The Legend of Dragoon

The Legend of Dragoon

North American cover art
Developer(s) SCEI
Publisher(s) Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s) Yasuyuki Hasebe
Producer(s) Shuhei Yoshida
Programmer(s) Satoshi Mamuro
Artist(s) Kenichi Iwata
Writer(s) Yasuyuki Hasebe
Composer(s) Dennis Martin
Takeo Miratsu
Platform(s) PlayStation
Release date(s)
  • JP December 2, 1999
  • NA June 11, 2000
  • EU January 19, 2001
Genre(s) Role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player

The Legend of Dragoon is a role-playing video game developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. It was released in Japan on December 2, 1999, in North America on June 11, 2000, and on January 19, 2001 in Europe.

Despite mixed critical reception, the game has amassed a very large fanbase following, including several online petitions for a remake or prequel/sequel. The game was rereleased on PlayStation Network in Japan on December 22, 2010, and in North America on May 1, 2012.

Development

The Legend of Dragoon was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan (SCEI). The project began in 1996 with a small group of people while the company simultaneously built teams for developing other games such as Ape Escape and Ico.[1] At its peak, the development team consisted of over 100 members, with ten people simply dedicated to drawing the game's concept art. As the game contains a large number of pre-rendered maps and full-motion videos, content was spread over four discs.[1] The Legend of Dragoon took three and a half years to develop before its December 1999 release in Japan. Prior to its June 2000 release in North America, the gameplay was rebalanced following complaints of the Japanese version's difficulty level.[1] According to Shuhei Yoshida, The Legend of Dragoon cost Sony Computer Entertainment $16 million to develop in over a span of three years and that most of the game's sales were made overseas, saying "the sales in the U.S. were very strong."

On December 22, 2010, Sony released The Legend of Dragoon on the PlayStation Network.[2] The North American version was released on May 1, 2012.[1] The title was the best-selling PSOne Classic for three months, remaining in the top 5 for five months.[3][4]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
Metacritic74/100 (12 reviews)[5]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Famitsu31/40[6][7]
GamePro5/5[8]
GameSpot6.4/10[9]
IGN7/10[10]

The Legend of Dragoon received mixed to positive reviews.[5] The game was praised by IGN for its graphics and cinematics.[10] However, the combo system was criticized for requiring too much precision, while the titular element of Dragoon transformation was deemed inconsequential to gameplay.[11] The game's battles were considered repetitious due to an excessive frequency of random encounters.[12] GameSpot's Peter Bartholow was more critical of the game. Bartholow called it a "highly generic RPG" and stated that the game "borrows too heavily from other games and lacks that 'hook' to make it worth dealing with excessive defending."[9]

The Legend of Dragoon sold 960,000 copies in North America and over 280,000 copies in Japan as of December 27, 2007.[13][14] In 2009, GamesRadar included it among the games "with untapped franchise potential", commenting: "A massive, epic RPG designed to compete with the then-juggernaut Final Fantasy series, Dragoon actually succeeded in its task. It was just as beautiful, nearly as deep, had a touching story, and actually improved upon FF in a few ways (avoidable random battles, for example). (...) [G]iven The Legend of Dragoon’s cult status among PlayStation loyalists today, we’re astonished that Sony has allowed this series to fade into obscurity."[15]

Manga

The Legend of Dragoon is a manga book by Ataru Cagiva based on the game. The manga only published one issue under the publisher Bros. Comics. The book follows the story of the events of disc one of the game but pulls away from the story in many parts. It is missing many characters and events in order to decrease the book's size. The book was released in 2000 only in Japan and was never translated in America.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Yoshida, Shu (April 11, 2012). "The Legend of Dragoon Coming to PSN: RPG Classic Reborn May 1st". PlayStation.Blog accessdate=January 9, 2013. Sony Computer Entertainment.
  2. ↑ Ishaan (December 22, 2010). "The Legend of Dragoon Sneaks To PlayStation Game Archives". Siliconera. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
  3. ↑ "May 2012 PSN Top Sellers: The Walking Dead Invades The Charts – PlayStation Blog". Blog.us.playstation.com. 2012-06-13. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
  4. ↑ "September 2012 PSN Top Sellers: The Walking Dead Crawls Back To the Top – PlayStation Blog". Blog.us.playstation.com. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
  5. 1 2 "Legend of Dragoon (psx: 2000): Reviews". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 2011-11-21.
  6. ↑ プレイステーション - レジェンドオブドラグーン. Weekly Famitsu. No.915 Pt.2. Pg.22. 30 June 2006.
  7. ↑ IGN staff (November 30, 1999). "IGN: New Legend of Dragoon Info". IGN.com. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
  8. ↑ E. Coli (2011-06-07). "Legend of Dragoon Review from GamePro". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved 2013-02-02.
  9. 1 2 Bartholow, Peter (2000-02-14). "The Legend of Dragoon Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 2014-07-30.
  10. 1 2 "Legend of Dragoon". IGN. 2000-06-13. Retrieved 2008-10-10. Lovely backgrounds, amazing CG, and some very impressive 3D bosses (the Divine Dragon is something else). Very high marks here.
  11. ↑ "Legend of Dragoon". IGN. 2000-06-13. Retrieved 2008-10-10. The Addition system demands too much precision combined with too much repetition, and the Dragoon transformations are pretty, but often superfluous.
  12. ↑ "Legend of Dragoon". IGN. 2000-06-13. Retrieved 2008-10-10. For example, when I've gone all the way through the dungeon and finished off the long, tedious boss fight, a game should be kind enough not to make me hike back out of the dungeon and back home to the castle or town or whatever, battling random monsters all the way.
  13. ↑ "The Magic Box - US Platinum Chart Games". The-MagicBox.com. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
  14. ↑ "1999 Top 100 Best Selling Japanese Console Games". The-MagicBox.com. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
  15. ↑ 123 games with untapped franchise potential, GamesRadar US, April 30, 2009

External links

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