Back in 1997, Squaresoft released a little game on a system called the Playstation called Final Fantasy 7, which helped change the Role Playing Game from a niche genre to a mainstream darling, bringing video game narrative and presentation to previously unseen levels. For a bright, shining moment, the Japanese RPG was seen as the ultimate video game experience, bringing stories and characters that could rival anything that could be found in the best Oscar winning movies. During this time, the market saw a large number of RPG's, ranging in quality from excellent (Suikoden 2, Grandia) to mediocre (Evolution:The World of Sacred Device, Grandia 2) to just plain awful (Time Stalkers). Among this large clout of RPG's, there is one that stands out: Legend of Dragon, the first RPG made directly by Sony. This game was one that took many years of programming and design to make, and was released in America in the year 2000. It is a game that, in spite of the lukewarm critical response, has been considered a cult classic and a consumer favorite, often called one of the best games on the Playstation. But, did the game deserve better? Did the game have potential to be more, to make way for more?
Legend of Dragoon stars Dart, a man clad in red armor who is out hunting the creature responsible for the death of his parents and the destruction of his hometown (Alright, looks like I'll be doing a cliche counter this blog entry. The number of cliches is 2), named the Black Monster (3). The game opens up with the destruction of Dart's new hometown (4) by the forces of an evil empire (5) who are hunting down a girl with apparently unusual powers (6) and are being lead by a mysterious figure in a black cloak (7) who refuses to tell the troops the purpose of their mission. Dart, having returned to his new home (8) from his failed quest (9), finds it in ruins (10) and discovers that his childhood friend (11) has been kidnapped (12) by the empire. Dart sets out to rescue his friend, Shana (13).
Jesus, 13 cliches already, and we've had like twenty minutes of gameplay, tops!
Dart bursts into Hellena Prison, a hellish prison (14) reserved for enemies of the Empire (15) lead by a brute (16) who derives joy from torturing prisoners (17). Dart fights his way through the prison (18), eventually teaming up with a knight from the Kingdom (19) named Lavitz, to rescue Shana. They eventually do, and escape the prison (20).
Lavits takes Dart and Shana to his hometown, the capital of the Kingdom. There, they meet the King, Albert, who thanks them for rescuing Lavitz, his most trusted knight (21). Albert then asks Lavitz to go help guard a border town, as the Kingdom and the Empire are at a war with each other (22). Lavitz agrees, and Dart and Shana accompany him (23).
One night, during a routine patrol (24), the town is attacked by the Empire's forces! (25) Dart and Lavitz team up to repel the enemy (26), only to discover that the Empire has a secret weapon (27): a giant man! (28) After a long fight,(29) Dart and Lavitz find themselves hopelessly outmatched (30), but at the last moment, a figure flies down from the sky (31): a woman clad in black, winged armor, there to awaken a mysterious power in Dart (32). With his new found power, Dart defeats the giant! (33) However, the woman, named Rose (34, and this is getting really annoying) tells Dart that he now has to fulfill his destiny, as the new Red Dragoon! (35!)
Thirty five narrative cliches, ladies and gentlemen. Thirty five, and we are nowhere near the middle of the game. We are not even a quarter of the way through the game, we're in the first half of the first of four equally long discs!
Legend of Dragoon was made when the RPG was really becoming profitable. Problem is, the Japanese RPG is known for being a genre whose games tend to be long, and whose clients actually buy these games fully expecting to invest, at the very least, thirty to fifty hours of gaming. And of course, there's the fact that during this period several games had really raised the bar to what an RPG should be like, such as the Final Fantasy franchise, which, not coincidentally, was during this period considered a critical and commercial darling, nearing the status of sacred cow.
When Legend of Dragoon first came out, many people called it the "Final Fantasy killer", or rather, the game that would give Final Fantasy serious competition. It had everything that people thought made Final Fantasy 7 so great: a long, epic story, superb graphics, brooding characters. But what it didn't have was what really made Final Fantasy 7, and indeed the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, so good. I'll explain.
Final Fantasy 7 was a game that played with the expectations of the time and then squashed them, taking the player by surprise in several ways that, these days, is difficult to truly appreciate. The reason people liked Cloud as a brooding hero is because, until FF7, most RPG heroes were either silent protagonists, hot blooded fighters, or happy go lucky travelers. Cloud was someone who was rude when he wanted to be, was insensitive to others a lot of the time, and was simply not a nice guy...AT FIRST. What made people like Cloud is that, early in the game, he had good qualities to balance his bad ones, but late in the game, he becomes a much better person once he goes through some personal growth. Dart was nowhere near as good as Cloud, because Dart was missing that key ingredient: growth. Dart did not grow much, if at all, during the game. He experiences loss, yes. He learns he's in love with Shana, sure. But mostly? The Dart at the start of the game is only slightly different than the Dart at the end. Furthermore, Cloud was a bad ass, and this was demonstrated in his introduction: he flips from the roof of a train unto the terminal, fights two machine gun wielding cops with only a sword and wins, then goes with the group that hired him to blow up an electric power plant. Dart is introduced reading a map and running away from a dragon.
I mentioned that Final Fantasy 7 squashed expectations, allow me to expand on that thought a little. Before FF7, most RPG's were standard fare, mostly taking place in a Medieval like fantasy world that often seem inspired, or at least influenced, by the works of Tolkien, and the game Dungeons and Dragons. Castles, princesses, magic, wizards, dragons, kings, demons, tyrants, all standard fare. Final Fantasy 7 did nothing of the sort, instead offering a world of corporate greed, wealth inequality, pollution, mixed of course with the typical elements of magic and sorcery. Legend of Dragoon, however, offered castles, princesses, dragons, kings, demons, tyrants, and magic. In other words, the standard fare. Final Fantasy 7 was offering something no one had seen before. Legend of Dragoon offered something every RPG gamer worth his salt had seen a thousand times already.
The game offered nothing new, and as I mentioned before, it was bogged down with cliche after cliche in only four hours of game play. In RPG terms, that's pretty much the time you're supposed to establish what the player can expect from your game; you're supposed to already have the tutorial finished, the main character introduced, the story should already be in motion by now, and the player should have visited at least one town and fought two bosses. When you have 36 narrative cliches in four hours, something is wrong.
But the game was not bad per se; in fact, it was actually quite good. Unoriginal? Certainly, but it was enjoyable none the less. The story, unoriginal as it was, at least serviced well enough, with several scenes actually being rather exciting and well presented for their time. There were also several elements that were actually extremely well done, and one could almost call them original. Take, for example, the mythology of the game: A thousand years ago, the world was ruled by Winglies, angelic beings that could use magic naturally. The Winglies ruled over the other races with an iron fist, enslaving them. The humans, tired of this abuse, rallied around their leader, Emperor Diaz, who found a way to defeat the Winglies: fuse a human with the soul of a dragon, thus becoming Dragoons. With 7 Dragoons, the humans fought against their oppressors in a war that would be called the Dragon Campaign, eventually overthrowing the Winglies and beginning the age of Humans. And the game actually shows us a scene from the Dragon Campaign, and let me tell you, it does not disappoint. Here it is:
The game had superb graphics for its time, a lot of which were breath taking backgrounds, and excellently rendered characters. Character design was, well, serviceable, except for the Dragoon armors, those were really cool, in my opinion. Take, for example, Dart's design:
Jesus, 13 cliches already, and we've had like twenty minutes of gameplay, tops!
Dart bursts into Hellena Prison, a hellish prison (14) reserved for enemies of the Empire (15) lead by a brute (16) who derives joy from torturing prisoners (17). Dart fights his way through the prison (18), eventually teaming up with a knight from the Kingdom (19) named Lavitz, to rescue Shana. They eventually do, and escape the prison (20).
Lavits takes Dart and Shana to his hometown, the capital of the Kingdom. There, they meet the King, Albert, who thanks them for rescuing Lavitz, his most trusted knight (21). Albert then asks Lavitz to go help guard a border town, as the Kingdom and the Empire are at a war with each other (22). Lavitz agrees, and Dart and Shana accompany him (23).
One night, during a routine patrol (24), the town is attacked by the Empire's forces! (25) Dart and Lavitz team up to repel the enemy (26), only to discover that the Empire has a secret weapon (27): a giant man! (28) After a long fight,(29) Dart and Lavitz find themselves hopelessly outmatched (30), but at the last moment, a figure flies down from the sky (31): a woman clad in black, winged armor, there to awaken a mysterious power in Dart (32). With his new found power, Dart defeats the giant! (33) However, the woman, named Rose (34, and this is getting really annoying) tells Dart that he now has to fulfill his destiny, as the new Red Dragoon! (35!)
Thirty five narrative cliches, ladies and gentlemen. Thirty five, and we are nowhere near the middle of the game. We are not even a quarter of the way through the game, we're in the first half of the first of four equally long discs!
Legend of Dragoon was made when the RPG was really becoming profitable. Problem is, the Japanese RPG is known for being a genre whose games tend to be long, and whose clients actually buy these games fully expecting to invest, at the very least, thirty to fifty hours of gaming. And of course, there's the fact that during this period several games had really raised the bar to what an RPG should be like, such as the Final Fantasy franchise, which, not coincidentally, was during this period considered a critical and commercial darling, nearing the status of sacred cow.
When Legend of Dragoon first came out, many people called it the "Final Fantasy killer", or rather, the game that would give Final Fantasy serious competition. It had everything that people thought made Final Fantasy 7 so great: a long, epic story, superb graphics, brooding characters. But what it didn't have was what really made Final Fantasy 7, and indeed the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole, so good. I'll explain.
Final Fantasy 7 was a game that played with the expectations of the time and then squashed them, taking the player by surprise in several ways that, these days, is difficult to truly appreciate. The reason people liked Cloud as a brooding hero is because, until FF7, most RPG heroes were either silent protagonists, hot blooded fighters, or happy go lucky travelers. Cloud was someone who was rude when he wanted to be, was insensitive to others a lot of the time, and was simply not a nice guy...AT FIRST. What made people like Cloud is that, early in the game, he had good qualities to balance his bad ones, but late in the game, he becomes a much better person once he goes through some personal growth. Dart was nowhere near as good as Cloud, because Dart was missing that key ingredient: growth. Dart did not grow much, if at all, during the game. He experiences loss, yes. He learns he's in love with Shana, sure. But mostly? The Dart at the start of the game is only slightly different than the Dart at the end. Furthermore, Cloud was a bad ass, and this was demonstrated in his introduction: he flips from the roof of a train unto the terminal, fights two machine gun wielding cops with only a sword and wins, then goes with the group that hired him to blow up an electric power plant. Dart is introduced reading a map and running away from a dragon.
I mentioned that Final Fantasy 7 squashed expectations, allow me to expand on that thought a little. Before FF7, most RPG's were standard fare, mostly taking place in a Medieval like fantasy world that often seem inspired, or at least influenced, by the works of Tolkien, and the game Dungeons and Dragons. Castles, princesses, magic, wizards, dragons, kings, demons, tyrants, all standard fare. Final Fantasy 7 did nothing of the sort, instead offering a world of corporate greed, wealth inequality, pollution, mixed of course with the typical elements of magic and sorcery. Legend of Dragoon, however, offered castles, princesses, dragons, kings, demons, tyrants, and magic. In other words, the standard fare. Final Fantasy 7 was offering something no one had seen before. Legend of Dragoon offered something every RPG gamer worth his salt had seen a thousand times already.
The game offered nothing new, and as I mentioned before, it was bogged down with cliche after cliche in only four hours of game play. In RPG terms, that's pretty much the time you're supposed to establish what the player can expect from your game; you're supposed to already have the tutorial finished, the main character introduced, the story should already be in motion by now, and the player should have visited at least one town and fought two bosses. When you have 36 narrative cliches in four hours, something is wrong.
But the game was not bad per se; in fact, it was actually quite good. Unoriginal? Certainly, but it was enjoyable none the less. The story, unoriginal as it was, at least serviced well enough, with several scenes actually being rather exciting and well presented for their time. There were also several elements that were actually extremely well done, and one could almost call them original. Take, for example, the mythology of the game: A thousand years ago, the world was ruled by Winglies, angelic beings that could use magic naturally. The Winglies ruled over the other races with an iron fist, enslaving them. The humans, tired of this abuse, rallied around their leader, Emperor Diaz, who found a way to defeat the Winglies: fuse a human with the soul of a dragon, thus becoming Dragoons. With 7 Dragoons, the humans fought against their oppressors in a war that would be called the Dragon Campaign, eventually overthrowing the Winglies and beginning the age of Humans. And the game actually shows us a scene from the Dragon Campaign, and let me tell you, it does not disappoint. Here it is:
Not too bad, I suppose. You can tell the designers were going for bad ass yet pretty boy warrior, and that is exactly what they got. The armor's asymmetry drives me nuts, though. But let's look at his Dragoon armor:
AH YEAH, THAT IS BAD ASS! And yes, those wings are fully functional! I love this character design!
And actually, the Dragoon forms are what make this game stand out from every other RPG. For me, they were a great idea, but, we need to be honest here: it was not executed well 100%. In particular, the Dragoon transformations sometimes just feel more like a tacked on gimmick than a valuable part of the game. For example, there's the fact that a Dragoon's special ability would often cost a LOT of magic points, say about a quarter of your MP. Meanwhile, for the amount of damage that would do for ya, I could just use a regular attack-
Wait, no, see, 'regular attacks' here are anything but. In the game, you attack enemies with a system called "additions". Basically, you ordered your character to attack an enemy, and then suddenly a square flashed on the screen. Once it did that, you pushed the button on your controller, and if you did it right, you could do it again for a combo and therefore do more damage. On paper, this is a great idea. In practice, this is more often frustrating, especially with the flashier combos that required exact precision from the player. And let's nor forget that transforming into a Dragoon meant that you had to fill an energy bar on your screen, and the ONLY way to do this was with these combos. This caused me a bit of frustration at first, but I eventually learned to kind of like it...and then hate it again.
The game was more flash than substance. The cinematics were great, the music was awesome, the graphics really showed what the Playstation could do, and the voice acting was...OK, the voice acting was not great. Neither was the dialogue. And the menu music was really, really grating. And to be honest, I really feel like the game was much too long, and that the fourth disc in particular was a huge let down. The second disc as well was a little slow, and I often asked myself "is this filler? It feels like filler".
I think that a part of me wants to believe that the game could have been something greater, but I need to be honest here: this game was released at a time where the RPG was in demand and extremely popular by a company that had the resources to pull all the stops, and for all intents and purposes, it did. However, what Sony didn't do was take a risk. Sony made a cliche storm with a gimmick, instead of something more original or daring. The original Final Fantasy, at least, played with what people expected by giving them more than that. The original Final Fantasy gave players the choice between six character classes: Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage, Thief, Warrior, and Black Belt. And you could make a team of 4 with any of those six classes, even repeat some, and that was in 1987.
Did Legend of Dragoon deserve better? Did it deserve to be a franchise, like Final Fantasy? I say no. The game sold well enough, it has its fanbase, and it's still selling on the Playstation Network, which is more than can be said for other games that were also released during the Playstation 1's era, like Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure. It could warrant a remake, but let's be honest here: it's not easy to justify one. It wouldn't make much money, and the RPG market isn't what it used to be. In the end, Legend of Dragoon was little more than a single title that did better than it should have. And really, that's enough, isn't it?
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