Well oh fricking joy! Yet ANOTHER RPG game from the people who bled such “hits” as Arc the Lad : End of Darkness and Xenosaga Episode II : The Game With The Long Cutscenes That Could Drive Peter Jackson Insane! Yeah, as you can see I am soooooo hyped about this one… not.

Apparently as part of it’s “Fall Bash” last year over in San Fran, Namco went and unveiled the first playable demo of the English version of it’s new RPG, Tales of Legendia, of which you haven’t seen a game of since 2001 when Tales of Destiny II (aka Tales of Eternity in Japan) hit. Why? Because maybe they’re trying to prove that, despite past experience, when it comes to RPGs Namco does NOT hate you… maybe.
According to this first look article somebody else wrote on the game, Tales of Legendia goes old school by returning to the feel of previous games by “moving away from the force gauge and its multiple lines of combat”, retro-ing back into single line battlefronts… whatever that means.
Oh, yeah, Tales of Legendia happen to be in the same franchise as Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube… so if you loved or hated that game you might already have drawn a pre-destined conclusion about your feelings for Legendia… I, for the record, was mixed on Symphonia so I’m not exactly jumping for joy on Legendia. That and I still have the bitter aftertaste of playing End of Darkness and Xenosaga Episode II so I’m not really all that hot on the Namco brand of RPG in any rate! Sure, I wanted to take a first look at Cowboy Bebop the Game this week but suddenly Sony pulled it off their release list for some reason! There’s no mention anymore about the game, or when it’ll come out! What’s up with that!!

Back to Legendia. I’m not going to try and bury you in technical jargon, don‘t worry, let’s keep it

simple.
The big seller of Legendia, according to the article, is supposed to be something called the “Climax” system… and no by that I don’t mean the game has suddenly gone XXX or anything. Apparently the “Climax” bar is comparable to the “Unison Bar” from Symphonia in that the meter builds up as you hand out and receive punishment. Once the meter fills to the brim you can quickly tap the L1 button to bring on “Climax” mode… which still makes the game sound pornographic… only instead of doing anything XXX it’ll have a freeze effect on your enemies. They’ll stop, and you’ll be able to dish out punishment without hindrance. Also while in this mode you can once again tap the L1 button to deliver a “fatality” style move which delivers extra damage. Well… I guess that sounds OK, in theory, but if it holds up in actual gameplay that’s something only a full play of the actual product will reveal.

Another new feature noted in Legendia is the ability to utilize stealth techniques in order to avoid enemies without having to fight them… whether or not you can snuff them Sam Fisher style from behind, however, is not exactly spelled out. The technique, as you might have guessed, is all dependant on your timing so good timing is key to pulling this off. Another addition is something called “throwing”… gee, wonder what “throwing” implies. Guess that means you’ll go Russell Crowe and start chucking enemies like he chucks telephones, only you won’t be throwing your goblins and other beasts at hotel employees or anything.

From the few minutes the writer of the original article could have playing the game, and that’s something considering there was probably a ton of press and a few copies of the game to go about for playing, the writer came away with the impression that the game was overall Basic RPG 101 gaming.
You walk around, a “random encounter” happens, you

fight, wash rinse repeat. Sorta like the combat system of most RPGs which seems to have been taken from the back of a shampoo bottle.
There are supposed to be puzzles, to the tune of simple, hidden in (as you might have guessed) the dungeons! Why is it ALWAYS the DUNGEONS WHERE PEOPLE HIDE THEIR PUZZLES!!
One thing the writer did note is that Legendia seems to have a feel similar to a fighting game with RPG elements… say what… the writer refers to Atelier Iris with a dash of Star Ocean in reference to Legendia. Great, I only played Star Ocean (Til’ the End of Time) so I have no idea what that means! Oh, and the game seems to “borrow” (cough cough) from Soul Caliber III… is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Then the writer notes that you can order your teammates to change behaviors (probably meaning attack patterns) similar to the (dot)hack quadrilogy AI command system… ok, now that I do know! If it’s as smooth as that then I think I might have something nice to say about -- wait, I haven’t seen the story yet!
Somehow when it comes to Namco the first thing that makes me hate the game is the story, it’s always the story that seems to do me in!

Let’s see, what else… the game sports “colorful cartoony graphics”… if you are a fan of it you’ll love it, if you think it’s an evil tool of the Anti-RPGist you’ll never learn to love it no matter how many games fills their worlds with colorful cartoony graphics. The storyline, oh now here’s where my hate meter usually goes into overdrive… let’s see, what’s the story…
You follow a young Eres Master known as Senel Coolidge as he drifts while lost at sea on a boat with his sister Shirley… and since this isn’t the kind of game where they land on the Blue Lagoon and start having incestuous

thoughts about each other you can bet they’ll eventually be thrust into some kind of adventure, instead of the other kind of thrusting which will probably have banned this game from American shores except for untranslated PC versions that Fox News will complain often about.
Eventually the pair runs out of food and water (oops) and in their most desperate hour they land on an island protected from the ocean mist rather thankfully (yeah, like we didn‘t see that one coming)…. Oh, and no, no, they don’t start hooking up or anything…. That’d be too much of a shock for even me. Read on.
Upon further investigation of their brand new temporary “home“ they find the island is NOT an island, it is (in fact) a giganto ship known as the "Legacy" which, yes, thrusts the two into an adventure that won’t go anywhere past a T for Teen rating as they decipher things (non-Myst slash Trace Memory) style, and kill things (because deciphering mysteries often goes hand in hand with killing things)!

Well, one bright part is that the writer of the original article does shine hope for us on this game by pronouncing that it is a definite change of pace from previous Namco bomb Xenosaga Episode II… but then again considering he or she didn’t play the game long enough maybe they didn’t run into the godawful long cutscenes yet… let’s hope not. But on a bright point (yes it is bright), the writer does say the game should have an appeal for old school genre RPG fans, which should be good since this new stuff is rubbing me the wrong way it seems! Just hope, pray, and will the power of your mind to compel Namco to ride this game into stores proudly… and not drag it’s near collapsed gaming premise into stores looking for a mount to display it on. Translation : Please, Namco, please don’t make this game suck!!