A late-gen Switch remaster of a late-gen 3DS RPG.
The Legend of Legacy first came out in the west nearly a decade ago on 3DS courtesy of publisher Atlus. I reviewed it back then and while the difficulty spikes and minimalist story dragged it down, I walked away with positive memories of my time with the FuRyu-developed RPG. Revisiting it on Switch in the upgraded port published by NIS America–dubbed The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered–rekindles those fond memories. With the recent SaGa series explosion from Square Enix, the novelty of The Legend of Legacy’s combat system is less impactful, but it’s still an enchanting RPG in spite of the same threadbare story and difficulty spikes.
The focus of the adventure is more on exploration as opposed to combat, as after you pick one of the seven playable characters you set out to explore the various regions on the island of Avalon. Roaming around each area and filling out the map is the goal, with various battles and bosses along the way. The combat is heavily inspired by the SaGa series as your characters don’t traditionally level up with experience points. Instead, the more you use certain abilities, the more the stats related to them improve and you randomly unlock more abilities tied to that weapon or item. It’s relatively straightforward and approachable, but the element of RNG can make certain boss fights or even stronger regular enemy fights frustrating.
The visuals and music make those obstacles more enjoyable though. The soundtrack from Masashi Hamauzu (who most recently worked on the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth) is incredible, made better by not being output on 3DS speakers. The visuals also translated better to Switch than I expected, looking especially stylish on the handheld screen.
But if you already played this game on 3DS, there isn’t much in the way of new features in this release. Some quality of life features make this obtuse game a little more manageable, essentially including instruction manual-esque detail in menus. The way they changed the StreetPass trading game to work without the notable 3DS feature is cute, even if it just makes it a simple side thing where you send off a character to get items as opposed to the fun real-world traveling aspect of StreetPass in the original.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is a solid port of an interesting but flawed game. If you want to explore some dungeon-like areas, rock some SaGa-like combat, and listen to some beautiful music, then it’s worth journeying through Avalon. Otherwise, this remains a game I think is neat but wouldn’t necessarily emphatically recommend to most aside from the specific group I just described.
