The 10's: Legend of Legaia

I don't want any more sad things to happen! I hate suffering! That means we need to destroy the mist, that will stop the suffering!

Contrary to popular belief, there were RPGs developed by companies other than Square or Enix.

Hey, remember when they were separate companies? Or when they weren't owned by EA? They really made some outstanding games back then. I'm going to cover quite a few of those games in the 10's, but this week we're going to take a look at another RPG, one of only a handful of games ever developed by Contrail and Prokion. The small, internal studio within Sony didn't last very long or produce very much. However, it was responsible for producing what I consider to be one of the most underrated, underappreciated, misunderstood games of all time: Legend of Legaia.

Legend of Legaia received somewhat middling reviews in its day, and in some respects I can understand why. It has a relatively simplistic plot, at least on its surface, and some of the locales lack variety. There are only three characters, one of whom is a silent protagonist, which was seen as somewhat lacking in a time of RPGs with ensemble casts. It had uneven difficulty and was far from a beginner friendly RPG during an era where a lot of people were experiencing the genre for the first time. But here's the thing. Even its weaknesses aren't that weak and with the exception of the difficulty issues, the developers found a way to mask those weaknesses or even use them in their favor. And what they did well, they did really well, especially when it came to combat, character development and world building.

Let's start with the story, which sees you take control of a young boy named Vahn from a rural town called Rim Elm. Situated at the far south end of Legaia, Vahn and the townsfolk make their living off hunting and fishing in the forests and plains around the town. You see, it's impossible for them to travel too far, as the land of Legaia is engulfed in a perpetual mist. This mist is largely harmless to humans, but its danger comes in what it does to Seru, creatures that have lived alongside Legaia's people since the beginning of time. These creatures, some of which can move independently and others which need to be attached to a host, had helped humanity build up a thriving society...until the mist arrived. Any Seru that comes into the mist is driven mad, possessed to either viciously attack or forcibly attach itself to anything, or anyone, it comes it comes into contact with. Anyone wearing a Seru is turned into a mindless, shambling zombie. So yeah, life isn't great in Legaia, but Vahn and his family are getting by, protected by the giant walls around Rim Elm. That all changes one fateful night when the village is attacked by a sorcerer called Zeto, who smashes through the wall and leads an army of Seru to attack its villagers.

Vahn fights the creatures valiantly, but he quickly finds himself backed into a corner, surrounded by Seru with nothing between them but the large, mysterious tree at Rim Elm's center. Just as he thinks all is lost, he hears a voice call out to him. That voice belongs to Ra-Seru Meta, a special Seru who is uneffected by the mist. She tells Vahn the tree at the center of town is actually a Genesis Tree, which has the power to drive away the mist. Attaching herself to Vahn, Meta and her new host instill the tree with power, causing it to bloom and pushing the mist away. As the residents of Rim Elm begin to rebuild, Meta tells Vahn he's been chosen for a critical task. The duo must travel the world, reviving the dying genesis trees and freeing the world of mist. Along the way, they will meet a bevy of unique characters, face fearsome enemies and learn the true origin of the evil mist. So yeah, that's a kind of round about way to say it's a pretty standard JRPG plot from the 90's.

Here's the thing though; while the structure of the plot is fairly generic, the execution is unique and refreshing. That is largely due to LOL's small but interesting cast of characters. Vahn quickly meets Noa, a young girl raised by a wolf (who it turns out was actually just a host for a Ra-Seru called Tera) and Gala, a monk from the reclusive Biron Monastery. These three make up your party for the entirety of the game and each has there own reason for wanting to rid the world of mist. Noa wants badly to find her true parents, who have visited her in her dreams for as long as she can remember. Gala feels its his duty as a Biron Monk to protect Legaia and he also has a score to settle with his rival Songi, who betrays their order. 

They are all pretty stereotypical RPG characters, but they are very well done. Noa in particular is a well crafted character, the developers did a great job of making her complete lack of self-awareness and understanding of the world around her come through in a way that wasn't obnoxious. It's played up for laughs a few times, but they never get ridiculous with it. Her childlike innocence is directly contrasted to the bleak, dark and depressed world around her. Gala is a little more standard fare, but he really comes into his own as a mentor to Noa and the steadying force of the group. The group all behave like people in their situations with their backgrounds would and should, and that is helped by the better-than-average translation. I still don't love that Vahn is a silent protagonist, but it was common for RPG leads as at the time and, while I won't say why to avoid spoilers, it could be argued that Noa is actually the true main character here. She's certainly the most important to the plot and it really kind of feels like LOL is less of Vahn's story and more of Noa's story through Vahn's eyes.

Of course, great characters can fall flat if the world they live in isn't compelling. That's not the case here. It really, really comes through just how miserable everybody in Legaia is and how they live in constant terror of the mist. You will meet tons of NPCs who have been separated from their families in other cities, commenting on how they haven't seen their loved ones in 10 years. Gala will often meet other Biron monks who had been sent out on missions and stranded after the mist hit. But what really makes this world unique and organic is how the different areas cope with the mist. The residents of Octam abandoned their town, electing to build a second city underground. In Vidna, an engineer constructed giant windmills to simply blow the mist away (which totally doesn't lead to you having to do a quest when they stop working...). Folks in the giant tower city of Sol have had a little bit of luck, the mist is heavier than the air so it can't reach their top areas, they can avoid it by just not going below the 6th floor. Other towns aren't so lucky. The residents of Drake Castle and Jerimei, at least the ones that are still alive, have been zombified by their Seru by the time your party arrives. Sure you are just going from place to place and dungeon to dungeon doing quests, but it always feels like you have a good reason for doing so and you really want to help all these people. As with any real world tragedy, different people cope and manage in different ways, some successfully, some not so much. The origin of the mist itself also leads to some cool plot twists, you learn early on that it's not a natural phenomena and that it's created by generators, but how it was created and why was quite the story.

As for the villains...well, there really isn't a main villain per se, which I always liked. The mist is really the primary antagonist, it's what you are there to stop. That was kind of nice in an era where everyone was trying to have the next Sephiroth or Kefka as their villain, often unsuccessfully.  Each generator is guarded by one of the primary villains, with the aforementioned Zeto along with Dohati, Zora and Jette under the command of someone called Cort. They sort of worship the mist, are obsessed with spreading it throughout the land and will do so by any means necessary. Again, can't really do it without major spoilers, but you do come to find out how they are all connected and why they have always been so enamored with the mist, even before it drove them insane. Cort is probably the closest thing to the main villain, but the interest in him comes more from his relation to your party and his role in the creation of the mist rather than its distribution. I can honestly say I was somewhat surprised at who he was and the plot twists surrounding him were legitimately surprising. The only other major villain not associated with his mist loving fanatics is Songi, who shows up throughout your journey to make your life miserable. Again, its sort of an ensemble cast of villains, but I think its a good one.'

LOL's biggest differentiator though is its combat system. It's very likely my favorite RPG combat system of all time, if not at the top then easily top 3. As with most RPGs, you have the option to use items, cast magic or attack. But its not as simple as just entering a command. In LOL, you attack by creating combos, choosing to strike high, low, left or right. Enter the right combination of commands and your character will perform a super art, a special move that will allow for some extra hits. Some of the arts are simple, three button commands while others will take up your entire action bar. Trying to learn all these moves is fun, at least I think so, and finding ways to chain them together for maximum efficacy is even better. If you aren't in the mood, you can always just auto enter a command as well. I didn't use this much but sometimes you just need to get a battle over with and you can learn new arts this way, so its sometime beneficial early on. Arts cost ability points, AP, which you can earn by landing successful strikes or using the spirit command.

Using spirit is one of the most important parts of LOL, it extends your attack gauge, increases your AP and buffs the defense of your entire party. Strategically using spirit is critical when facing bosses all of whom hit very hard (more on that later). The magic system is also very interesting, as you don't learn spells by leveling up. Instead, you must have your Ra-Seru absorb the power of evil Seru that you defeat in battle. Each enemy you can absorb will have an element attached to them, which is denoted at the beginning of each battle. Defeat that enemy with a specific character and you will have a chance at gaining its power, which you can then use for the rest of the game. I don't necessarily love how random it is, but it's a unique system and gives you something to seek out. The attack animations are all pretty cool, you will want to see them all and none of them are excessively long like some of the Final Fantasy summons of the era.

If I had to pick out flaws, I would start with the difficulty curve. There are massive difficulty spikes throughout and there are one too many "wake-up call" bosses for my liking. Berserker, Xain and the Delias Triplets can, and will, wreck you the first time you fight them if you aren't prepared. Really, that's probably true of all the bosses in LOL. I actually really like how challenging they are and none of them feel cheap, but they almost always feel disproportionately stronger than the normal enemies in their areas. Of course you would expect them to be more difficult, but the spikes here are absurd. This is compounded by the fact that everything is ridiculously expensive. At no point was I ever able to buy all the weapons and armor at a shop, which is a problem. You gain so little gold from battle and everything costs so much that you need to grind if you want to buy everything and forget about buying healing items, you just don't have the money. I will also say that while the combat system makes LOL more engaging than most RPGs, it does mean battles can take a long time. Even fights against regular enemies can take a while as you spirit up and experiment with various arts commands. Fortunately the encounter rate isn't too high, so it wasn't a big deal to me, but it might be to some.

Finally, I have to say the presentation is very uneven. LOL has a phenomenal soundtrack that really does a good job of setting the mood for each area, which helps to mitigate this a little. But you can tell a lot of the environments are recycled and some of the dungeons lack character. This is further compounded by having other areas of the game being incredibly memorable, my first trip to Conkram springs to mind. The graphics during battle are some of the greatest on the system and the cutscenes are excellent, but the out of battle graphics are just okay and the overworld map is borderline bad. You walk very slowly on the map and its hard to tell where you are supposed to go, so you will be seeing a lot of it. At the end of the day, a lot of things about LOL just feel a bit similar to its contemporaries, even if they are presented slightly differently. It almost bothered me more then than it does now, seeing as there are so few RPGs of this style anymore.

And, at the end of the day, Legend of Legaia did something that most games just couldn't do; it made me care about its world and the people in it. I felt for these characters, from the main cast to the NPCs and everyone in between, as they struggled with their day to day life under the worst of circumstances. It may not be one of the most technically perfect games ever, but LOL did a better job than even its big budget contemporaries at immersing the player in its mist cloaked world. The top notch, unique combat system is just icing on the cake really. The game did get a sequel, which I started many years ago and never finished, though if I recall it wasn't due to lack of interest, just lack of time. I will definitely play and review that game at some point. But it really is a shame the series died out after that. Legend of Legaia is a phenomenal game and one of the few titles I consider classic that's truly under the radar. It's definitely a game I would seek out and play any way you can.