The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered

[Peklo]

One of the best 3DS games, the best RPGs, the best SaGa-likes, the best Masashi Hamauzu vehicles has been announced for a remaster that it sorely needed and deserved. The game's effective follow-up in The Alliance Alive has had its own remaster available for years, and maybe that had more priority, as it appeared in the twilight of its system, and appealed to a more general RPG nostalgia bent with the structural and narrative choices it made. In that light, I wouldn't say "if you liked one, check out the other" because they serve entirely different ends, with Leg of Leg in particular being of the more quietly evocative, lonely kind of RPG design, where you are left alone with the mechanics and your seldom-speaking point of view character, and the storytelling lives in the moment and in suggestion instead of reams of textual exposition. It's one of the reasons why I think it's one of the best-written games in the genre--Masato Kato's sensibilities help for the strictly textual parts of it--because for once it feels confident in utilizing restraint for effect, and not in the cynically codified how-does-it-fit-together breadcrumb way Souls has popularized. 2015 when this game originally came out effectively predated the modern SaGa resurgence and push on part of its own publisher, and the shifting receptiveness of audiences to finally take games like them at their own merits, which reflected in the confused and indifferent treatment Leg of Leg also received in its time. Now, I hope things will be at least slightly different, and the many great qualities of this singular game will be more openly discovered and interacted with.

 

[Kazin]

I have no recollection why, but I bounced hard off the 3DS version of this game, so I'll likely give this one a shot since the same happened with Alliance Alive, which I eventually ended up loving once I tried the HD version of that. I know they're different games, but hopefully the same situation occurs here, since I recall most people who played both liking Legend of Legacy more anyway, at least around here.

 

[narcodis]

FWIW I liked Alliance Alive way more than this game. Legend of Legacy felt like a prototype of Alliance Alive to me.

I still played this one a lot, but never quite finished it. It's hard a fuckin' nails, suffocatingly oppressive, and it does not give a fuck, which I deeply respect and admire, but not for the sake of its playability. Leg(s) is not the kind of game I feel inclined to chew on (its very chewy) unless a very particular mood strikes me.

However: you can be a frog knight.

edit: the trailer chose a perfect party

 

[Octopus Prime]

LEGOLEG is… in my top three SaGa games with the serial numbers filed off, but Alliance Alive definitely feels like the finished product that this was the first draft for.

That being said

That’s a hell of a frog in this game;

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I got the 3DS version of this as a Festivus gift a couple years ago, but didn't know much about it; I should try it out!

 

[Paul le Fou]

That’s a hell of a frog in this game;

It sure is!

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I just started playing and at least for one starting character they hit you with the frog right away

 

[gorha]

I really enjoyed Legend of Legacy on 3DS, though that probably had a lot to do with the drought of English language SaGa releases at the time, when the last one was Minstrel Song a decade earlier. But it's a fine game in its own right, and if anything I have to think SaGa Scarlet Grace's developers took some cues from it, with that game including things like improving techs through repeated use and pop-up book map graphics. I wonder whether it will find a bigger audience with the remaster. It's certainly true that popular opinions on the SaGa series have become more positive in the past few years, but on the other hand many games in that series are readily available now, and a new one was announced right before this, so it's no longer occupying a space with no direct competition. If nothing else, it's good that Legend of Legacy will survive the 3DS eshop closure.

 

[Peklo]

I'm hopeful for a better reception in the sense that I love this game and would like for others to appreciate it too, but I don't think its fortunes will change much judging from how the comeback announcement itself has been treated, with odd condescension toward the game or misattributions of its individual character, that it's somehow equatable and a lesser version of its own follow-up, which--I stress--shifted itself structurally, narratively and stylistically so much that it's unavoidable there will be significant personal preference leaning one way or another between the two, and not just two varying intensities of similar takeaways between them. The Alliance Alive was treated more kindly because it is more redolent of the so-called classics and crowd-pleasing canon of the genre--The Legend of Legacy is not, and is why I value it. Even reducing it to a SaGa clone--which I also do out of shorthand, recognition of its creative pedigree, comparative recommendation and the like--is not all that useful because like most SaGa games are to one another, the exact specifics of what came together here is something I haven't found reproduced in any other context.

 

[Lokii]

What an unexpected announcement! Very cool that this game is getting a second chance to find its audience. I wonder what's driving this port. I didn't get the impression Alliance HD did super well.

I want to push back against the notion that Leg is in some way a prototype or stepping stone to Alliance though. In many ways Alliance is a step back, softening and broadening what made Leg special in order to appeal to a general audience. Understandable, as Leg is a severe game that's difficult to get into and by nature only going to appeal to a niche of a niche. But it's that severity that makes for a razor-sharp, svelte game that finds itself toeing into the sublime.

Alliance and Leg are both goatish but in my opinion Leg is the real billy.

 

[Beowulf]

It's interesting that a discussion of Legend of Legacy centers so much around The Alliance Alive, because they really occupied different gaming spaces for me. AA, despite the SaGa-like battle elements, scratched a Suikoden itch for me. It's a definitive story of people from all over the world--fleshed-out characters from all over the world--coming together to solve a greater problem. LoL is an extremely SaGa game to me--everything about it, from the plot to the systems, is a mystery you need to uncover. It was an atmospheric exploration game where the plot and the characters were all loose caricatures and that's all they needed to be. Very different gaming niche, y'know?

 

[Peklo]

Murayama wrote The Alliance Alive, so I think either his input or presence in the project influenced the rest of the design and shape that game took, partly toward what he's used to making. I hope to hell he's in better form for Eiyuden, because I pretty much hated the writing voice in The Alliance Alive, and it's the primary vector for why I experience these two games so differently, regardless if they have the same Glimmer-based SaGa battle system shadings, or a host of veterans from that series shared between them.

 

[estragon]

Excited and surprised to see Legend of Legacy get a remaster so it can escape the 3DS, although it's somewhat bittersweet because the director (Matsuura Masataka) seems to have left the industry entirely after Alliance Alive did poorly. I was hoping that maybe I'd see his name come up in any news about this, but I haven't yet. Presumably it was work for hire so it's not terribly surprising or abnormal for the work to live on without the original team and I'm glad it will be more accessible, but it's still a bummer to me that his whole RPG project seems more or less dead at this point. What he was going arguably has even less of a niche now that SaGa games are so accessible (and that Kawazu seems to have cultivated clearly defined successors at Square Enix with the newer games), but I do think Legend of Legacy and Alliance Alive were an impressive proof of concept and wish that general network of people could have kept up their working relationship and got the chance to make more.

 

[demi]

I thought this game was incredible on the 3DS, I loved the sense of mystery of Avalon, with strange ruins and striking vistas that had be wondering "how long has this been undisturbed?" Its environments and OST are both incredible, and Tomomi Kobayashi's concept art was like the perfect compliment to the adorable designs featured in-game. I can't wait to play it again, and while I thought the game was perfectly suited for the 3DS form factor, I am equally excited to have a platform that enables me to share the game with somebody via couch/TV.

Between the two, Alliance Alive is the one I didn't end up getting too far in when I tried it, but I really need to give that game another go sometime too.

 

[balder the brave]

I still listen to the music from this game - amazing.

I'd like to play it again, but I'll have to read a guide about how magic works. I made a conscious effort to use the magic items again and again but ended up learning almost zero spells.

 

[spines]

finally starting this now. i got killed like 4 times in a row trying to return to the first area after beating the first boss, hahaha. i'm pretty into it already though. it already seems rather more unlimited saga than i expect any game to be...

it took a while but earlier this week i beat alliance alive, which i really wanted to do first (because i'd already started it). the overload of systems and late-game sidequests and the need to manage so many characters' equipment for a lot of the midgame gave the same kind of decision exhaustion i get playing srpgs ("i just don't want to do any more of this right now, i'll come back in a while when i'm ready again"). i liked but didn't absolutely love it. i think the early parts are really strong, they're clever and toy with what i expected repeatedly, and give the game a feeling of confidence that kept me interested to the end-that sense was honestly more compelling to me than the story or characters (though i did like them). the mixture of nostalgic retro-isms and modern rpg concepts ends up a bit weird and sometimes awkward to interface with (i.e. constantly scouting anywhere you can revisit for guild members who might be available now) but in retrospect it does give the game some amount of saga-esque freedom despite how tremendously linear it is. i mostly built the library guild and got a super powerful spell for it, so i really wonder if most of the others are anywhere near that level, because if they actually pulled that off, it'd be super cool. really will probably check it out again just for that

i think it's probably my least favorite saga game i've beaten, but i do think that it's a saga game. hahaha

edit: also filmia's idle pose being a little swaying hands on hips dance thing is absolutely sending me. it's absurdly funny in context

 

[Peklo]

I finally got around to this. I entertained mixing up the protagonist perspectives, but I really just couldn't resist and wanted to see Eloise again; she's so much fun as an RPG viewpoint character in all her flirtatious obfuscation and hidden agendas. Did some more advanced stuff that I bounced away from the first time, namely all the optional big fights in the Shifting Sands mirage dungeons, and two of the superboss dragons. Tough customers!

My opinions about the game haven't really changed since I first played and wrote a little about it some six years ago: it's a very special RPG that interacts with vintage sensibilities with confidence, resulting in something totally singular and exceptional. I would never accuse the game of being underwritten--it's only allotted and structured in more novel ways than many other games do, in their excessive verbiage often conveyed in lump paragraphs. In Legacy the writing is all around you, in little fragments: the quirkily chipper townsperson quips, the gravitas of the narrator introducing each location, the often very funny (at least in Eloise's case) reactions of your protagonist when subject to environmental traps or facing off against whatever new beast, and most definitely in the prime narrative throughline that exists in the Singing Stones, which present a melacholy record of Avalon in poetic verse. This is not a game drowning you in words-by-the-minute every moment that transpires, instead choosing to aptly punctuate its inherent strengths that exist in the dynamics of exploration and the people who pursue it, all wrapped up in an evocative, sparing emotional tenor. It's truly wonderful throughout and creates a distinct mythology without relying on codexes and glossaries to paint that picture.

Coming to understand the game on the other end of familiarization with so much preceding SaGa creates more opportunities to appreciate what unifies and distinguishes them. The absence of level-scaling is one huge factor in how the game psychologically feels--I don't personally feel pressured by an ever-climbing enemy rank system in the games that utilize it, but many others do and so a more conventional area-based enemy strength structure takes the edge off the game ever feeling like it can irrevocably outpace the player. At the same time, it removes (or shuffles) the factors that interact with other series staple concepts, like the weapon art Awakenings used here in lieu of Glimmers: though always informed by a significant element of chance, it's much less likely to quickly awaken new arts and charms when the stronger opposition that enables realistic odds of it are for the most part seen very late in the game. In practice it may not be a big difference, but it can create dry spells where nothing much is being learned if the characters plateau in strength relative to the current area, as the opposition remains static in nature. The jackpot learning sessions then tend to be reserved for the dangerous prime predators that outclass their surrounding fellow fauna, and is something the player can try their luck and pluck at if they dare to. In essence it reflects many other design aspects of the game, where the methods are very SaGa-brained, but the oblique madness has less opportunities to manifest since at least some part of the equation has been rendered inert, parsable and reproducible.

Even so, a key strength of interacting with a game like this--divisive and shrugged-off often even within its small niche--is that it doesn't stand as a work that has been numerically "solved" even nearly a decade after its release: consulting resources to unravel its inner workings will most often result in incomplete databases of compiled information based on anecdotal suppositions, misunderstandings of game mechanics or just plain guesses about how the granular parts of it operate. It's the result of passionate people trying to observe and comprehend what the game so very deliberately withholds, and sheer inertia of audience has not been enough to reveal its secrets as cold, hard data. It's a boon on the experiental end of the game, where maybe you don't have a good idea of what approximately a third of the bestiary entries are and where they might appear... or how to acquire the strongest weapons in the game, none of which are particularly necessary for completing it. SaGa design sense is self-fulfilling in that characters shape themselves into the roles you want and need to use them in, and usually that's enough to get by... so operating on hearsay circulating amongst the playground rumour network and leaving things to luck suits Legend of Legacy's mission statement perfectly well.

 

[Kazin]

This has reminded me to wishlist Legend of Legacy HD, I really need to give it another shot with all the SaGa experience I have under my belt now, as opposed to when I first played it on 3DS all those years ago (not that I'm an expert or anything, I've still not gotten into the Romancing SaGa games yet...)