As I excitedly placed the first disc of Legend of Dragoon in my PS and turned it on, I was well rewarded for my $39.95. But as I conquered the final boss of the first disc and placed the second into my PS, I was amazed once again, but this time, at how plain crappy this game was.
I have to hand it to SCEA, for the first disc. I'll also give them props for the graphics.Err....I would like to rave on about how bad this game was, but CJayC doesn't allow bashing or flaming. So, I'll just say it's "alright".

GAMEPLAY 4/10

SCEA had a great idea for it's first RPG. They added a completely new type of battle system. Now, I'm not saying that "new" means "good", but it doesn't mean "bad" either. This time, to attack, you have to press X again at a certain time to get a more powerful attack. There are more complicated combos as the game goes on, but they all look the same, if I may say so. I admit, the X attack thing was good....the first 5,000 times I saw it! Also, some boss fights are so cheap that it is almost impossible to beat them!! You just can't beat them. It's that simple! OK, that's my last gripe about the battle system. Anybody who doesn't like linear games should make sure that LOD is not within a 50-mile radius of you. On the world map, you litterally have to walk on a straight line, making it a challenge to get into a stupid random encounter!

STORYLINE 2/10

LOD had potential to have a great storyline, with it's whole Dragoon thing. Instead, what do the creators do for most of the game's plot? They take it from one of Squaresoft's games! At some point I thought I was playing a remake of FFVII, mixed with a little FFIV, and a dash of FFV to top it all off. I mean, hey, the Dragoon part of it all, honestly, it was awesome! If they had just focused on that it would have had a magnificent plot! That's the trouble with companies: they don't know what the GAMERS want! Alright, enough of my coimplaining, here's some of the story, which I will quote from Gamespot (don't worry for all you people who don't believe my reviewing, this doesn't spoil past the first 5 minutes of the game):
"The Legend of Dragoon starts out the same way as many other RPGs. The spiky-haired Dart already has one vendetta against the mysterious Black Devil, who killed his father, but it's time he had another. For unknown reasons, the Sandora Empire burns down his village and imprisons his childhood friend, Shena. Infuriated, Dart impulsively storms out to rescue Shena. Shena's kidnapping is merely the tip of the iceberg of a much grander, more sinister motive... "
Sounds awesome doesn't it? Well, like I said, it is....until the second disc! Then, BAM! whaddaya know, you're playing Final Fantasy 4-7! Once again, the story had potential, I don't know whay SCEA didn't go with it!

GRAPHICS 10/10

If the creators put half as much effort into gameplay and storyline than they did for graphics, LOD would be spectacular....except, they didn't. This game starts out with some stunning FMVs, and that continues throughout the rest of the game, with probably over an hour of them. They really push the PS's graphics processor to the limit, standing strong throughout the rest of the game. And not just the FMVs, the regular graphics are some of the best of it's time! All in all, if you play graphics for bad storylines and for good graphics, buy Legend of Dragoon!

SOUND/MUSIC 8/10

This game has great music spanning through the whole game, while the sound effects can be bad at times, it's still overall a nice game to play with the sound on. On the other hand, the voice-overs sound like they used the same person for everything, and it feels like they recorded the voice-overs in about 3 minutes, 47 seconds. UGGH!! Oh well, it doesn't alter the game's music that much anyway.

REPLAY 1/10

Like most RPGs, this one doesn't have replay capabilities, and it's not like they added any new features once you've beaten the game. Even though it's a long game, you will still remember those boring scenes, cheap bosses and bad translations. Not really appealing for replay value, huh?

OVERALL 3/10

I don't like giving games bad scores, but Legend of Dragoon really deserves it. This could have been a spectacular game if they had put more effort into the gameplay, and had gone deeper into the Dragoon storyline

--moldybanana