"While it's far from memorable, Legend of Heroes does a number of things right"

Legend of Heroes is the first traditional Japanese-style RPG for the PSP (released in the United States, at least). And, as such, expectations were quite low. Fortunately Bandai wisely chose a tried-and-true Japanese series to port to America, making the game "new" to American audiences all while maintaining a very strict console RPG feel. While Legend of Heroes doesn't break the mold or even come close to establishing itself as an original game, it does meet and exceed pretty much every standard of the genre. The main character of the story, Avin, is robbed of his sister at an early age and is taken under the wing of a member of the church of Bardus, the god of light. It is there in the small village of Ourt that he begins to question the whereabouts of his sister. The storyline is cliche, following the typical "collect the pieces of something strewn about the world" after a fairly lengthy introduction of the first two chapters. The game itself is surprisingly long, but RPG aficionados will have little trouble getting through it as the difficulty is nearly non-existent.

Graphics

Outstandingly lush environments are offset by hilariously misplaced 2D sprites that simply look awful. The 3D graphics are beyond belief, and the special effects are usually well done. Probably the most impressive graphical touches are the character portraits, which are top-notch. You'll be blown away by the more technical aspects of the graphics such as the cloud shadows moving across the 3D terrain and the cool lens flare in outside areas, but once again the 2D sprites are just bad.

Sound

Excellent soundtrack, and one of the best RPG soundtracks I've heard in years. The lack of voices is noticeable when you see your character scream attacks through a chat bubble. Other than that, great work.

Gameplay

The battle system seems to be a cross between Grandia and a more traditional turn-based system. It works, but it's far too easy and characters like Avin can usually 1-hit kill an enemy. The game itself is fairly lengthy with plenty of things to do, but it's very linear and the storyline is predictable. The search for Eimelle is offset nearly every step you take with meaningless crap that seems to happen. While this gets noticeably annoying halfway through the game, the 2nd half starts to focus primarily on the quest at hand and the story becomes far more focused and coherent. For what its worth, the game gets far better the further you get through it.

Overall

It's not the best J-RPG by any means, but it's better than what you'd expect from a knee-jerk first RPG on the system.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/28/05