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A Place Among the Greats?: Legion Saga III

Remember that popular kid in high school? The valedictorian with perfect hair and was voted most likely to succeed only to end up divorced, jobless and in rehab by age 20? Enter Legion Saga III, the RM2K equivalent of Troy McFootbawl.

Or Kimberly O’Cheerleader if you were thinking of a girl.

Okay I sounded harsh then, but the truth is that Legion Saga II was released, we all had high hopes. Legion Saga II was the most popular RPG Maker game of its time, and we were all hanging out for the final instalment in the series with baited breath. I remember checking Kamau’s website every day on the week of its release.

And then this!

I should say, that Legion Saga III is not a terrible game. It IS, by far, the worst of the series, but that still puts it leagues ahead of many other RM2K games. It just falls short of a place among the greats.

In Legion Saga III, you play as Kima Roshgarde, who might as well be Kimberly O’Cheerleader by virtue of his flowing, golden locks. He and his order of mercenary knights get caught on their way back from defending a nearby land when they discover a hidden plot to destroy all of humanity in the name of the god, Dansa. It’s partially thanks to this plot that the Legion Saga series cops a LOT of flak from certain people in the community. I’ve never played Suikoden II before, but apparently Legion Saga III rips its plot directly from that game. This is hardly the first game to do so, but word is that the copying here is so blatant that it’s near-impossible to forgive.

I’m in two places about the graphics. They’re technically very impressive. Suikoden rips are used and give the game a pre-rendered feel. The 16-bit sprites contrast very nicely against this background and even though some areas clearly use other tilesets, the game generally feels a lot more graphically consistent that Legion Saga II did. I also liked small touches like the way Kima’s sprite becomes tiny to the point where it almost looks consistent with the world map whenever he exits a town. That said, I think this graphic style just gives that much more credence to those who wish to dismiss Legion Saga III as a straight-up copy of Suikoden II.

The sound has seen no major improvement. It’s the usual collection of music from other games mixed with RTP sounds. The most memorable tune, though, is definitely the war minigame theme which uses a WAV format instead of MIDI and results in a short, but impressive orchestral score.

Where Legion Saga III falls, however is in its gameplay. It’s not terrible, but it is a big step back from the great things in Legion Saga II. Where Legion Saga II’s skill system forced the player to earn their skills, the Orbcraft system in Legion Saga III system upgrades automatically. It’s convenient, but feels cheap by comparison. Also a problem is recruiting. The system itself is just as good as it always was, but Kamau makes it a chore by adding an overworld with massive empty spaces. Getting to a town where a recruitable character can be found therefore involves long stretches of walking at a snail’s pace and getting constantly interrupted with battles that fail to excite.

The biggest kick in the teeth, though, is the war system. In previous games, wars were fought with a rock/paper/scissors-styled system. It was good, but a bit too close to the duel system. This time….

This time…

*Sigh*, you line up soldiers on what looks like a chessboard. You can choose to move your character forward, move them back, make them attack or transfer soldiers to an adjacent unit. It’s impressive in the sense that it used a far more complicated set of event-programming, but in terms of gameplay, it’s a pretty shallow system. Kamau did a lot of work here for honestly diminished returns.

Ultimately, though the disappointment in Legion Saga comes from what we expected it to be. All of us were barracking for Legion Saga to be mindblowing. A game that was only good, by comparison, could only have been a failure in our eyes.

Legion Saga misses its place among the greats. It gets a three out of five Troy McFootbawl or Kimberly O’Sorority.

Posts

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I am surprised that LS3 would get the most complaints as the Suikoden ripoff because of the Godplot... Which is way off the map for the Suikoden series. I've heard the Suikoden ripoff complaint and I can understand it to an extent. I however have always thought that the LS storyline was different from Suikoden. Oh well... Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Well-written review btw!
See, generally I liked LS3. Like I said, though, it was no LS2. Also, like I said, I never played any of the Suikoden series, so I can't comment if the game was a straight-up ripoff of the plot or not, but the sentiment was strong enough at the time of its release, that I couldn't really ignore it.

The whole series, though, I think is amazing and is still one of the most iconic ones to date.
it is pretty funny that LS3 was the least like any of the Suikoden games, plot-wise. Hell, quite frankly they were all very different to the Suikoden games when it came to plot. There was a bit of cross-over in some areas, but they emulate the games closely only when it comes to the general game design itself.

I mean, look at 1 - it resembles none of the games bar the fact that there's two countries fighting against each other. Hell, it even subverts that by making the army you lead a rebel faction in the second country. There's a little similarity to Suikoden 1 in that there's a hinky 'minister' who exerts 'control' over the king, but that's not exactly a new idea in jRPGs.

In 2 you are being chased by some madmen because you're someone important in the other country, and in 3 there's only the one country with an omnipotent godhead trying to destroy shit. Like... none of them match up with any of the Suikoden games so much that they're 'the same'. I never understood why anyone even thought that - their stories are completely different to each other. It was a stupid complaint.
author=Liberty
it is pretty funny that LS3 was the least like any of the Suikoden games, plot-wise. Hell, quite frankly they were all very different to the Suikoden games when it came to plot. There was a bit of cross-over in some areas, but they emulate the games closely only when it comes to the general game design itself.

I think the complaint was really a product of its time. Suikoden was basically unknown when LS1 and LS2 were out. By the time LS3 was upon us, most of us at least knew what Suikoden was, and plenty of us had already played it, so the similarities seemed very striking.

That said, I love that LS series has something similar to a "fandom".
Eh, it's kinda like saying every RM game was basically Final Fantasy because it had the same layout and gameplay designs, too. It's a silly distinction to make.

I mean, the whole reason I even played Legion Saga at all back then (yeah, I was around when the games first came out) was because it promised to be like Suikoden, but with a new story. People kept saying 3 basically ripped the games off when it came out and I just couldn't see it - the gameplay, sure, and general idea of collecting people, but that's what people wanted from the Legion Saga series. It's the reason they played the games and why they were so popular in the first place.

But people saying that the story of three was basically ripping off Suikoden is beyond stupid. It was in fact the least like the games plot-wise (hell, all three of them were sufficiently different from the onset) and it never made any sense, then or now. :/


It is nice that they do have a fandom, you are right. XD
author=Liberty
Eh, it's kinda like saying every RM game was basically Final Fantasy because it had the same layout and gameplay designs, too. It's a silly distinction to make.

I mean, the whole reason I even played Legion Saga at all back then (yeah, I was around when the games first came out) was because it promised to be like Suikoden, but with a new story. People kept saying 3 basically ripped the games off when it came out and I just couldn't see it - the gameplay, sure, and general idea of collecting people, but that's what people wanted from the Legion Saga series. It's the reason they played the games and why they were so popular in the first place.

But people saying that the story of three was basically ripping off Suikoden is beyond stupid. It was in fact the least like the games plot-wise (hell, all three of them were sufficiently different from the onset) and it never made any sense, then or now. :/


It is nice that they do have a fandom, you are right. XD


I see where you're coming from, and to be honest, it was never a dealbreaker for me. When I review, I try to ask myself if I think others would like the game regardless of whether or not I do. I've reviewed games and comics plenty of times before where I've given atrocious scores to things I've loved and excellent scores to things I hated. Not because I don't think my opinion counts for much, but because I can either see the appeal or I can see why people would have a problem with it. I could conceive of people having a problem with the story, even though it didn't bother me, so I reviewed LS3 in accordance with that. Does the complaint make a whole lot of sense? Perhaps not, but it's one that people made and it will likely be one that people make again (history has a habit of repeating itself).

Hmmm... I should make Legion Saga a Tumblr page, or something, see how much of the fandom comes there.
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