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What The Hell Happened To The Legend of Dragoon?

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


The The Legend of Dragoon was praised for its artistic elements like lush backgrounds and detailed character models, and even given compliments for some of its more inscrutable battle system elements. The reward went far beyond just positive critical reception though, as the game would sell astoundingly well in both the US and Japan, which was extremely rare for a JRPG of any type at the time.

So given all of that, what happened? Why did this game that launch to such success and then just kind of cease to become anything else? What the hell happened to The Legend of Dragoon and where is The Legend of Dragoon 2?
 
Erdrick

Erdrick

Member
I don't recall it being praised. I remember it being a derivative attempt by Sony to grab the hype train for big budget JRPG's after FF7 ignited said train. It was always regarded as mediocre by anyone I spoke with or read online at the time. I can see how if that was a young person's first experience with a JRPG, there would be an attachment to it but it really wasn't all that to me. I'm apparently not alone, as it obviously didn't sell enough to warrant a sequel.

I played it, and was like... "Why should I play this xerox of FF when I can play the real thing?" and went back to FF8, which was the most recent one, if I recall.

By all means, like it and enjoy it for what it was, but I never found the appeal of this one.
 
ArtemisClydeFrog

ArtemisClydeFrog

Banned
Animated GIF


Remake this fucking game NOW
 
TexMex

TexMex

Member
I liked it well enough. Great presentation but the gameplay itself wasn't better than most other turn based RPGs of that era. I've noticed in recent years a lot of people looking back on it very fondly, but I have no idea where all the newly positive sentiment is coming from.
 
killatopak

killatopak

Gold Member
I loved this game but unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to finish it.

I dunno the reason why but I think I stopped near the start of disc 2.
 
DGrayson

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I recall huge hype for it and then a let down upon release with mediocre review scores. Well at least mediocre from EGM which is all I cared about at the time.

I never played but a good friend of mine did and he liked it a lot.
 
martino

martino

Member
i was hyped, i liked it and i would take a remake or sequel but imo it's not an all time great jrpg.
 
Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Yeah I don't recall it being particularly well received at the time, my recollection is that it was treated as yet another FF copyist in a market saturated with JRPGs. It got forgotten pretty fast.
 
Castef

Castef

Banned
It was quite a mediocre JRPG with unidimensional characters and a horrible amount of boring fights. It received mixed reviews and sold not-so-well.
Wonderful pre-rendered backgrounds though.
 
BurningNad

BurningNad

Member
I just sold my copy for 90 bucks on ebay. So people are still interested, at least as a collectors item.

Loved the game, the menu music is seared into my memory.
 
nerdface

nerdface

Banned
Vier said:
LoD is arguably on par or even better than FF7.
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ, you couldn’t find a lower bar? FF7 is and always was boring trash,

...the very definition of form over function.

the battle system is sooo boring, and not even finished...they didn’t even fix the UI after major features were scrapped before launch

the only reason to play it was for the fmv, and those aged about as well as the golden saucer sequence
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
ArtemisClydeFrog said:
Animated GIF


Remake this fucking game NOW
Click to expand...

It sucks that it was Japan studio that made this game. Shuehi Yoshida was one of the original project people behind this game surprisingly. A lot of the people involved with this game moved on to other companies or changed careers.

I would love a re-imagining similar to what FF7R is doing. The writing was not great, the music was uneven in it's execution, and combat was neat but not great. But there was a tone of potential there for a sequel or a remake to fully realize that potential.

I would not give it to Bluepoint unless they had some people like Shue over looking the project and I would contract people who worked on FF7R if I could for combat systems. But I want it more than any game, because the story was pretty good, if not un-refined.
 
Cert.in.Death

Cert.in.Death

Member
A great game in most every aspect except for the most important: gameplay.

The IP is still of interest to me, but there’s zero chance of Sony going back and reviving it. The best I can possibly hope for is a trophy-enabled port, which I’d platinum if given the opportunity (along with many classic PS1 games).
 
SkylineRKR

SkylineRKR

Member
LoD is not that great. I finished it once, way back in 2000 or so. If you don't have a sore thumb after finishing this game, then kudos to you. You're constantly timing the same button, even for items you have to mash it. I liked it well enough to beat, the game is rather big, like 40 hours ish. But I wouldn't rate it higher than a 7. At the time this game wasn't half as good as Final Fantasy.
 
Pallas

Pallas

Gold Member
Never finished it unfortunately and only played it a bit but watched my female friend play it a lot. It had an interesting story, battle system was hit or mess and the music was decent. As much as I’d like for this to get remake in some capacity, I don’t think it’ll happen with the direction Sony is going.

Your only bet is maybe someone buying the IP from Sony and remaking it.
 
BaneIsPain

BaneIsPain

Member
I loved it but I always felt it is underrated gem. I think I want Chrono Cross, Xenogears or Tales of Destiny remake first.
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
BaneIsPain said:
I loved it but I always felt it is underrated gem. I think I want Chrono Cross, Xenogears or Tales of Destiny remake first.
Click to expand...

Problem is those are by third party. Square, Namco. TALES SERIES is kind of all over the place right now with all the future titles they have done. Xenogears though a classic sales wise was not a giant seller. Chrono Cross was though and the name is widely known because of CHrono trigger.

I think a sucks Nintendo owns Chrono trigger I believe. Would not mind a remake in the spirit of dragon quest which is same art style. Chrono cross could be something special.

I really think if Sony is in talks with Square to bring back CHrono cross would love for them to collaborate with ex-Japan studio developers. Hope they look hard at FF7R in how well they did the retelling of that game, and it's combat system.
 
Ten_Fold

Ten_Fold

Member
I remember a year or so ago bluepoint was interested in remaking the game. I think it would be hard not to give the game a demon’s souls remake like budget. This is probably the only game I want Sony to remake.
 
D

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
DGrayson said:
I recall huge hype for it and then a let down upon release with mediocre review scores. Well at least mediocre from EGM which is all I cared about at the time.

I never played but a good friend of mine did and he liked it a lot.
Click to expand...
Except for DailyRadar (the most respected gaming publication of that era) gave it a perfect 5/5
 
O

Outlier

Member
The game had it's qualities.

Good music.
Combat combo mini game (to make it a little more engaging).
And... ummm. Don't remember anything else good about it.

The story is eh.
The characters are worse.
And the forced romancing of Dart and Shana was a big turn off, for me.

I replayed it many years ago (can't even remember when) and beat (first time) and remember feeling disappointed by the experience, as a whole.

All in all, yeah the game isn't very good, but no reason to throw it in the trash.
 
Last edited:
thicc_girls_are_teh_best

thicc_girls_are_teh_best

Gold Member
I guess Sony saw no need to push in-house JRPGs when they were able to rely on 3P devs like Square and Enix to provide those games more or less exclusively to PlayStation by default during the PS1 and PS2 eras. So, if that were the case (and it was), why compete against companies basically doing those games for your platform exclusively anyway?

It's probably a similar reason why Square never continued Driving Emotion; why bother competing with the platform holder's own simulation racer when you're already on good terms bringing your JRPGs exclusively to them? Not to mention that game in particular was lukewarm when it actually came out, similar to The Bouncer.

Maybe there's still enough nostalgia for it? Depending on how things shake out this gen with Square-Enix, Atlus etc. potentially bringing more of their games to Microsoft and Nintendo platforms (and PC) in shorter release windows or even Day-and-Date (and in the case of Atlus, stuff like SMT seemingly being Nintendo-exclusive), Sony probably won't be able to leverage those same ties using platform exclusivity (or in some cases even timed exclusivity) as a differentiating factor when it comes to the 3P stuff.

Unfortunately Japan Studio is dead so they'd have to get one of their other in-house teams to do a sequel or remake, or maybe work with Bluepoint on it if they'd like. It'd have to be worth their while though so they'd just re-release the original game and try gauging where overall interest is at before deciding on any kind of sequel (and it would be a bit weird for a JRPG sequel to be developed by a Western studio, tho again Bluepoint got DS more or less right with the remake so they would be the best bet).
 
Papacheeks

Papacheeks

Banned
thicc_girls_are_teh_best said:
I guess Sony saw no need to push in-house JRPGs when they were able to rely on 3P devs like Square and Enix to provide those games more or less exclusively to PlayStation by default during the PS1 and PS2 eras. So, if that were the case (and it was), why compete against companies basically doing those games for your platform exclusively anyway?

It's probably a similar reason why Square never continued Driving Emotion; why bother competing with the platform holder's own simulation racer when you're already on good terms bringing your JRPGs exclusively to them? Not to mention that game in particular was lukewarm when it actually came out, similar to The Bouncer.

Maybe there's still enough nostalgia for it? Depending on how things shake out this gen with Square-Enix, Atlus etc. potentially bringing more of their games to Microsoft and Nintendo platforms (and PC) in shorter release windows or even Day-and-Date (and in the case of Atlus, stuff like SMT seemingly being Nintendo-exclusive), Sony probably won't be able to leverage those same ties using platform exclusivity (or in some cases even timed exclusivity) as a differentiating factor when it comes to the 3P stuff.

Unfortunately Japan Studio is dead so they'd have to get one of their other in-house teams to do a sequel or remake, or maybe work with Bluepoint on it if they'd like. It'd have to be worth their while though so they'd just re-release the original game and try gauging where overall interest is at before deciding on any kind of sequel (and it would be a bit weird for a JRPG sequel to be developed by a Western studio, tho again Bluepoint got DS more or less right with the remake so they would be the best bet).
Click to expand...

They also had people from Japan studio oversee it. There are still people from Japan studio working at Sony. Just the studio itself has been condensed to team Asobi, and the rest of the World Wide global setup they have for international development.

Shue was one of the original overseer's of Legend of Dragoon.

So if he wanted to over see it he could.
 
Alebrije

Alebrije

Member
Legend of Dragoon was Sony's final fantasy to have its own RPG and not depend of Square....

Since then Sony depends of other studios to bring RPGs to playstations.

The game was fine but was lost in the shadows of better gsmes like FF7,FF8,Xenogears,FF9,Vagrant , Chrono Cross...etc,etc
 
D

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Why would Sony even want a first party JRPG studio? This game got mediocre reviews and lukewarm sales.

Lots of JRPG series and studios went extinct in the PS2-PS3 eras. Seems like it was much easier to make this type of game when it was static 2D backgrounds (instead of 3D open worlds) and simple models with no voice acting.

I think it’s high risk/low reward to make this kind of game, especially by modern AAA standards.
 
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