Legend of Legaia - Part 1 - Rated E for Everyone

 

 

Quality thumbnail

 

 

Well, here we are.  This is Legend of Legaia.  A game I’ve played before, but have been wanting to revisit.  As I said before, I do remember a fair amount of this game, so I’m curious to see how it still holds up.

But before we go any further and start the game, I would like to point out something.  More specifically, the cover art.

 

 

Dude on the left is awfully focused on the PlayStation logo

 

 

It’s a pretty decent cover art.  You got 3 characters posing, assuming these are our main characters and whatnot.  You got a blade poking out what appears to be the center guy’s gauntlet.  Looks cool.  But I want you to direct your attention to the ESRB rating on the bottom left corner.  Notice that it’s rated E for everyone.  Or generally, for an audience 6 years and up.

DO NOT BELIEVE ITS LIES.  This game deserves at least a T rating.

I should probably tell you that while I enjoyed the game the first time I played it, there were a lot of disturbing and honestly terrifying moments that stopped my 9 year old self from continuing any further.  We’ll get to some of those traumatizing moments later, but do know that there are some moments that may not be suitable for a much younger audience (spoilers: we may find some moments in this part!).

But without further ado, let’s start!

 

herp derp don't mind the cutoff

We are greeted with a prologue introducing us to the world of Legaia.  I’ll make a brief summary of this rolling prologue.  Upon creating Legaia, the god of this world created human, along with seru – creatures that would aid the humans in their survival.  The serus granted superhuman abilities to anyone who touched them; some would grant them superhuman strength, while some could allow them to fly, for example.  For as long as history foretold, humans and serus have lived in harmony.

But all that changed when the Fire Nation attacked Mist appeared.

look at this thick... pillar

An ominous mist suddenly appeared in the world, and the seru began attacking their human masters.  Some would even attach to their humans, possessing them and transforming into a human-seru monster.  Civilizations fell prey to the mist and its now-evil inhabitants.

Quite a dire opening, eh?  Sets the tone for what we’re gonna see in this game.

Something something grim reminder

We come to Rim Elm, a small village by the ocean surrounded by huge walls.  In this village, we become acquainted to our protagonist of this story, Vahn.  Of course, you can rename him as whatever you wish, but for this playthrough, I will be going by the default names.

Tomorrow is Vahn’s birthday, and the day he officially becomes a hunter for the village, where he can finally set outside the village.  So to reflect on this, he comes to the centre of the village, to this peculiar looking tree - his “favorite spot”, as the village elder says.  The tree actually has a name: the Genesis Tree.  Obviously, there’s something special about this tree, but we’ll get to that later.

look how green that tree is

 

Green hair - yup, she's an anime, alright

As we leave the Genesis Tree, Vahn is interrupted by this green haired lady.  This is Mei, Vahn’s girlfriend.  As Vahn will be setting off tomorrow, Mei wanted to make some clothes for him, but needs to make one more check on the measurements.  She heads off to Vahn’s place, as we are on that way as well.

At this point, we can talk to some villagers to get some more lore about this world.  Nothing too special outside of what we already know from the prologue, but it does paint the tone of what this world is like.  One additional detail we do learn from talking to the villagers is the reason of the walls.  It is exactly what you’d expect – to protect them from the seru and the mist.

I'd make an AoT joke, but I already made one

 

this house looks pretty important

 

In this house is what appears to be a store.  Or, rather was.  Some more fluff text here.  By the way.  If you check the drawer upstairs, you’ll find it to be locked.  Take note of this drawer; we’ll come back to it later.

Vahn found Orthopedic Underwe- *smack*

 

Here’s one neat detail I did find; the village is walled except for the side pointing to the ocean.  Apparently, the wind from the sea pushes the mist away.  Something I never really thought about till replaying this game.

good thing the wind doesn't pull the mist in; we'd be screwed

 

Anyways, let’s return back to Vahn’s home.  We see Mei, along with Nene – Vahn’s little sister – and Val, Vahn’s father.

 

Nene pls

 

Mei finally gets the measurements, and leaves to make the adjustments on Vahn’s clothes.

Things seem pretty… mundane at this point.  I mean, the highlight up to this point is the whole hunting clothes deal.  But don’t worry; the plot is gonna pick up pretty soon.

By the beach, we meet Tetsu, a Biron monk.  Biron monks are people who have renounced their dependence of seru, and have instead focused on training their bodies and mind.  So, as such, Tetsu is quite a martial artist.  And here, we finally get a taste of combat!

 

The game’s combat has an interesting mix of RPG and fighting game elements.  It does lean more towards the RPG side, but this battle system is definitely something that really stood out to me.  Whenever you want to attack, you input commands with the D-pad, like you would with a fighting game. Don’t expect to input familiar street fighter moves like quarter-circle-forward punch or a “LP-LP-F-LK-HP” and get something out of it though; it’s not that nuanced.  Even though the translation is not 1:1, I do find this combat system really cool.

The next lesson here is very important: spirit.  The spirit command does multiple things in one turn:

1 - it raises your defense for this turn

2 – it raises your AP

3 – it increases your command bar for the next turn

2 and 3 are pretty obvious, as it clearly shows you, but the fact that it raises your defense is less so, especially if you did not read the text like I did when I first played this game.  Using spirit as a defense command will be incredibly helpful in later fights.  Don’t forget this!

The last lesson we learn is arts: by inputting a specific command (and with enough AP), we can perform a special move that will do more damage!  Tetsu teaches us the Somersault art, but we’ll have to figure out the rest on our own.  Or you could look up a guide yourself and see the list of arts.

After sparring with Tetsu, the sun starts to set.

The wall here sure looks breakable... gee, I hope nothing bad happens

 

The other hunters have returned to the village.  However, we got some bad news.  They come, carrying a body.

Juno – Mei’s father – is dead.

 

 

As the player, we hardly knew Juno, but from this scene, we immediately feel the weight of the situation.  Mei grieves for the loss of her father, while Vahn tries to comfort her.  As you talk to other villagers, they talk about how they’re preparing for a funeral.

Well, this certainly put a damper on the mood.

Vahn returns home to sleep for the next day.  However…

 

Vahn awakens in the middle of the night.  Someone – or something has been banging on the Wall.  The villagers are all gathered near the Wall to see what’s going on.  That’s when they hear a voice, taunting them as the “pitiful humans” they are.  A man appears in front of everyone, wearing a seru like a mask.  He introduces himself as Zeto, and he wishes to bring “salvation” amongst the villagers.

I bet his full name is Zeto Gaiba

  

In the following FMV, we see a giant seru in front of the village blast down the wall with a deadly beam from its mouth.  But can I just quickly comment on how terrifying this monster looks?  The glowing white eyes, along with those sharp fangs coming out from its blood red mouth.  Not to mention, this takes place in the dark, which makes it all the more frightening.  Can you still believe this game is rated E for everyone??

 

Like seriously - WHAT IS THIS

The Wall is decimated, and mist pours from the opening, along with the seru.  Vahn faces against one of the seru, which leads to our first actual fight.

After defeating the gimard, let’s head down to the Genesis tree, because I noticed it glowing at the back in the past cutscene (and totally not because I remember what to do next!).

 

Please do not approach radiating trees in real life - the trees may not appreciate it

A villager has been staying near the tree, noticing that the mist has not approached it.  Strange…  Vahn approaches the tree and hears a voice.  The voice seems to be coming from Meta, a ra-seru inside the tree.  He says that he can help Vahn save the people from the mist by working together.  Vahn agrees to accept Meta’s help, and Meta attaches onto Vahn’s arm like a bracelet.  So, in order to rescue everyone, Meta asks Vahn to gather the villagers to the Genesis Tree.

 

To break tension, I imagined Meta’s lines being voiced by Duo from Megaman 8

What is a Ra-seru, you may ask?  Can we really trust it to protect us from the mist?  These are questions that we do not have answers to, nor do we have the time to ponder, as we have quite the situation at hand.

We jump back into the mist as we quickly learn that Meta has – fortunately – not possessed Vahn into a human-seru monster.  But let’s not celebrate just yet; let’s do what Meta asked us to and bring the villagers to the tree.  Though, what we really need to do is go back home and we can advance the plot from there.

But before we do that, here are a couple of major tips at this point: now that you have Meta on your side, try fighting the gimard enemies again.  Something special may happen!  You may not get it on your first try, but if you do, it’ll be real helpful this early in the game.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance for this to happen…

Another major tip: go to Mei’s house first.  Then ask her to move to your place.  This is important as doing this will get you a special item that – as far as I know – is missable.

To break tension again, I'd like to point out that the left wall looks super pixelated

 

Though, doing this after getting Meta does look kinda awkward, plot wise.  As soon as Vahn gets Mei to his place, we talk to Mei again, just to skip to the next cutscene where we gather everyone to the Genesis Tree.  We just moved Mei away from the tree, just to get her to the tree.  Whoops.

With everyone gathered at the Genesis Tree, Meta asks everyone to pray to the tree.  Everyone’s lights converge onto Vahn, forming into one big ball of light.

 

Oh snap Vahn is charging up a spirit bomb

Vahn tosses the ball of light into the Genesis Tree, and the tree glows a magnificent aura.  The Genesis Tree blooms fully, and the emanating light destroys all the evil seru in the village, and even pushes the mist away.  After this wonderous event, Vahn collapses, exhausted.

 

SEE, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU APPROACH RADIATING TREES

The next day comes, and- oh, right.  We have a funeral.

Wait... there are 3 coffins

I just noticed as I write this out; there are 3 coffins, yet we only know Juno who died.  …I think 2 other people died during the night attack.  Holy smokes, this game does not pull any punches.  We watch as the coffins are pushed into the sea.

“Mommy, why are they burying daddy?  He still has a lot of work to do!”

 

I apologize in advance for that last line.

Vahn prepares to set out with a new mission, but the village elder catches us before we leave.  He tells us with a piece of information: now that Vahn can freely walk into the mist, the elder asks us to look out for a Biron Monastery, as he believes that Mei’s mother, Maya, may still be alive there.  He has not told Mei of this, as he believes should Mei's mother actually end up dead, it would cause her even more grief.

As we are about to set out, Mei stops us.  She gives Vahn new Hunter Clothes, and a special item: Mei’s Pendant!  This is the special item I was referring to – you only get this pendant if you rescue her from the seru attack.

 

Vahn's social link with Mei has ranked up

This scene reminds me oddly of Kamiki Village from Ookami – more specifically, the entrance

And with that, we take our first step outside Rim Elm, and into the world of Legaia.

 

 

I believe this is a good stopping point here.  I feel this writeup has been more expository than my personal thoughts.  Apologies if it felt like that, but I think it’ll shift more towards my thoughts as we progress through the game.

But with that said, I would like to point something out – something I’ve been building up from the beginning of this writeup.  Have you noticed how dark – and grim at times - the opening is?  Not even an hour into the game, and we got the following:

- girlfriend’s father dead

- girlfriend grieving over father’s death

- a terrifying FMV featuring frightening monster design

- people implied to have died during said attack

- funeral process on the day after

Are you sure this game is rated E for everyone???