The Best Legend of Heroes Game Since Dragon Slayer on the Turbo CD

Over the years, I have had some experience with several games in the Legend of Heroes series. My favorite, up until now, had been Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes for the CD version of the TurboGrafx-16. This was the first game in the series, although at that time, it wasn't a "Legend of Heroes" game, it was a "Dragon Slayer" game. This awesome RPG was one of the first Working Designs ports (Lunar and Vay, anyone?), and was well-translated and also had voice acting, pretty unheard of at the time. I loved it, even though I played it some 20 years later on an [electric banana]. The second game, Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes 2, was never translated into English, and therefore may as well be a piece of rotting sushi as far as I am concerned. At this time, the Legend of Heroes series truly formed with Legend of Heroes III: Shiroki Majo (known as Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch in the US.) Gone was the Dragon Slayer moniker, and unfortunately, much of what made it a good RPG. I have never played the original, only the PSP version, but it is as bland of a Dragon Quest rip-off as you can get. I can't fault the terrible translation, as I'm sure the original Japanese is great, but the gameplay was designed for a kindergartner. The other 2 ports in the Gagharv trilogy followed suit, LoH IV: Akai Shizuku (A Tear of Vermillion) and LoH V: Umi no Oriuta (Song of the Ocean) were both terrible for the same exact reasons.

Then came LoH VI: Sora no Kiseki. I played it on the PSP first, charmed by it's surprisingly good localization, and it was an excellent diversion to the sub-human customers that patronize the liquor store I work at. The guild/jobs system is always fun, and the amount of optional secrets is what drives a really good JRPG. It was just missing one thing. It was only SLIGHTLY more difficult than the previous PSP games. I thought if only this had a decent strategic challenge like it's battle system teases, it could be brilliant. Then the PC version graced my life. With added difficulties of Hard and Nightmare, it was finally a Big Boy RPG, Hard being the highly recommended difficulty to play on (don't waste your time with the default difficulty.)

Now the game has become a true masterpiece. Melding the verbose and insightful dialogue with a strategy nerd's dream battle system, the boss and optional battles are incredibly fun, and the random battles are no longer a joke. Olivier is one of the most amusing characters I have ever enjoyed playing as. He is a hedonistic, bi-sexual aristocrat that has really cheesy taste in music and will belt out some Jefferson Starship from time to time. I can't do service to how well the world is fleshed-out. There are hundreds of NPCs, and it really seems like every single one of them has their own personality. This is not easy to do.

Taking a series that I regarded as largely pedestrian and bad, and turning it into a cult classic juggernaut, is nothing short of amazing. Credit and respect to everyone involved with making this slice of JRPG heaven.