First off, do NOT play this on a PS3. The game will freeze, on all PS3 models from what I've read, late in the game. I was about 57.5 hrs into it at that point. I restarted on a PS2 (I don’t have a Memory Card adapter) and it took me about 41.5 hrs to get back to that point. I’m guessing on another playthrough I could probably shave several more hours off. The only issue I had with it on a PS2 is a couple slowdowns during a specific spell animation, which might happen on a PS1, but nothing major.
I really like the battle system, having a low, two middle, and a high attack. While it does cause battles to be long if you’re trying to learn all the Arts (which are attack combinations), it kept me involved in them, cycling through every possible combination as opposed to just choosing “Attack”. Being able to link together Arts with the same end/start attack is great. Having the Agility determine the length of the bar which determines how many attacks you get is a really nice way of pulling this off. Unlike Xenogears, which has a similar battle system, Legaia has an Arts Points meter that depletes when you use Arts and slowly regenerates, which prevents you from just spamming the strongest Art like you can in Xenogears with the Deathblows – what you end with is what you start with in the next battle. Also being able to increase your Agility, until you physically attack or end the battle, by using the Spirit command, thus being able to string together more attacks is a nice touch. An ingenious way of simulating attacking with a cumbersome weapon is that the word ARMS is larger which means that it takes up more room on the Agility bar, causing you to possibly have fewer attacks.
The biggest knock I have against the game is offensive spells take a lot of MP, which pretty much eliminates using those spells. I would have really liked to have leveled up my spells because the spells gain added effects (like decreasing the enemy’s attack or curing various status effects) as they level up, which only happens by using the spells. Another issue with the spells is that while all the spells have somewhat lengthy animations, a few have extremely long animations (I timed a couple at about 50 seconds), which you can’t skip.
A few minor beefs I have are Noa gets annoying, there are a few sequences that you have to sit through every time, and the end game dragged (but I’m thinking that’ll just be for my first playthrough since I now know what to expect and I was getting antsy to get to the final battle). Depending on your view, having all status effects cured after battle (including Stone and getting 1 HP back if you’re knocked out) is a positive or negative. The one battle where you have to win in 5 rounds or get wiped out is the only time I had to consult a guide since I wasn’t thinking of using magic since I never really used offensive magic until that point.
Heck, I didn’t even mind fishing.
