Video Game Review: Tales of Legendia

Tales of Legendia is a new RPG (role playing game) that has the look of Japanese anime. It is the next in the series, following Tales of Symphonia. If you were a fan of the previous editions, you will also enjoy this one!

You begin as a young man named Senel Coolidge. Senel has a huge attitude problem. Anyways, Senel is an expert at a skill called "eres." For some reason, Senel and his sister, Shirley, are stuck on a small boat that is adrift at sea. When their food and all hope seems to run out, a huge island appears. The little boat gets stuck in a barrage of waves. Later, Senel and Shirley awake on what they thought was an island. It turns out to be a huge ancient ship called Legacy. The inhabitants of this ancient ship pursue the pair because they think Shirley is "Merines." Merines is a legendary being that can supposedly control Legacy with her mind. Thus, your adventure begins.

Tales of Legendia features the typical game play you will find in most RPG's. As it is nothing special, there are some perks. First off, the environments are very bright and colorful. The anime like quality of the cut scenes are also great to look at. They provide a bit more depth to the story. The storyline itself, however, is a tad predictable. Again, your typical RPG. The character models are not so great to look at. But the actual personalities of the characters are quite amusing as there is a great deal of humorous dialogue. The dialogue itself is very slow, however, and a pain in the butt to read.

The real time battle system is easy to figure out. In fact, the battles are too simple and much to boring for my taste. The main problem is that the battles are too frequent in number. It tends to get frustrating when you can hardly take a step without being thrown into another fight. An upside to the battles, the "eres" attacks look beautiful and they look even better as you progress and get new ones.

World travel is annoying. First off because of the frequent battles and second off because of the bad camera views. However, you can teleport to previously visited areas and back again.

I know this may get you down, but the game is actually amusing. There are still many upsides. The soundtrack is strange, but quite good. The characters are just hilarious. There is also a cooking mini game that is insanely fun to play. After you beat the game, an item creation system opens up. You can also play new character quests that let you learn more about the characters in the game. There is an awful lot of hints at character's pasts that are not revealed until you do this. This of course makes it more engaging to keep playing so you can find out more!

Tales of Legendia is available only on Playstation 2. It has an ESRB rating of T for teen. This is because the game features mild language, fantasy violence, and suggestive themes. If you want to get all of the secrets the game has to offer, or if you just want to cheat, a strategy guide is available.