Legend of Legacy – HD Remastered

Grab your pens and paper, get ready to think strategically and embark on a fantastic RPG adventure that is Legend of Legacy HD Remastered. This charming, often forgotten and underrated 3DS game has finally been given a second chance, a new lease of life with a fresh coat of paint ready for modern systems.

Before starting the game you will select one of seven characters to embark on this adventure, each character has their own story motivations as well as a set starting party built from the remaining six heroes. That’s not to say you will be stuck with these three as you can recruit the remaining four heroes during the game. However, if you want to see everyone’s stories be prepared for seven playthroughs. The lands and areas don’t really change much, if at all, by playing different heroes, it’s purely dialogue and a difference in motivations for pursuing their goal.

Outside of the heroes having their own story, the reason these seven heroes are found in the same locale is that ten years before the story, an island shrouded in mystery known as Avalon was discovered. It was said that the island was forged by gods and elementals whilst also housing fabled treasures and power to those brave enough to venture forth and explore the lands.

Graphically the upgrade from the 3DS is just jaw-droppingly beautiful. Everything from the characters to enemies and even environments has a storybook aesthetic to them. The environments go one step further and become almost like a pop-up book, such as trees, obstacles, fountains etc literally popping up around you as you explore.

Along with the art, the music also received an upscale and can be listened to with that minor 3DS sound crunching. The music is what you expect from a NISA and FuRyu RPG, which is upbeat and head-bop-inducing melodies until more serious tones are needed and then they switch it up to match the tones that really bring it all alive.

Sadly as great as the music is, they didn’t choose to give the cast any voice acting with the only notable voice acting being from the Narrator. The Narrator introduces the story and will tell you things when entering a brand new location, but otherwise, there is little voice work found within. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as for me it felt like it added to the storybook aesthetic.

The closest kind of RPG I can compare Legend of Legacy to mechanically is Final Fantasy 2, as the more you use weapons and stances, the more you will level in those respective fields. Stances are used to make formations with the starting ones being attack/guard/support, these level up depending on the stance you use for that battle and what action you choose. For example, selecting “guard” stance and using “block” will not only level the effectiveness of the block but raise the overall defensive capabilities of the character. This applies to also using “attack” stance to raise physical damage and support for the magic/healing magic.

While battling, occasionally an “Awakening” will occur causing whichever character who awakened to learn a new ability from the weapon they are using or learning some kind of magic from a relic that can be swapped out to learn a new one.

After a little researching online, it turns out that each character has a hidden weapon/magic affinity which will cause them to learn things and Awaken faster in the respective types. I dug through the help book that is in the game and could not see it myself so I’m glad someone had found this information.

Another stand-out feature of this title and one I really enjoy, is the cartography element to the game. Since this is an island that’s only been around for ten years, much of the land is unmapped, so you’ll be buying blank maps to enter these locales and, through your exploration, you will be able to fill them in. This is made even sweeter by the fact that when you have fully mapped a region and all biomes within you can sell these completed maps back to the shopkeepers for a big money boost, but don’t worry you don’t lose the maps for doing this.

As I played this back on the 3DS release, I had a lot of fun reliving and re-learning Legend of Legacy. Being able to experience it with the new coat of paint and musical upscale was a real treat.

Legend of Legacy remains one of the trickier RPGs I’ve played, but with strong will and tactics, you will eventually overcome any tough learning curves which are made even sweeter when you get that “AHA!” moment for the way mechanics behave. Despite being mostly a graphical upscale there isn’t really anything new they bring to the table with this remaster, so unless you enjoyed this the first time around and wish to play it again, or are entirely new to the game, then you may be dissatisfied with it.

Legend of Legacy is a solid remaster and I fully recommend you play this underrated gem.