Rediscovering the 25-year-old console JRPG whose jaw-dropping CGI cutscenes I once considered the indisputable pinnacle of video game graphics
Apr. 3, 2024Opinion | And the biggest question is: How could I possibly forget this bygone PS1 classic?
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Towards the end of last year, I wrote aboutrediscovering the 33-year-old console RPGI spent a year renting from Blockbuster Video after it (optimistically) promised 300 hours of game time. Indeed, Sword of Vermillion – theSegaMega Drive/Genesis role-player from 1992 – had eluded me for years simply because I could not remember its name. I’d poured dozens of hours into a game that felt years ahead of its competitors, and yet it was the passage of time that’d allowed it to escape from my memory for more than three decades.
I return today with a similarly personal revelation – but instead of rediscovering a game whose title I’d completely forgotten, I’m here to extol the virtues of a game I once loved but had simply forgotten existed: The Legend of Dragoon.
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The Legend of Dragoon sought to do so, however, in its opening 30 seconds. Against a whimsical piano melody underpinned by strings and a snare drum, a CGI intro depicted a city burning to the ground. Buildings were obliterated by raining fire, the glass facing of a clock tower was smashed from the inside out, and plumes of thick smoke bellowed before a full moon. An armored cavalry stormed the town’s dusty thoroughfare before dismounting, placing a glowing marble above the forehead of a sleeping woman, draining her memories (I think), and then throwing her in jail. It all looked positively beautiful – up there with the best visuals I’d ever seen at that point in time. And I was totally hooked.
“Perhaps that’s nostalgia talking, but something that I’m certain is still worth shouting about today is The Legend of Dragoon’s combat system”
Perhaps that’s nostalgia talking, but something that I’m certain is still worth shouting about today is The Legend of Dragoon’s combat system. Its tactical trappings let you transform into dragon-like Dragoons to unleash extraordinary powers, while pitting myriad combinations of three combatants with a variety of link-up abilities against foes never gets old. Throw in a genuinely intuitive QTE system – where attacks can leverage “additions”, that let you line up blue squares on-screen to deal progressively meatier blows – and every fight, no matter how big or small, feels worthwhile. Story-wise, The Legend of Dragoon’s high fantasy, world-saving conceit is hardly unique in the grand pantheon of JRPGs new and old, but its pre-rendered environments perpetuate a charm long lost in modern endeavors. The now defunct Japan Studio has since played a hand in everything from Bloodborne to Rain, Wild Arms and Ghost of Tsushima, but I’d argue Dragoon’s world is as enticing as any of the developer’s biggest hitters.
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