No disrespect, but I think you're too biased to judge this game properly. That doesn't mean you don't have good points- in fact, I agree with many of them, in particular with the "surprise twist" of the Ferines' origin- but you focused entirely on the negative aspects and on none of the positive ones. And yes there were some- I too have played JRP Gs for years and Legendia is *far* from the worst one. We need a more neutral review.
Ok, the first link was so bad I didn't even bother to read it. Got better things to do with my time.
The second one was better but still misses the point: it isn't about having *equal* amounts of positive and negative comments, it's about covering ALL the facts, not just the ones that piss you off. Even if there are, say, two positive things to say in a review, they still deserve to be mentioned. (Note: this goes out to everyone who writes reviews, not just you.)
And again, Legendia is far, far from the worst RPG ever. Maybe we just need an alternate review.
"We need a more neutral review."
Excuse me while I bang my head against the nearest wall.
See you in the discussion pages.
Sijo, do you think fanboymaster just didn't think this game had any good points? It's not hard to comprehend. Not every game is made equally.
I only put in the first link because it's part of a collective of criticisms against criticisms and I wanted both names in blue link. I see nothing against the second one though. He's arguing against the game, not for it. To argue for it is to undermine his review.
I get that these comments were left quite a few months ago, but I just thought I'd leave some final thoughts.
Sijo, drawing from your comment on the other To L review, I must disagree. Reviews are not necessarily meant to inform. They run the gamut from informative to persuasive and they are always going to be colored by the reviewers opinion regardless of how much he tries to be "unbiased". Perhaps if I were a professional critic I'd have tried to find nice things to say about the game, but I'm not.
For another thing, TV Tropes rightly puts (or at least put, haven't checked if they changed it) a limit oh how large a review can be. What I wrote were the most salient parts of the experience for me. Even if I had all the space in the world though, it probably just would have been more negatives (such as how the game's most "tragic" scene nearly made me cry, not from sadness, but from laughing or more ranting about the characters).
Finally, a thanks to Mr. Lostman. The link did an excellent job explaining the thought process behind reviews like this. I must agree that I in fact had nothing good to say about Legendia, a fact that I had thought was in ample evidence given the fact that the review has, in its opening paragraph, the sentence "It is hands down my most hated Japanese RPG ever and it really is a rare specimen that manages to get everything wrong.". Perhaps that didn't stick out in the relentless vitriol spewed afterward though.
Tales Of Legendia is to the Tales series what Final Fantasy VIII is to the Final Fantasy series. If it's not being terribly underappreciated, it's being rabidly overhated. Seriously, for this game the story, graphics, and gameplay were nothing special at all but certainly had nice music and I always thought the characters were what made it worthwhile. But of course this reviewer finds them all insufferable, meaning he and the many others who share his opinon really hates everything about the game.
And...yeah, Sijo was right. This review could have been much better done.
Because of course, hating something a lot of other people hate means that I can't possibly have come to that hate logically. I'm glad you liked the characters. That being said, I'm not going to lie in my review and say that I thought they were awesome. I hated every one of them. I did my best to like this game, I went in assuming that the haters were probably going ballistic over nothing. I left feeling the game had no redeeming qualities, or that the few good things it did were done better in just about every other Tales game.
I don't know why I have the urge to come back and check this review every so often, I just do. I guess I'll probably be responding to the odd comment regardless of how many "final thoughts" I post.
I just find this amusing (in an ironic way, not in a "DURP DURP U STUPID" way) in that you seem to hate the things I loved, while not even mentioning the things I hated. I really liked the story and the characters (although, I will agree with you that Norma needs to work on her nicknaming skills), but the Character Quests were where I really loved the story, specifically because most plot holes are filled and we learn about Grune. The main things I didn't like were the lack of sidequests and ridiculously long dungeons.
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The game that nearly killed my Tales fandom...
Now here's a special one, a game so terrible, it nearly made me hate the entire Tales series. It is hands down my most hated Japanese RPG ever and it really is a rare specimen that manages to get everything wrong.
To start the combat is lacking in defining characteristics, it's just a basics Tales system with several added annoyances. A fair amount of Senel's moves are practically useless throws and it takes more work than it should to gain new magic and abilities.
The characters though, are where it really "shines". The best of the characters barely make it to the level of "doesn't bug the crap out of me every time they open their mouths". Sadly only 1 or 2 reach that level. The rest are generally either annoying or insufferable. Special awards go to Norma, for the worst version of "The Nicknamer" I've ever seen in my entire life, and Shirley, whose problems I could fill unending pages with.
The story is exceptionally preachy, even by the standards of the Tales series, but never before has a Tales game managed to make me think one side was so annoying that I wouldn't mind seeing every last one of them wiped out. The Ferrines earned that dubious distinction, with their jerkass to decent person ratio being truly alarming. In a futile attempt to make them seem more sympathetic, the game gives their race a backstory that is supposed to invoke sympathy, but I couldn't help but feel like all it did was introduce plot holes.
I could fill pages with everything I hated about this game. I've played many of the JRPG genre's best and worst and nothing stands out in my mind as being worse than Tales of Legendia, if this review persuades a single person against purchasing To L, I will feel slightly vindicated, I played it, don't make my mistake.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did not complete the "Character Quests" that come after the credits. I had already forced myself through the 30 hours it took to complete the Main Quest and nothing about these characters made me want to spend any more time with this game, just the opposite, when I realized I'd be spending more time with it if I wanted to complete the Character Quests, my immediate thought was "No, never, not unless I was payed substantial sums of money to do so". So, while I didn't finish the game completely, I think I played enough to know it wasn't getting better.