the best stories during that time period of consoles.  However, I can probably name a few other games that I feel like in the overall sense are on the same level or a bit better (Lunar Silver Star Story Complete/Lunar Eternal Blue Complete, Breath of Fire 3, Dragon Quest 7, FF8 and 9, Star Ocean Second Story to name a few).

That being said, it's absolutely highly recommended to give it a shot.  Despite the gripes I mentioned (which as I said are smaller/minor), it's still an exceptional game with a brilliantly written story coupled in with some fantastic gameplay ideas.  If you're a fan of the jRPG titles, I definitely recommend giving Legend of Dragoon a shot.  It may not be the "best" PS1 game (at least in my opinion), but is certainly one of the greatest PS1 titles ever made, and I'd love to see it brought back into the spotlight as a remaster (or even a full fledged remake in this day and age of voice acting).

You know, it's funny how things that probably wowed people when it first came out come off as so dated today, like the voice acting and some of the graphics. In a way it's a testament to the progress that games have made sense then. But then I read about the story on this game and Legend of Legaia and I wonder if story plots have actually regressed. It seems to me that as time has gone on, the focus has been more and more on realistic graphics and immersive worlds and less on the actual story of the game.

Take Skyrim for example, which I'm sure most people would agree set a new standard for what people expected from a RPG. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say the main story is what they liked the most about it...it's about the immersion, the many side quests and things you can do, and the ability to travel the entire game world regardless of where you're at in the story. I have to admit, I usually don't even focus on the main storyline when I play except where I have to.

Then again, that may just be an element of JRPGs compared with Western RPGs...it's not like Daggerfall had a grand storyline either. I haven't heard much of any modern JRPGs outside of Final Fantasy, though. Is it still popular as a genre?

Jrpgs? They're still popular, although they've evolved in questionable ways that divide the fanbase.  Final Fantasy beyond 9 has continously found ways to "spice up" the gameplay, either having smaller elements that some people hated while others liked (FFX's Blitzball), semi bigger issues that some people disliked/likee (FFX-2's overall theme, FF7 DoC's style change. FF12's "dull" feeling, FFXI and XIV being p2p online), or issues that were big enough to completely divide the fanbase in either loving or hating it completely (FF13 and FF15 in their entirety).

There's rarely been a JRPG that stays the same, because it's normally accused of repeating a  "tired and stale" formula...sort of why games like Legend of Zelda always have little (or complete in BotW's case) changes every time.

I think the only series to remain mostly intact has been the Tales of series, which normally the most monumental changes are the story.  But aside from the jump from 2D to 3D (which it surprisingly did well since Tales of Symphonia is still regarded as a good game), everything else has remained mostly intact compared to other jRPGs that have evolved since the NES/SNES days.