Tales of Legendia

Tales of Legendia for playstation 2.

I played this game AFTER I had played the Tales of Graces F, so my opinions are affected by this factor.

A typical Tales game. I like the musics and the graphics, the battle system is kinda like a free field for you to roam but the space is pretty limited as the battle area is like a piece of a Megaman game. Unlike in the Graces, movement range is pretty narrow during a battle. The thing annoyed me the most is the AI of the non player controlled characters. It's just plain horrible. If you trust your life in the hands of a AI controlled healer, you're as good as dead. Why? Because the AI tends to just stand still and swing character's arms around like being in a picnic for long times at a time. As if that's not enough, you're in desperate need of a healing and your healer just keeps on casting attacking spells (you CAN turn the spells off, but that doesn't stop the "just swinging ma'h arms 'round and smelling the flowers"- behavior). Fortunately, you CAN add two attacks/spells of other characters to the R2 and L2 buttons and thus can order a spell/attack from another character you're currently not in control of. Another extremely annoying thing about the AI is that AI does not learn and the spellcasters tend to rush into the midst of the battlefield and start casting a spell then whining that someone should cover him/her because spell is being casted here. If you are battling against an enemy absorbing fire elemental attack, the AI keeps on casting the fire spell all over again and again until you turn the spell setting off. No matter what you do, the AI does not care about the elemental affinities. You can switch the spells/skill on/off from the menu or even during the battle, but IMO it's just a big of a hassle to switch after every battle all the settings. Luckily you have skills/spells that don't have an element so you can use those too but you'll lose the bonus damage the weaknesses provide. Oh well, your call...

The plot is somewhat predictable in some parts, offers no new reason to finish the game, just same plain let's save the world. But I did like the fact that the game kinda has two sets of stories in it.

Also some sidequests are available.

For some reason this game didn't appear as interesting as the Tales of Graces and I didn't play it as thoroughly as I usually do. I had this "lame-o" feeling all the time, even though I did like the humor in the game and all the characters have a fulfilling role of their own. This could be because I got really frustrated on the AI's stupidity and the constant back and forward running. Also, I wish there would've been some sort of a teleportation system which would've enabled a quick exit from inside a dungeon. I's a real pain to run long ways in, and the same long way out. The game told you about other places in the world but you cannot actually GO there. There is no world map either, and I mean the actual MAP you can check your location from. There will be "some" running on the world map, fighting random encounters as you go, naturally.

The game doesn't explain any basics to you. You either need to find how things work out on your own or check the manual. There is a man in the beginning when prompted, will tell you about battling but that's it.

Exploring is easy as pie, chests are pretty easy to find and there are lots of chests to open. When the second story starts, all the old chests disappear and new chests are scattered everywhere, along with new contents. All the unopened first set of chests and their contents will be lost forever. I'm disappointed in the titles in this game, they're a joke. Sure, they're fun to get but that's about it, they do not have as significant meaning than in the Graces and they provide only little help to you. And finally a HUGE disappointment: you have a summoner in your group, but s/he cannot cast ANY summon spells. Ever.



Fairly good game but something's still a bit off... I'd still rate this game as 7/10.