A Brief History:
Love it or hate it, Eden Legacy is here to stay, at least in the form of 3 separate games that Sbester has provided for us to play. From the very beginning, people had a wide variety of opinions about the direction the series was going, and while some appreciated the simpler style of graphics and game design, others seemed turned off by it, if not altogether appalled.

The first game was probably the most basic of the three adventures, and very reminiscent of older platform/rpg adventures of the NES era. You had your basic hero whom you controlled throughout the entire game, as you sought revenge against the army that destroyed your hometown. There were a few twists tossed in for good measure, but in spite of it all, the plot was as basic as you could get, and none of the NPC’s ever spoke more than a block of text at any given time. This game seemed to get the most flack out of all the games, for a few reasons: The maps were overly large and cumbersome, the black and white graphics (before being updated to color) were a bit on the ugly side, and level grinding became tedious. However, people easily forgot how different Eden Legacy was from a lot of other games. As basic as the plot was, I can’t help but find myself intrigued when I play a game that throws in small references to the bible and even legendary places such as Atlantis. The music, although not great, was still decent in some areas, and it would continue to get better as the series progressed. And although you only controlled one character throughout the entire game, you felt like you were given an opportunity to customize your character to fit your needs. It was a bit primitive in design, but it worked well and stayed with the series throughout. It’s interesting to note that while the majority of the games (including the EL1 upgrade) used a sort of weak attack/strong attack combo, the very first Eden Legacy game in its black and white form used a sort of defense/attack combo for early levels. While the defend/attack system didn’t last, I felt it was the better of the two designs, because it forced a player to be selective on their skills and allowed more strategy when battling the baddies.

Moving on to the second installment, Sbester seemed to have more confidence in the direction of his series. Again, we were presented with cumbersome mapping, but this time around the level design felt more like levels in a platform adventure than they did an rpg. You could gauge your progress based on the changes to the music and the variation in colors of the tilesets, and this increased a sense of excitement at having progressed through the game, as well as a sense of dread at what may be hiding around the corner. This time around, there was a bit of forethought that went into the game, because now you controlled up to 2 characters, and you had to think about which person to take with you on your play through. Customizing your character skills continued to play its role, but now you had two people to focus on. Although there were a few minor side quests, these sort of took a back seat for a more linear travel through the dungeons of Valhalla. Where the game shined the most, in my opinion, was in the appearance of dungeon puzzles, which made the trip much more entertaining than the typical level grind. Unfortunately, this time around the plot (which was already basic to begin with) took a backseat, and near the end Sbester seemed to have grown tired and exhausted of the direction the series was taking. There was no given ending boss, aside from a few twists depending on what characters you elect to travel along with you, and this ultimately made the game feel incomplete, if not confusing.

EL3 Review:
My initial impression of EL3 was that this just didn’t make sense, it didn’t answer any questions that were left open from the previous installments, and it seemed sort of rushed. However, after discussing and throwing out ideas, Sbester made some much needed changes to the overall story, certain enemies, as well as additional characters. This definitely improves upon my initial play through of this game, but does it push the limits in comparison to the first 2 games?

That often depends on what you are looking for out of the game. If you are somebody in need of story, you will probably appreciate this one over the other 2 games. However, if you are somebody that focuses more on game play and care little about story content, you may find yourself enjoying the previous game (Children of Eden). Most people will probably want a balance between the story and game play, which can easily be found in the initial game and its color upgrade, but not so much in this version. Unfortunately, what this means is that if you didn’t like the first game for whatever reason, chances are high you won’t like this game either.

On the other side, because of the added story elements to this final chapter, anybody can pick this game up and play it without having played through the previous two games, and still come out ahead. In fact, people who have never played the other two EL games may appreciate this more as a result, which I’ll explain in a moment. Sbester brings back several features from his previous games, in addition to adding newer features as well. It’s a fun-filled adventure, set up as chapters for easy progress, and won’t take much of your time to complete.

STORY (3 out of 5 Stars):
First, the story elements are big welcome to this edition. Throughout the game you find various volumes that explain the brief history of the world, the characters involved, and what’s at stake. It attempts to answer questions from previous games, as well as open the gates for new questions. The ending has been revamped from my initial play through, and I feel this version will have the most impact on its players than the first game I had played. And there are a few surprises in store for those who have kept up with the series.

However, this is generally where the problem lies. As stated above, anybody can pick this one up and play it and understand it, regardless if they’ve played the previous two games. But to go a step further, unless people can approach this game without prejudice over the previous installments, I feel that people who have never played Eden Legacy before EL3 will appreciate this game the most. The reason is actually very simple. The story works well in this game as a standalone, and attempts to answer leftover questions, but it seems take more from my written adaption rather than the initial two games, and includes segments of stories that will later be adapted into the trilogy package he will be releasing at some point in the future. When Sbester wrote and designed the first game, he was not entirely sure of the direction Eden Legacy would take, and as a result earlier plotlines were left out or completely altered by the time EL3 came along.

Another problem is the way in which the story unfolds. The idea of searching out and reading books has been around for a long time in many different rpg’s. However, the volumes you find in this game seem very random and thrown in very odd locations. They look like icons of the character you are controlling, and most often found on the floor of some random home or dungeon. While I enjoyed finding and reading these, I think it might have worked better to have the player search for them on bookshelves, or have them handed to them by people they help along the way. The volumes are scattered throughout, and since you cannot revisit past continents, and in some cases past villages and dungeons within the current continent, finding these become random, and it’s very easy to miss one of these volumes, thus ensuring you do not get the entire story. And by the time you have gotten all of them, so much time has passed since you’ve read the first volume, you’d need to almost go back to recap everything you’ve read previously, except there is no way to do that.

My suggestion is to do like the music box from the previous two games. Add a required quest that would allow the main character to go in search of his past, where he acquires some sort of tome that ends up in the item list and can never be sold. This item could be used as many times as needed, and when accessed, the player gets the option of choosing which volume to read, enabling them to read all volumes at once if they desire.

GRAPHICS / LEVEL DESIGN (2.5 out of 5 Stars):
Once again I stress, unless you are a person that places story high above graphics, if you were turned off by the style of the first two games, more than likely you will not enjoy this game, either. The world map is still quite large, the same sets of tilesets to design villages from the first game are reused, and there is a lot of ground to cover. This time around, however, Sbester does attempt to create more detail than he did in the first game (more mountains, lakes, forests), and he manages to divide his game up into smaller chapters to make the burden of exploration much more easier to accept. The dungeons were probably my favorite, since a few of them required the player to create their own path, and there was never an easy way to determine which path would lead to a dead end and which ones would not. I especially liked the Fairy Cave, and spent a lot of time there exploring and level grinding.

However, I was still a bit disappointed in the approach used for his world creation this time around. There is so much of the world left empty, even with all the forest and lakes and whatnot. There is plenty of opportunity to fill in this void with more places to explore, hidden dungeons with decent loot, a few additional required areas to help expand the plot, and as clichéd as it may be, even including a forest dungeon of a sort. A lot of the time you are just walking aimlessly around the world map from one location to another, and since the game is rather linear, a world map just seemed sort of useless this time around.

In addition, while the black tilesets worked well in the caves to help create a sense of dread as you are forming your own path, they just didn’t work that well on the outside world. For starters, every time you leave an area and return, the black tilesets are back in place. But most of all, since Sbester couldn’t do what he initially had wanted (to cover the entire world map in black tilesets to force the player to explore everywhere due to limitations on the amount of events he could have), it might have been best to leave the world map alone. Of course, then it would have been more cumbersome trying to find the hidden loot scattered around the world map, but it’s all a catch 22, I guess.

My suggestion is to add more areas to explore. A couple of extra caves per chapter, a hidden town that can be only accessed by finding a secretive item as a potential side quest, and maybe even a dungeon that is required to walk through to get to another part of the game – all of these would have gone a long way. That may be the bigger problem. In the first game, there was a hidden town you could find by going through a dungeon first. Not so much in this game. Everything is sort of out in the open for you to get to at one point or another. Kharba and Venaizen may both be good areas to add a sort of dungeon to traverse before getting here. And when I say dungeon, I mean any place that requires a player to get off the beaten path and fight their way through. This could be an outside field, a desert full of obstacles, a mountain, a forest, a cave…

GAMEPLAY (3/5):
Game play and story generally fight for the upper hand, and almost always comes out with an approximate 50/50 share. In my opinion, you can’t fully enjoy a game’s plot if game play is horribly imbalanced and is too overwhelming; likewise, a game may be well balanced but if the plot sucks, who cares? We’ve already discussed story, so what about the game play?

Well, again, if you didn’t enjoy the first time around, or even the second, most likely you will not enjoy it this time around, either. Sorry, the old adage about “three times the charm” just doesn’t work here, but the one that says “if it ain’t broken, why fix it” certainly does.

First, you have your returning features: level building, skill customization, a sort of attack/weak attack combo depending on your AP (which tends to replace magic and serve the purpose of your character’s fatigue over everything else), your options to choose the outcome of the game, and watching your character sprite change as you progress through the game.

There are also newer features as well. Instead of seeing your character grow through the use of leveling up, you see him grow through the progression of chapters. However, leveling up still alters your skills at certain points, as they’ve done in previous games. You do not get to select what optional character to bring along this time. This is all pre-rendered as part of the plot, and you get two additional characters who will eventually join your cause. Each character has their own abilities, as well as strengths and weaknesses (more on that in a moment). As I’ve stated previously, you are encouraged to explore the layout of the land by uncovering all the black tilesets in order to discover hidden objects. This is especially effective in dungeons, because it adds a sort of compelling nature to build your path, but to do so as quickly as you can before you are overwhelmed by monsters. The game is divided up into different chapters, which makes progression less burdensome and more rewarding. And characters seem to have more to say to help advance the plot

However, there are still a few drawbacks to this game, on a whole. First, as I mentioned previously, there are few places to explore. Most of the areas that you can explore are required to be explored, which ends up making the game very linear without giving the player any real options. What this means is that, aside from finding the volumes to find information about the world and the people in it, there really is no side quest. This was sorely missing this time around, because in the previous adventures there were at least a few optional quests. And as unique as the dungeon exploration was, these were missing the challenging puzzles that were present in the second adventure.

Finally, the additional two characters, while a definite help considering how tough some of the enemies were this time around, felt more like add-ons than much of anything else. The fairy that joins you is probably the most useful of the two additional characters, since she spends her time healing your party. But the other guy that joins (Fando) is sort of useless. He is a heavy hitter, but he has no real abilities to share except for a few that appear useless and other abilities that may only be used once or twice. Perhaps one additional party member (perhaps a mage that used elemental attacks) would have balanced this out a little more.

AUDIO (3.5/5):
Not much to be said here. I’ve come to appreciate the style of music Sbester uses, and they seem to work well for his games. My only gripe on this is that more variety would have been nice. For example, in the pyramid an Arabic tune would have fit the mood more so than a traditional cave tune.

OVERALL SUMMARY:
Overall, this is probably not going to turn a lot of heads compared to other games currently on the site, but this was an enjoyable conclusion to what was simply a fun basic romp through an NES style game. While it rose ahead of its predecessors in some areas (such as in story and exploration), it seemed to fall short in other areas (such as lacking multiple side quests and puzzles). In working with Sbester, I know he has some things up his sleeve for when he releases the trilogy as a complete pack, and I’m sure he’ll take these considerations in mind when he makes his final upgrades.