With summer coming to its inevitable end I guess companies are trying to whip out as much content as they possibly can to enter the fall quarter as strong as possible. With triple A titles such Sleeping Dog and Darksiders II being released this month you’d think it would be hard to produce another game to measure up to the two. Well NISA never disappoints and the long-awaited PSN exclusive Legasista is here.
For those of you who do not know what Legasista is I’ll explain; Legasista is a dungeon crawler action RPG in which you assume the role of the games main protagonist Alto. Alto is an adolescent boy who is on a quest to find a relic that can free his sister Mari from her crystal prison. While on his journey he arrives at a facility that is the resting place of said relic. during his exploration of the facility he encounters a girl claiming she is the facilities foreman. She then proceeds to tell Alto what this facilities current situation is and that to call her Ms.Dungeon. After a brief a conversation filled with the classic humor that is always present in NISA games you are then sent off on your journey by Ms.Dungeon to find this relic in hopes of freeing your sister.
During the beginning phases of Legasista you are taught the movement controls,damage system,HP system, MANA system, weapon system,item system,party system,trap system and the dungeon crawling aspect of the game. All the mechanics of the game come organized in a fundamental tutorial mission segment of the game. The HP, MANA, weapon system and item systems are the most important ones to understand.
First up the HP System…
You have two HP bars in Legasista,when both brought down to 0 you gain half of the EXP you earned from yourdungeon crawling mission and you lose all the items as well. You are then brought back to the rail yard where you start off from scratch and work your way back up the dungeon. The rail yard acts as the main hub where you equip items, weapons, armor, and regain all your HP and equipment durability. Durability bars depend on your weapon and armor when they reach 0 you don’t lose the weapon or armor you just won’t benefit from their effects. Whenever you come across equipment items along your journey they automatically enter your inventory with 0 durability. You also must return to the rail yard to equip said items as well because of its 0 durability rating.
Fine equipment is better than regular equipment and are not placed in your inventory with 0 durability. Which means you can equip a fine equipment piece once you have discovered it. The issue with this is, if a fine equipment piece is damage before you return from your dungeon crawling the maximum durability becomes reduced and it’s durability won’t increase. Also once said equipment’s durability becomes 0 the equipment will break into pieces and it is lost forever regardless if you bring it back to the rail yard.
Lastly the MANA system determines if you are able to reap the benefits from a particular items effects. aside from your weapon and armor equipment slot displayed on the HP hub you have separate slots dubbed ATK,ATK,DEF as an example. You can equip special power up items into these slots. Now this is where MANA comes in, each of these slots has its own MANA limit on it. Which means if you do not have the required MANA level in that slot you wont be able to benefit from said items abilities. In order for you to shimmy around this limit you can equip your item in another slot that has enough mana to cover the cost.
Once the training wheels are off you’re free to go through the story of Legasista at your own pace. Most RPG fans will most likely dive straight into grinding instead of running through the story. The best part about Legasista’s grinding section is that it doesn’t feel like grinding. For most players grinding is probably the most tedious and mentally draining thing you can do. What NISA does to destroy the typical assumption of grinding is to borrow a page right out of their hit SRPG series Disgaea. Every floor you visit in your dungeon crawling quest is randomly generated and filled with different enemies, traps and items that you won’t see on the next floor. This creates a near infinite amount of random possibilities to keep the grinding part of your adventure truly spontaneous and fun.
My favorite part of Legasista was the Art style NISA decided to push forward with. The characters during their conversations all stand out and are very unique in their design and personality. When engaged in combat they transition from their robust larger forms to tiny cute 2D sprites. You can also play around with the sprites as you’re allow to create your own characters VIA saved pictures on your PS3. During my adventure I brought the entire of cast of Disgaea 4 along for my dungeon crawling exploits.
The only flaw I really see which in Legasista is its overall size. There is so much content to explore that it can be discouraging and overwhelming for your non-JRPG gamer. NISA should have released Legasista as a PS Vita download rather than a console release. Still the Legasista did a good job in getting rid of summer blue. Definitely if you have the PSN cash to spare give Legasista a buy, I am sure everyone will find something to love about it.
Score: 3.9/5
