Legend of Legaia

Having spent a great deal of time reviewing the truly old school consoles and games, I wanted to take a couple of posts to review some of my favorite "old school" PS1 games. In this first post, I want to do a quick review of Legend of Legaia. I forget exactly when I first played this game, but I do remember sneaking into my brothers room to swipe it while he was out at work. You see, he has a bit of OCD sometimes and tends to "horde" games and then slowly play them. In fact, I believe he still has several PS1 RPG's that he has never even played. Can you imagine? Anyway, I snuck into his room and snagged Legend of Legaia and rushed my chubby out-of-shape pubescent ass upstairs to my lair and plugged that f@#ker in. 

Almost right away I was hooked. The game begins with a quick story about these creatures called the Seru/Ra-Seru who work together with humans in a variety of ways. Well, these creatures go absolutely friggin nuts when a fog rolls in and that is pretty much where the story begins. The game basically features the standard RPG elements with a couple of new twists. Instead of having a "straight-up" magic and summon system, the game takes advantage of the Seru creatures and actually allows you to learn different creature skills as you defeat the enemies. Also, in the battle menu you don't simply choose "Fight", "Spell" etc., but instead must select a number of attacks like left punch, right kick etc. Eventually (with some practice), you will learn combo moves that will devastate your opponents and help learn some new techniques and creature skills.

Honestly, this game is a lot of fun and has a pretty cool, albeit stock, storyline. In regards to the basics, the control is smooth, the graphics are tight and the sound/music is decent too. My only real complaint with this game is that it is just too easy. I mean, I remember finishing it in a weekend. Don't get me wrong, if you love RPG's and the PS1 you should really check this game out. I feel like it brings a lot of new "things" to the table for classic gamers. Anyway, this game is kind of hard to find nowadays, so if you see a copy pick it up. If I had an 8-Bit Memoirs seal of approval I would slap it on this one.