The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered (2024) [PC] review

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

-Lao Tzu

Everyone has their own reason to take their first step on an adventure. For some, it’s a religious endeavor. Some look for riches or fame. Others are trying to gain power. But whatever reasons one begins their adventure, others with the same end goal might not have the same purpose. This can lead to clashing ideals, or in The Legend of Legacy HD’s case, a group of seven adventures exploring and mapping an island side by side to unravel its mysteries.

The Legend of Legacy HD is a remaster of the original release of the RPG on the Nintendo DS and features an art style that invokes ideas of both a sketchbook and a pop-up picture book with the way the assets pop up as you explore. This fits in nicely with the exploration in the game, which is the main focus of the game outside of its battles.  Very quickly the game will expose players to the fact that it is very much a game about running around to fill out maps, charting new territories, and looking for areas of locations that haven’t been discovered yet.  The game uses this well, though, only giving the player some of the information as they explore an area for the first time if they aren’t poking around super thoroughly, but also being lenient with telling players that they might be missing hidden exits in certain areas when they go to sell the information on their maps and only have a three-star map instead of a five-star map to hand in.

Now, we’re going to have a little run-through of the combat system, as its tendency to explain itself a bit poorly is a huge reason to get potentially frustrated with an otherwise interesting and charming title. The combat can be a little cryptic with you at times, and even the first battle tutorial doesn’t fully explain all of your options or each character’s quirks super well.  There is an in-game guidebook that also explains some of the quirks, but still leaves a lot unexplained, so let’s break it down.

Traditional levels have been completely nixed, and instead, each character has 5 different levels that can level up based on various factors.  These parameters are HP, SP, Attack, Defense, and Support.  These are all increased based on a random chance that’s influenced by your character’s stances and by the characters themselves.  Your character’s individual moves they can use also have the latter three parameters, which are also influenced by the stance your character uses the moves in on each usage.  The game explains that your stances change which stats increase to a certain degree, but not that the characters themselves all have affinities for certain weapons, magic elements, and stats.  Each character has weapons that they progress faster with than others, and have a higher chance of increasing the levels of on each use.  So if at any point any of your party members don’t feel like they’re progressing as quickly as the others, be sure to mix it up, and don’t be afraid to change up weapons despite the time you’ve already invested in another.

All this shapes the game around the quite unique combat system, with even more mechanics I haven’t even outlined here, such as learning magic. This combined with the distinct visuals make it a charming recommendation for fans of the RPG genre. However, that combat system and its quirks could easily be unappealing to some, especially coupled with how light the game is on story. This one is Pixel Perfect, so long as you know why you’re taking the first step on your own journey with this game.

Special thanks to NIS America and FuRyu for providing us with a copy of The Legend of Legacy HD for this review.

PIXEL PERFECT

Recommended

Sevens has played a lot of games in the last 20 years, and thinks way too much about them, so now they’re here to share those too many thoughts with the world.