TGS: Legaia: Duel Saga hands-on impressions

   Let's not mince words: Sony's Legaia: Duel Saga is easily the worst looking PlayStation 2 RPG at the show. For a game with a solid release date just over a month from now, the TGS demo did not inspire confidence. It's possible that the final game will have more merit than the demo--but with so many clearly superior RPGs on the PS2 horizon, most gamers should just give this one a pass.

   The TGS demo had no dungeon or exploration elements, instead dropping gamers into a long, narrow hallway periodically blocked by walls. Contacting a wall would begin a battle; winning the battle would remove the wall. If the player managed to defeat all of the enemies and reach the end of the hallway, then the demo would conclude.

   The battle engine pitted your party of three characters--Lang, Maya, and Kazan--against a number of different enemy parties. Lang is the plucky hero type who fights with a sword, Kazan is the serious martial arts old guy, and Maya is the female magician. The character models are decently animated, but Lang and Kazan are marred by horrible, unnatural "muscle" skin textures. It looks like some middle schooler's Fist of the North Star fan art. Maya's character model fares a lot better--her skin is smooth, and more importantly, hidden under respectably modelled clothing.

   Legaia's battle system builds on the fighting game hybrid system of its predecessor. Players input a series of attacks--up, left, right, or down--several times in sequence. The character then unleashes a multi-pronged combination attack against the opponent. In practice, this means that every attack is a series of six-to-eight "hits" against a single enemy. It's cool the first time you see it, but less cool the next two thousand you have to sit through the "awesome" attack chain. Maya again bucks the trend with an interesting variant on this "feature"--each of her "attacks" is a syllable, arcane finger positioning, and incantation in a spell. She closes her eyes, focuses, and performs all of the inputted "movements" in rapid sequence, culminating in a single spell blast against the opponent.

   Inputting a specific sequence of commands will perform a special move, or "Hyper Art." Players can also select a Hyper Art from a list of all available special moves, automatically inputting the necessary sequence. Selecting a Hyper Art results in an even more-over-the-top (and longer) attack. As with the first game, battles are long, drawn-out affairs, and can very quickly start to grate. Characters are each equipped with an "Origin," or elemental Guardian Force-type summoned creature. Like Guardian Forces, Origins have their own independent HP and MP statistics.

   One point in Legaia's favor was a large amount of quality voice acting during battles. Characters would frequently comment to themselves and each other before, during, and after battles. Overall, however, the game looked extremely rough around the edges, and in no condition to ship in one short month. It's possible that some of these problems were indicative of the TGS demo alone and will be addressed in the final build. It's also possible that Legaia is just a mediocre game, and you'd be better served with Xenosaga, Wild Arms: Advanced 3rd, Star Ocean 3, Kingdom Hearts, or Suikoden III. One of these possibilities is much likelier than the other. Legaia ships to Japanese stores on November 29, 2001. No U.S. release date has been announced.