The Legend of Dragoon
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| The Legend of Dragoon | |
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| Developer(s) | SCEI |
| Publisher(s) | SCEE, SCEA |
| Designer(s) | Yasuyuki Hasebe[1] |
| Release date(s) |  December 2, 1999 June 11, 2000 January 19, 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Teen ELSPA: 11+ OFLC: G8+ |
| Platform(s) | Sony PlayStation |
The Legend of Dragoon is an RPG in the traditional Japanese style released for the Sony PlayStation.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Characters
The main playable characters in The Legend of Dragoon all revolve around the 7 elemental Dragoons. With this said, even though there are 9 playable characters, you will never have more than 7 to choose from for your main party. Because of storyline events, Lavitz and Shana are replaced by Albert and Miranda, respectively.
[edit] Setting
The Continent of Endiness is the landmass in which the game's story takes place. It consists of four major countries: Serdio, Tiberoa, Mille Seseau, and Gloriano. There is also desert-like region, known as the Death Frontier, that has never been set foot upon by humans at the beginning of the game.
In the beginning of the game Serdio is split up into the Duchy of Basil (North of Serdio on the World Map) and Imperial Sandora (South of Serdio on the World Map) because Serdio is currently in a civil war. King Albert lead Basil with grace and kindness, while his cruel uncle, Emperor Doel, ruled Sandora with an iron fist. The ongoing war began 20 years ago when Doel assassinated Albert's father, King Carlo. He claimed that his reason for doing this was "to save Serdio from an incompetent leader named Carlo." Later in the war, a knight from the Second Knighthood of the Duchy of Basil named Graham betrayed and murdered his old friend and fellow knight, Servi Slambert. Doel give him the Dragoon Spirit of the Jade Dragoon, which gave him control over the Green-Tusked Dragon Feyrbrand. Feyrbrand's position in Sandora has given Emperor Doel the power he needed to tip the long standing war in his favor. Lavitz, the son of Servi, wants revenge and eventually gets it when he and Dart defeat both Greham and Feyrbrand.
Tiberoa is the Western country in Endiness, neighboring the Kingdom of Serdio. Tiberoa is the second country on the World Map, after Dart and the Dragoons defeated Emperor Doel to end Chapter 1: "Serdian War." This is the main country in Chapter 2: "Platinum Shadow." Mille Seseau is the country where Neet, the birthplace of Dart Feld, the main character of the game. Also home to Meru's home and the first Signet you will find.
Gloriano was the base of operations for Emperor Diaz, who led the Humans during the Dragon Campaign. It is also where Dart and his friends meet Zieg when he is under the guise of Emperor Diaz himself.
The Death Frontier is a desert-like region in the Continent of Endiness. The only location that is in this region is a Wingly City, where Melbu Frahma's older sister Charle talks about the five Signet Spheres and wants you to guard them so that The Moon That Never Sets will not fall and prepare the birth of the God of Destruction.
[edit] Story
The storyline of The Legend of Dragoon revolves around Dart's vendetta on the Black Monster, who assumably killed Dart's parents years ago when his village, Neet, was destroyed. Though this is the main quest, Dart eventually gets tangled in other affairs such as the Serdian Civil War. Throughout his adventure he meets various characters who travel alongside him because of their own quests to fulfill, including Rose. Dart's childhood friend is kidnapped during a raid by Sandora. He then leaves his small town and heads to the prison to get her back. In the prison, he meets Lavitz and they team up to get Shana back. After escaping the prison, and fleeing from the soldiers, the group decides to make their way to Basil, to meet with Albert, the kind king of Basil and leader of North Serdio. They travel through an underground cavern where Shana displays a strange and powerful ability. Once at the castle, they are granted an audience with the king and he dispatches then to a city where fighting has broke out. Once in Hoax, Lavitz and Dart are waiting for the attack by the south Serdians. When they are attacked, a giganto, (named Kongol), is aidding the forces and they must take care of it. In the midst of battle, Dart's pendent changes him into the Dragoon of Fire. Using this new strength, he attacks and defeats the giganto. Rose appears and tells Dart of the story of the Dragoons as well as his fate in the world. The foursome decide to head to Lohan to find out more about the war. On their way through a Volcano, they are attacked by a Phoenix, but the party easily overpowers the foe. But, they are then attacked by a Virage, an ancient weapon used in a war centuries past. After a long battle, Shana's mysterious power destroys the beast. The group then run through a forest where they are attacked by an associate of Lavitz, Greham. They banter back and forth, and the enemy transforms into the Jade Dragoon. He summons an enormous dragon and they begin to battle. Dart and Co. win, Greham feels regret about attacking Lavitz, and the Jade Dragoon bonds itself to Lavitz.
The group arrives at Lohan, where Dart meets Haschel, his old mentor and friend. After a brief conversation, they head to a doctor to check out what is wrong with Shana. The doctor cannot determine why she is the way she is, and suggests a special medicine made from an herb, the Dragoni Plant, which is in an ancient ruin. Dart, bravly sets out to retrieve the herb. The group heads to the ruins to discover that it is boobytrapped. The way into the inner most sanctum, where the group find the plant, is guarded by devious devices. After besting what traps there were, the group is ambushed by would-be assassin Drake. After a battle with the mischievous cretin, they finally meet with the temples master, Shirly. Dart explains the situation, but Shirly tells Dart that there is no more of the Dragoni plant, but there is another way to save Shana. Shirly possesses the Silver Dragoon spirit, but won't give it up to Dart unless she knows his true desires. Shirly transforms into different people to ask the group various questions about their mission. After answering right, Shirly hands them the spirit.
Back at Lohan, Dart uses the spirit to revive Shana, and after a tender moment, they go off into the city. A festival has aroused the city, Dart and Shana have a night on the town, before entering the Heroes Competition. Dart easily dispatches the entrees until he gets to the semi-finals. A man named Lloyd is his challenger, and a superiour swordsman, Dart cannot even hit the man. Dart is easily defeated, and amazed at the man. Lloyd will leave and the group begins to converse when a shreik from the entrance of town is heard. A serverly wounded Basil guard tells the team that Fruegal has attacked Basil, and taken the King to Hellena. Lavitz, enraged, heads of to Hellena to recue his king. Haschel decides to come with them.
At Hellena, security has increase dramaticlly, and the group has a hard time getting in again. After entering, the group is tricked by Fruegal and trapped in a room with a hideous beast. He goes down after a fierce fight, and the team ascends the dark towers and depths of Hellena and meet up with Fruegal, about to kill King Albert. Lavitz interrupts their plans, and the group battle with the cruel Fruegal. After a ferocious fight, Fruegal is defeated, but a mysterious man in black is sucking something from Albert. Lavitz rushes the man, changing into a Dragoon mid-leap. But, the man is armed with the Dragon Buster, a weapon made to kill Dragoons. The man is exposed to being Lloyd and runs off, killing Lavitz. With his dyin breath, Lavitz talks to Dart and the king about their friendships. Albert absorbs Lavitz's Dragoon spirit, and accompys the group to Seles. There, they decide to attack Kazas directly and confront Doel.
At Kazas, the group finds secret tunnels into the ominous castle and infiltrate it easily. Dispatching guards and Kongol, who has come back for a rematch, the group enters Doel's chamber, they try and reconcile with him to end the war, but he won't listen and attacks the group. The fight just begins when, Doel changes into the Violet Dragoon, with his new found power, he pummels the team mercilessly. After an intense battle, Doel talks to Albert about why he started the war, and how he met Lloyd, but sadly he dies. Haschel absorbs the Violet Dragoon and joins the team permanently.
The team decides to follow Lloyd, the manipulator behind the war, to the kingdom of Fletz. There the team continues to look for Lloyd, but can not get an audience with the king. After talking to Fester, and learning about the Moon That Never Sets the team decides to head somewhere else to look for Lloyd. In the barrens, the party is jumped by a thief named Mappy, who steals Dart's Red-Eyed Dragoon spirit pendant. He flees and the party pursues him. In Donau, the party searches for information about Lloyd as well as Mappy. They don't learn too much about Lloyd, but Mappy is part of a secret organization that has taken control of Donau. Meru, a dancer of the town, wishes to see her home liberated, and forcibly makes herself welcome in the group.
The team heads to Fletz again to get permission to head to the Valley of Corrupted Gravity but they need permission from the king. The team talks to Fester who needs to head to the castle anyway, they join him. The team join Fester and the king to a dinner, where the king grants them permission to go into the valley. Just then, Princess Lisa talks to Albert about her sister. It seems something funny is happening with Emille, and she wants Albert to find out. The team, heads to the valley, after promising to figure it out later.
The Valley of Corrupted Gravity was a place of high conflict in the Dragoon Wars. The place is so disturbed that gravity itself is warped. After braving the challenges of the valley, the team meets another Virage, this one more dangerous than the last. Again, Shana uses her power to defeat it, the team heads on. In the Home of the Gigantos, we learn that the leader of the secret organization is Gerhich, a pupil of Haschel. The team breaks in, and beats the guards and confronts Gerhich, they begin to fight. The ending blow to Gerhich sends him into a statue, it begins to fall, with the team under it. Kongol, who has just arrived, grabs the statue and throws it away. Seeing Darts strength inspired Kongol, and seeing his master is dead, he wishes to follow Dart, Dart agrees and Kongol is welcomed. Gerhich tells the group that Princess Emille is a fake, and the real one is hidden in the castle. After retrieving the Red-Eyed Dragoon spirit from the basement, the team head back to Fletz, which is under martial law.
The group decides to investigate where the real Emille is. They are not welcome in the castle and sneak past the guards to meet with Princess Lisa, and then head to Emille's room. In her room, they discover a portal to another dimension, where the real Emille is. After freeing her, the group crashes in on the king and the fake Emille. She is really Lenus, a wingly and was hired by Lloyd to get the Moon Dagger. The team can't allow this to happen, and they begin to fight. Lenus, being a wingly, has superiour magic skills than our group, but they beat her anyway. She laughs at their attempts and flies away. The king congratulates our heroes, and allows them passage on the Queen Fury, a ship heading to the town of Fueno.
Aboard the Queen Fury, the group have a wonderful time. Many have never been out to sea on a boat, and relish the occasion. Until, a Phantom Ship appears and halts our parties progression. After boarding and finding the captain of the ship, does the team move the ship, but Dart and Rose fall into the ocean. In an ocean cave, Rose remembers her lost love, Zieg, Darts father and original owner of the Red-Eyed Dragoon spirit. She remembers how they fought together with the other Dragoons in the Dragon Campaign against the Winglies. She falls asleep, only to be woken up by a dog and a boy named Pete. Dart and Rose follow the boy to his home where they can make it to Fueno. At Fueno, the team regroups and begins their quest anew. They find that Lenus has retreated into an Undersea Cavern, they head there. Confronting her, she changes into the Blue Sea Dragoon and summons a powerful dragon to aid her. The group fights of the dragon and takes down Lenus, she dies only with regret for Lloyd. The Blue Sea Dragoon is then absorbed by Meru.
The group heads back to Fletz for a celebration. Dart talks to everyone, then has a tender moment with Shana. Dart begins to realize that Shana is no longer a little girl he can protect, she has become a full grown woman capable of defending herself. Dart also feels that his brother/sister relationship has changed to romantic love.
The next day, the group heads to the Queen Fury and onward to Tiberoa, still following Lloyd. The group arrives at Furni, a water city. There, they discover a wolf has gone berserk and is terrorizing the town and the forest close by. They also learn that a boy is with the wolf. They track them down, and kill the wolf, only to learn he was only trying to defend the boy. They head off through the Evergreen Forest and onward to the Crystal Palace of Deningrad. Here, the group meets with a strange man who has a library full of information. The group heads to the library to figure out what Lloyd is up to. They learn about creation, life, and death at the hand of the world tree. They also learn more about Winglies and the Dragon Campaign.
Meru, however, is not with them. She decided to "meet with some old friends". She heads to the Evergreen Forest and reveals herself to be a Wingly, and opens a portal to a secret Wingly colony in the forest. She is yelled at for coming back, for if you leave you may never come back. And it is shown that she is a very unusual wingly as she is a very unusual person. Lloyd is revealed to be a Wingly
The group then heads to Neet, trying to catch Lloyd, but to no avail. They are out of options and have nowhere to turn to when Meru suggests heading to the Wingly Forest to ask the elders what to do. The elders tell you that Lloyd is going to take all of the Moon Objects so he can use the Moon that Never Sets to destroy the world and make it a new utopia for himself. But, the last moon object is hidden behind the Divine Dragon. He needs a weapon that reduces Dragons and Dragoons effectiveness, the Dragon Block Staff. They teleport the group to an old Wingly haven, the Royal Capital Kadessa.
Here, the group discovers the might of the Wingly empire. Immense technological advances and amazing monuments are here, but in ruins. They fight a powerful Virage, built for an intense battle. And finally get to the Dragon Block Staff. It is being guarded by the Grand Jewel, an entity of Wingly technology. The ensuing battle is difficult, the Dragon Block Staff renders any Dragoons useless, leading to a long battle. Once gotten, the team heads back to Deningrad, where the Divine Dragon has ravaged the land.
With permission from the queen, and one of her aids, Miranda, by their side, the group head to the Mountain of the Mortal Dragon where the Divine Dragon waits for them. They walk up the twisting roads and winding pathes to find Lloyd in battle with the beast, he leaves the group to finish the Dragon, a task that tests the very fabric of their being. The Dragon finally goes down, but Lloyd rushes in and steals the Divine-Dragoon Spirit for himself, then runs off, the party in hot pursuit. They follow him to the Kashua Glacier, and then to the tower of Flanvel.
At the top of the tower, the party meets Lloyd in battle. However, the battle is long fought, because Lloyd is equipped with the Dragon Buster, the very item that killed Lavitz. They fight hard, Lloyd is able to match them in every way, and surpass them in magic. He finally goes down, but he is not the real threat. The real threa is Emperor Diaz, the leader of the Winglies from the Dragon Campaign, he manipulated Lloyd so he could get back at the Humans. He retreats to Vellweb, ancient city of the humans.
In Vellweb, the team discovers more information about the war, and about the creation of all the different races of Endiness, and how the Wingly hatred of humans has grown. Diaz meets our heroes in the kings chamber, and reveals his plot. He plans to use the moon to destroy all of humanity and to bring about the time of the Winlies once again. But, he has another surprise, he is in fact Zieg Feld. Zieg was using the disguise of the Emperor to fuel his desires of world domination. Dart and Rose are dumbfounded, as Zieg fought and died in the Dragon Campaign. Zieg tells you that nothing can stop him, and he vanishes.
Determined to stop Zieg, the party heads to the Death Frontier, where it is said an ancient Wingly city is hidden. The Death Frontier is appropriatly named. The land is desolate and the group has a difficult time traversing the sand dunes, sand pits, and the various monsters that make their home in this wasteland. However, the group arrives finally at the ancient hidden Wingly city of Ulara. Hidden behind a magical veil, the city has been hidden from the humans for fear that the humans will attack and kill the Winglies.
In Ulara, our group meets with an old friend of Roses. She tells them that Zieg needs to head to the old Wingly cities. On that note, Dart and Co. head off to stop Zieg. Using a secret enterance into the Home of the Gigantos, the team heads back to Fletz. The king grants them permission to head to Rogue, the home town of Haschel. In the village of Rogue, the group meets with the Mayor and he grants them passage to the Magic City of Aglis, one of the ancient cities, long ago forgotten.
[edit] Gameplay
The Legend of Dragoon features 3 modes of play which are consistent in most RPGs: the world map, the field map, and battle mode. The world map is similar to many RPGs, but is limited because the player can only control Dart's movements over dotted lines instead of being able to travel freely like in Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy VIII. The field map is used whenever the player enters a town, dungeon, or landmark. It consists of 3-D characters on a 2-D pre-rendered background. Battle mode is a 3-D representation of places in the world map or the field map, like towns and forests. Turn-based battles occur in this between playable characters and CPU-controlled enemies.
[edit] Additions
Additions are unique from most Turn-based RPGs in the fact that it allows multiple hits to be gained which affect the outcome not only in the damage dealt to the enemy, but also in the amount of SP or spiritual points (see next section) the dealer gains. When the "Attack" command is chosen, the character runs towards the enemy while two blue squares appear on-screen. One is stagnant in the center of the targeted enemy, while the other spirals in from the edges of the battle screen. The player must press "X" when the squares meet to continue the combo until the final move is done. If the player has a Dragoon Spirit stone, then additions will gain SP for their Dragoon gauge. Certain additions are more useful for dealing large sums of damage, while others are useful for gaining SP. Additions also level if you can complete them enough times, there by doing more damage and gaining more SP.
A Counter occurs when the squares turn red for one move. When this happens, the player must press "O" instead of "X" to continue the addition. If not, the addition stops and damage is dealt to the character as well.
Every character has their own set of additions gained at certain levels except for Shana and Miranda, who instead deal one shot of their bow & arrow which gains SP based off their Dragoon level.
[edit] The Dragoon System
Every character in the game eventually obtains their own unique dragoon spirit to utilize in battle, each with their own elemental specialty. Once a character has obtained their own, the SP gauge will appear below the HP and MP gauges in battle mode. SP can be gained by Additions, equipped armor and accessories, or through certain usable items. The maximum SP that can be held is determined by the Dragoon level of the character.
When a certain amount of SP is accumulated, the "Dragoon" option appears in the command menu. The amount of turns the player can stay in Dragoon form is determined by their Dragoon level.
While in the form, players have 2 options: "Attack" and "Magic". Attack unleashes a modified form of the addition system, except the amount of hits is determined before the actual attack is completed. A small dragoon symbol appears at the top-right of the screen, with a light revolving around it. The player must press "X" every time the light has passed the very top of the symbol. Every time this is completed, the Dragoon Addition has more successive hits and deals more damage. Every Dragoon uses this method except for Shana and Miranda, who just deal one shot of their Crossbow. "Magic" uses up Magic Points(MP), but uses elements in its attacks or may be able to heal allies. As the Dragoon level increases with a character, so does their range of magic skills.
There is also another option: "Special", which is available whenever the whole party has their Dragoon gauges full. All characters transform into their Dragoon forms, and the environment changes to an alternate Dimension depending on which character chose the "special" option. The dimension will give that player a power boost, and the CPU will automatically complete Dragoon Additions for the character who activates the special.
[edit] References
- ^ MobyGames entry for The Legend of Dragoon. Retrieved on 2006-06-26.
- The Legend of Dragoon Instruction Manual. 2000.
