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> Results: Tales of Legendia
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Senel Coolidge and his younger sister Shirley are adrift at sea when they crash land on a mysterious floating island. This island is actually an ancient ship called the Legacy, and it is so big that it has mountains, forests, and towns upon it. The locals claim that Shirley is the "Merines" and has special powers, so they capture her. Now it is up to Senel and his band of newfound friends to rescue his sister and discover the hidden secrets of the Legacy.
For the most part, Tales of Legendia is a typical Japanese console role-playing game. You have a selection of anime styled characters. The Legacy serves as overworld for you to tromp around in. Gather clues and items in town, then venture through ruins and caves to fight monsters and progress the story. One of the game's biggest strengths is the characters you encounter and who fight alongside you. Your party members are full of personality, humor, and depth. It's an incredibly linear gameﾗeven the world map is designed so that you can only go forward one place at a time. The linearity of the game is both a blessing and a curse. You always know where to go next (the in-game synopsis is also helpful), and the straightforward storyline benefits from not becoming too sprawled and confusing, but it also limits your freedom to explore.  You fight unseen enemies in random battle encounters out in the wild and in dungeons, but the action packed battles are anything but turn-based. Even though the game has 3D graphics, in battle you run left and right and attack enemies on a 2D plane. It's almost like a fighting game, made even more like one here because the main character is a martial artist instead of a swordsman and fights baddies with punches and kicks. The rest of your active party is controlled by the CPU while in battle. You set their aggressiveness on the menu screen and during battle you can open up a menu to tell them to use specific items and spells. Your party members constantly talk during and after the battle, sometimes giving out hints on attacking enemies and battle progress. Voice acting ranges from decent to terrible. You combine special moves and magic to make new attacks and spells. Use your special skills to string along attack combos, which net you bonus experience points and other goodies. The only big problem with the battles is that it's one player only. In past modern Tales games, a second human player could join in at anytime to team up and make battles much more entertaining. You can set the difficulty level of the battles at any time during the game if you find that enemies are getting too tough to handle. Thanks to smooth battle animations and fluid play control, fights are exciting despite the lack of multiplayer options. Other staples from past Tales games return in this one as well, like the cooking system. If you find Mimi the Wonder Baker hidden around the world, she gives you a recipe. Find the ingredients in shops and dropped from enemies to make goodies to heal your party. You can't cook at any time thoughﾗonly at ovens in towns can you bake your tasty treats. Also, perform special tasks and get stat-building name titles that you can equip to your character just like a piece of armor or weapon.  The bright, watercolor style graphics are exquisitely detailed and add to the game's slight lighthearted feel, as does the peppy music. Speaking of which, on a scale from 1 to 10, the music gets a 27. The soundtrack is absolutely brilliant and the best thing about the game. A wide variety of musical styles are featured, from classic orchestral, zippy jazz, to driving electronic synth. The composer of the songs in is Go Shiina, who also contributed to the music in classic Namco games like Klonoa and Mr. Driller. His style of music is ever-present in Tales of Legendia, from the sweeping violin string licks to the haunting vocal chants. Give Go Shiina a raise! Memorable and likable characters, clever writing, a fantastic soundtrack, and entertaining action-based battles are the game's strong points. It may not be the perfect RPG, but everything the game does right, it does really right. 
The many battles are never bloody or overly graphic. The storyline features made up sea gods and other entities, which families with stricter religion rules may not like so well. Even though most of the text in the game is paired with voice actors, good reading skill is still required to navigate the menus and conversations that don't have voice to go along with them. Mild language is also scattered throughout the text and voice, which makes this game best suited for teens and older. However, more mature pre-teens would probably be OK as well.
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