Legend of Legaia

Next gen RPG, southpaw's dream. The world of Legaia has been covered in a mysterious mist which turns magical symbiotes called "seru" into murderous creatures, which then in turn possess human beings and turn THEM into murderous creatures. While the plot may seem interesting, it really never develops into anything more than the brief summary above. I had been expecting a little more from the makers of Wild Arms, Contrail. You play as Vahn, a young (surprise) lad who lives in the sleepy village of Rim Elm, which is saved from the mist by its high walls and the ocean's strong breeze. Even less surprising is the fact that Vahn's a silent hero and thus has absolutely no personality to speak of. The other two characters, Noa and Gala tend to be stereotypical: the former is a squeaky, overly happy girl, and the latter is a strong, silent goon. The developers did fake me out a little, though. It turns out that Noa, the female, is bad at casting spells, and the goon is the best at it! Whoa! My head's still spinning.

GRAPHICS: While there's nothing here that'd make a seru soil itself on your arm, the graphical effects and animation are up to par with anything you've seen in any other traditional console RPGs. The characters and backgrounds are entirely 3D, but thankfully hold together without the slightest bit of clipping. Spell effects are pretty, but it's hard to be impressed with anything after FFVII's summons. By far, the coolest graphical touch in LoL would have to be that every weapon and piece of armor looks different during combat.

SOUND: The sound, like the graphics, are very utilitarian. Nothing annoying, nothing memorable. The characters' voices, while all in Japanese, are clear. Thebattles end up sounding like Street Fighter matches on crack.

CONTROL: If it's possible for an RPG to have bad controls, LoL pulls it off. There are just too many submenus for combat, and to make matters worse, all of the battle commands with the exception of auto-battle are executed with the directional pad -- with your left hand. This may not sound like that big a deal, but trust me, after a few hundred random encounters, you'll be auto-battling through all but the boss fights.

GAMEPLAY: The game's strongest feature is definetely the combat system, which is somewhat similar to Xenogears' out-of-Gear system. Each character has an AP (agility point) bar which represents their speed in battle. The bar can be filled with any combination of left hand (weapon), right hand (ra-seru), high kick, and low kick. Certain combinations will yield special attacks called "arts" which can in turn be chained into even greater combos. As I mentioned, the commands are all entered with the directional pad, a process which quickly becomes more tiresome than watching Clinton's sex life. Overall, the game IS fun to play, but I wouldn't recommend it too any but hardcore RPGers.

-Infernal Spawn of Hell

Graphics: 8
Sound: 7
Control: 5
Gameplay: 7
Overall: 7