At this point in the game, you've all know I've had a pretty conflicting history with Tales of Legendia. I used to like it, I defended it, then realized it wasn't as great as I thought it was just from recollecting. During that, some people here were questioning why I was bashing it on the count of how I used to defend the game. (Then again, I also find myself questioning, "Why is it so strange that I don't like Tales of Legendia anymore and harshly criticizing it?" It's not like I will be wearing those rose tinted glasses forever).
Okay, since my thoughts was blurry in regards to giving criticism to Tales of Legendia in regards to the actual story and feel like anything I say is going to get shot down harder, I went through to do something unthinkable for most people.
I replayed Tales of Legendia. Yeah, I decided to do it, despite other games I want to play. Since I haven't exactly talked much as of late, I just decided to post this topic about me revisiting this game.
What do I have to say about it? Well, it's an okay game at best (note the key words, "At best"). Do I necessarily like it after that playthrough? Not really.
I'm not going to talk much about the gameplay, since it's been said enough that the battle system was shallow and the dungeon design was badly designed, being linear yet with a copy and pasted look to it that it's easy to get lost.
The rest of it? Well, the graphics weren't too bad. At least it looks good enough (in a design way). Everything else, I just mainly saw plenty of mediocrity that could also pass for awful.
Now, what I'm going to say is the one I know is going to get a mob ready to chase me out of town.
I find Tales of Legendia's soundtrack to be highly overrated! I'll admit that there are a few standout, but I can say the same for Tales of the Abyss. The vocal tracks were good and stands out. Outside of those few, I really don't see what was so great about it. Honestly, say what you want about Sakuraba. Just because someone else came in and composed for it doesn't automatically mean it's better. Tales of Legendia's soundtrack was no better than anything Sakuraba created for the series (and I'm still on the record that I'm not a big fan of Abyss's soundtrack, so I'm not necessarily a Sakuraba apologist). It may have a different sound to it but it ends up just as bland as any other Tales soundtrack. It's a shame too because I actually find Go Shiina to be talented. I just find his better stuff to be away from Tales of Legendia (
Tekken 6 for example).
(On another note, and I'll admit here this part is merely nitpicking more than anything, that one particular track used for some sort of, "Aww, we feel so close" moments, gets really abused to the point that I could do a drinking game where I drink when that track play during the story. It got pretty tiring hearing that track used so many times. But like I said, here, it's just nitpicking)
As for the story, I have been seeing some mess with the story and the character development. The development of the world feels like an afterthought. They never really touched up about the world outside of the Legacy. The villains were pretty lame. Like Vaclav and how he ends up being one of those highly disposable villains, despite how he's supposed to be such a big bad guy. I also didn't like how they pushed Shirley onto Senel so forcefully (and I do not play the shipping game. I honestly hated that push in the story). The character quests were hailed as having such great character development. All I actually saw was poor character development exposition. The formula for a character quest pretty much cheapens the development. Plenty of the issues that were in the character quests were brought up in the main quest and felt like they forgot them and had to throw them in some "extra" quests. Worst of all, the character quests felt more like an excuse to pad the game for more hours. It's a shame because there was some genuine emotions in there if the story telling wasn't so bad. In fact, there was so little meat to the character quests that if they were integrated into the main quests, the character developments wouldn't be so great. I think I'm more disappointed on how it squandered a story that wouldn't have been so bad but ended up being so poorly told. That's why I find myself wanting to say the story is mediocre/borderline awful.
So, I found Tales of Legendia is nothing more than an average game that manages to also have flaws that can push it into the awful zone (I have said earlier that the game is okay at best, but never as a definitive viewpoint. I put it as a mediocre/borderline awful game). It's not the worst game in the world. However, I no longer get the love this game gets, mostly as of late. 5 years later, I have come to see that Tales of Legendia really was a serious disappointment (and I probably would love to retrospectively place Tales of Legendia as my most disappointing game of 2006).
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