3/5 ★ – stephenhill777's review of The Legend of Dragoon.

The Legend of Dragoon is a wonderfully average JRPG, which is not the same as bland. It takes a few swings at mixing up the formula, enhancing and hindering the experience in equal measure. No matter how much I want to love it, I can't quite bring myself to. And yet, despite some of the more frustrating elements of the game, I can't honestly say I hate it either. It's certainly a game, and a playable one at that. ...so far, that's one paragraph in without really saying anything. Get used to it. There's a lot of that in this story. We focus on Dart, JRPG protagonist de jure, who is very noble, has a mysterious past and whose most memorable characteristic is his eerily familiar spiky hair. He receives the call to adventure when he discovers his hometown has been burned down and his childhood friend/inevitable sweetheart Shana is kidnapped by the sinister Emperor Doel. In rescuing her, he kicks off a series of events that lead to him uncovering his past, as well as a plot that threatens to destroy the world. Involving dragons, no less. It would have been a fairly odd game title if it didn't. So there it is: a plot as formulaic as a toilet break. As is the case in such games, you will encounter a wide cast of characters that will join you on your quest, many of whom can be easily summarized in a word or two. Shana is the Damsel. Lavitz is the Loyal Friend. Rose is Cold, Kongol is a Brute and Meru is the Kooky One. Haschel is the only character with any real nuance, being a martial arts master of great discipline while simultaneously a somewhat lecherous drunk. However, like quite a few of your party members, he has almost no bearing on the plot at all. They are incidental set dressing, inoffensive as such, but hardly worth getting invested in. Where the game works is in the moment to moment gameplay. One of the main issues faced by JRPGs is how to make standard combat interesting. Your run-of-the-mill attack, magic and defend battle menus are an open invitation to simply listen to podcasts as you navigate dungeons. Legend of Dragoon counteracts this with QTEs. Like the Mario RPG titles, you can gain extra damage against enemies with a well-timed button prompt. And, unlike those games, the penalty for fumbling these prompts can often be quite severe. It's a great way to keep players engaged in random battles...at first. Most attacks only have one or two simple button presses to complete the attack formation. But as you progress, your attacks (called Additions), get longer and more complex. Your final addition, if you unlock it, will have you timing a total of SEVEN button presses for a single attack. That's excessive when the enemies can be killed in just one turn, but it becomes unforgivable during the final boss, who can take upwards of an hour to defeat. Luckily, the option to stick with your short, opening addition and simply continue to power it up is available, and this is absolutely the most desirable way to play. The ability to transform into a Dragoon, meanwhile, is what appears to be the games selling point, but it doesn't affect gameplay as much as you might think. Like limit breaks in Final Fantasy, you have to build up to it by attacking enemies and gaining SP. Once you have enough, you can transform, gaining an Attack and Defense boost, as well as the ability to use magic. Cordoning off magic behind the Dragoon form is a very odd choice, as it makes elemental weaknesses (a staple in JRPGs) almost inconsequential. They attempt to counteract this by adding more weight to offensive usable items, but due to a rather harsh inventory limit, you can't stockpile these. What that means is, while the Dragoon form works as a typical limit break, it also detracts any real tactical depth from the combat. Fighting a gargantuan Divine Dragon in a volcano might look impressive, but defeating it can feel a little hollow. The level design does earn a few points for credibility. While the locations themselves can be formulaic, in the way those Middle Age fantasy RPGs are, there is the odd gem nestled among them. The Valley of Corrupted Gravity and Aglis, the underwater city both stand out. And the dungeons themselves, while a little visually bland, really shine from a gameplay perspective. They are never overly long, and pose enough of a challenge to make you feel like you've accomplished something once you come out the other end. The previously mentioned item limit, which can be irksome at times, still adds a pleasing survival aspect to each expedition. The difficulty curve is admirably level throughout, only really spiking in the final hours, or when the multiple additions start to irritate. What is most likely going to divide people, and most certainly what everyone will take away from the experience, is the infamous translation. It is not hyperbole to say, this is the worst translation for a mainstream video game you are likely to see. Where to start... The spelling errors are just h'orderves to the hot mess that follows. Text boxes will occasionally cut the dialogue off completely so that you can't read entire sentences. At times, the punctuation feels completely random. My favourite niggle, however, is the mis-labelling of certain dialogue choices, which cause you to say the opposite of what you intended. I first noticed this at a Weapon shop where my dialogue options were "Don't forget to buy!" (which ended the exchange) and "Don't buy" (which brought me to the shop menu screen). All of this is to say nothing of how borderline nonsensical the dialogue actually becomes when it starts dealing with weighty themes of life, death, humanity and honour. The generic nature of the story is the only thing that prevents it from becoming incomprehensible, as so much of the garbled monologues just feel like we're going through the motions. If anything, this ends up one of the more entertaining aspects of the game, challenging the player to try and understand what the hell the characters are trying to say. All of these issues are wrapped up in a game that is, at the end of the day, incredibly earnest and quaint. You almost want to pat it on the head, or hang it up on the fridge, just for how hard it's trying. The music and graphical style never really WOW!, but they are comfortably nostalgic, like a nice pair of slippers. Of course, if you have no patience for anything I've mentioned before, it might not be the experience for you. And now, as an added treat, here are my top 5 favourite mistranslated lines in the game! 5: The flame puts me in the mood to "Do it!". 4: [While on the moon] We must be in the moon. 3: Shut up. Talking makes you die! 2: Destroy yourself and preserve my vision! 1: I'm glad to receive your fist, Master