Systems > Game Boy > F > Final Fantasy Legend > Staff Review
Sign up for a free user account and you can leave feedback for this review or even submit a game review of your own!
Review by Sho
August 01, 2007
It’s not merely that Legend is incredibly difficult – it may be the most frustrating console-style RPG ever made. No matter where you are in the game, you’ll have to deal with a horrific random encounter rate featuring large groups of monsters that can wipe out your entire party in a matter of moments. Even if you emerge from one of these battles triumphant you’ll find that there aren’t any experience points to be won. Humans have to buy all their HP and stat increases via expensive items in shops, while mutants’ abilities just seem to randomly increase after certain battles. If you’re lucky. It’s not uncommon for a mutant character to remain stagnant no matter what you do, causing them to lag far behind the rest of your group, and even if one of them ever randomly learns a powerful attack, it can be suddenly replaced with something horrible just like that. You literally have to save the game after every single random encounter, as you’re always one battle away from becoming totally screwed.
Making matters even worse is the fact that all your weapons and spells have a limited number of uses before they disappear. You can’t recharge or repair them either; once a weapon is gone you’ll have to buy a completely new one. Like most old school RPGs, your survival requires countless hours of level building and all sorts of expensive equipment, but now your human characters don’t get any stronger if you don’t spend all your money on those stat upgrades – and wear out all that expensive equipment in the process, leaving you screwed once again.
You might be free to choose any combination of humans, mutants, and monsters when you form your party, but the results will either be hideously expensive or virtually impossible. Monster characters are the most interesting but comparatively useless; they can occasionally eat the flesh of a defeated enemy, transforming into a different creature altogether depending on its current form and the enemy being devoured. However besides promoting godless cannibalism, this process gives you very little control over their development. You might become something more powerful, but it’s just as likely that you’ll end up with something weaker, and since monsters can’t use any equipment these stats will remain fixed until you transform again.
More importantly, a monster can only attack with its natural abilities, and since these also have a limited number of uses it’s very possible that you’ll run out of attacks in the middle of nowhere. In such a case your entire party will be left unable to fight and forced to attempt fleeing, possibly getting slaughtered in the process. Unlike weapons, mutant and monster abilities can be recharged by staying at an inn, but for that matter inns are a scam all their own. Their cost is equal to the number of hit points that everyone needs restored, so if you don’t have enough gold to heal everyone at once you’ll all be left battered and bloody in the street.
Considering the nightmare of building up and then maintaining your characters, it’s just heaping on insult to injury when you realize that they’re ultimately disposable. A dead party member can only be revived at a town, which isn’t unusual in and of itself – but he can only be restored exactly three times. After that you’ll need to either buy a ridiculously expensive item to give him one extra life or recruit a brand new replacement from the local guild.
And as if the mechanics weren’t torturous enough on their own, some of the quests seem designed to drive you insane. At one point you have to locate a tiny island that can be used to sail across the sea despite the fact that it looks like all the other ones dotting the map, so you just have to step on every single one until you find the one that can move. Later on you’ll have to scour the aforementioned nuclear wasteland in search of an invisible city while being constantly attacked by that world’s final boss. Of course, just getting to that point would suggest that you’re the sort who enjoys senseless pain, so you probably won’t care anyway.
Like Final Fantasy II before it, Legend isn’t simply a bad game – it’s fundamentally broken. At least Square was apparently trying to liven up the RPG genre with something fresh and innovative. Needless to say, they failed.
|
|
|
Most recent video game reviews written by Sho
OutRun (Arcade) [November 12, 2010]
The 7th Saga (Super Nintendo) [November 03, 2010]
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PlayStation) [October 31, 2010]
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC) [October 30, 2010]
Shin Megami Tensei (Super Nintendo) [October 29, 2010]
|
You can click the tabs on the above bar to choose whether you wish to read comments from visitors who have posted on Facebook, or from registered site users who have left feedback on the forums. Please leave a comment of your own if you have anything to say!
|
|
|
Follow Us |
Advertise exclusively for 1 month... only $1000!
Recent Forum Discussions
+ holdthephone's Final Fantasy XIII-2 review
+ [News] Schafer has pitched Psychonauts 2, Minecraft dev says 'let's make it happen'
+ Where's SkyWard Sword's review ? And please bring back the rating feature.
+ playstation vita, yo.
+ RotW January 29 - February 04 2012
+ Games to be added to the database...
+ The Final Fantasy XIII-2 thread
+ [News] Final Fantasy X HD will be a remaster, not a remake
+ [News] Naughty Dog explored making a new Jak and Daxter, made Last of Us instead
+ Magical Mystery Tournament!
+ disco's SoulCalibur V review
+ nickyv917's Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door review
Staff Game Reviews
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| SoulCalibur V |
| The Simpsons Arcade Game |
| Quarrel |
| Star Ocean: The Last Hope |
| Pushmo |
| Medal of Honor: Airborne |
Site Staff
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |  | ||
 |
Featured Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Rayman Origins |
| Othello |
| Scarface: The World is Yours |
| The Last Express |
| Golden Axe II |
| Assassin's Creed: Revelations |
Exclusive User Reviews [+]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Mega Jump |
| White Knight Chronicles |
| Dragon Wars |
| F-Zero GX |
| Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door |
| Pokemon Snap |
Info |
Help |
Privacy Policy |
Contact |
Advertise
© 1998-2012 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site--from reviews, guides, cheats and editorials to message board posts--may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Final Fantasy Legend is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Final Fantasy Legend, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.
