Legrand Legacy is a tribute to the classic JRPGs of the 90s and beginning of 2000, but with gorgeous modern graphics. It has everything a JRPG fan needs: many different characters with their own personality, an epic storyline in a setting with a great atmosphere… and of course, lots and lots of monsters and bosses to fight. Legrand Legacy has been developed by SEMISOFT, and published by Another Indie & Mayflower Entertainment. The game is currently out for PC, but will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2019.
Story
The story of Legrand Legacy starts with a boy named Finn, who is a slave fighting in an arena. After he shows a mystical strength when he almost dies, he is being bought and recruited by an old man on a quest to bring medicine to his sick daughter. During your travels, the old man dies in a bandit attack and Finn decides to set out alone to find Eris, the old man’s daughter, and help her. However, he gets overwhelmed by monsters, but ends up getting saved by a lady in fancy clothing named Aria, who promises to help him find Eris, if he accompanies her first to a secret lair, where a mystical creature lives who could end a war. You’ll find this creature, a dragon in the form of a man, but he says he is not destined to end the war; something bigger and much more dangerous is coming, and Aria is the one to gather help and save the world not only from the war but also this bigger evil. Aria accepts this responsibility, and sets out to save the world, but to help Finn save Eris first. Eris turns out to be a gifted healer, and eventually the whole party travels further north to their destined fate, picking up some more companions on their travels.
The story and the characters are a bit cliché, but that is not much of a problem for this genre. The story is interesting enough to keep you wanting to play the game to see what happens next. The main character Finn is being naive and oblivious how the world works in the beginning, but develops throughout the story. Aria, a noblewoman archer trying to keep a low profile, is rather uppity and being annoyed with Finn and everything else almost all of the time. Eris is very sweet and inquisitive but can be really vengeful, and Kael, a mysterious rogue-like type, is always teasing and joking, but also very observative and smart.
The story is mainly being told via conversations, and it’s useful to talk to NPCs to see if they offer more story and background of the setting. There’s one character in the game who seems to pop up in towns everywhere you go, which can tell you a lot of information about any area where you currently are, what’s going on, and the state of the world.
Graphics
The graphics of Legrand legacy are absolutely gorgeous. The intro cutscene at the beginning looks really impressive, and there are a few more cutscenes throughout the game as well. The environments you’ll visit are hand painted, and look stunning and unique. The beautiful art make you curious how new areas will look, and will motivate you to play further and explore more of the world. The characters are 3d rendered and cell-shaded, and look very good. It’s a very nice feature that the characters are fully animated during conversations.
Sound
The music in the many different areas of this game is great; beautiful and atmospheric. Battle music is typical for JRPG type of games, an upsweeping tune. The characters aren’t narrated, but the animated character models give some extra personality to the dialogues.
Gameplay
Legrand Legacy is an RPG, one of the many tributes to the JRPG sub-genre. You’ll travel a world with many different areas where random monsters spawn, there are several towns with lots of NPCs to visit, and there’s an epic storyline where you turn out to be a fabled hero.
You need a controller to play this game, but the controls are rather intuitive. Battles are turn based, and for each character in your team you can select an action: to attack, defend, use magic or an item, etc. When either attacking or defending, you’ll need to hit a button at just the right moment to get a good or perfect result, otherwise you’ll perform very poorly. You use three fighters at the same time, but you can switch out team members during battle, whenever you want. Each character has a special attack, which charges up as you fight. These attacks are seriously powerful. So it’s wise to use them strategically, especially during boss fights.
Battles are not triggered randomly in the world, but the enemies are manifested as black floating clouds, the wandering souls which transform into monsters if you walk up to them. As a player you can approach them head on, sneak up on them for a first attack bonus, or being sneaked up upon; then you’ll have to wait out the first turn of attacking. Monsters can be weak against certain types of normal attacks or elemental attacks, so it’s wise to plan your attacks appropriately. Every now and then in the story you’ll need to fight a boss monster. Boss fights are very challenging, and you’ll usually need to level up a bit, use your items and use a good strategy in order to win.
You’ll follow the main questline through the world, but in many towns you’ll also be able to pick up side quests, usually to retrieve something from an area nearby. These side quests give decent XP which is handy to level up before boss fights, but they can take a very long time where you’ll need to stay in one area to finish all side-quests there. Sometimes the quests are very vague, not clearly indicating what you need to do or where you need to go. This can be really annoying, since you can’t travel through an area that easily with many enemies around, and going around in circles takes a lot of time. Even when you actively try to avoid the enemies you’ll still end up fighting a lot, since there are a lot of monsters fairly close to each other, and they will approach you if you get nearby. Luckily, there’s a fast travel system in the cities, to get to other cities quickly if you’ve visited them before.
Just like with most RPGs, you’ll be able to craft using materials you’ll get after battles. You can craft equipment and potions in any village where the corresponding NPC is available. You’ll learn new recipes at these NPCs whenever you find a new one in a higher level area.
Conclusion
Legrand Legacy is a great tribute to the JRPG genre. While the story is nothing new, it is interesting enough to keep the player engaged, with some nice twists. The conversations can be a bit annoying at times and sometimes feel a bit stretched thin, but that’s a minor flaw. The art in this game is absolutely great, both the gorgeous environments and the beautiful character models. The music is also very fitting and really adds to the atmosphere of an area. This game is great for any JRPG fan who loves an epic ‘become a hero and save the world’ storyline.
