Case Cover
The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean
Case Cover
Game File
Publisher: Bandai Namco
North America Release: January 23, 2007
Number of Players: 1
Wi-Fi Mode: N/A
When I finished The Legend of Heroes II, I decided to get The Legend of Heroes III when Bandai Namco made an announcement of bringing it to North America. Since the game is part of the Gagharv trilogy, I figured that I should get it to make it complete.
About the game
The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean is actually The Legend of Heroes V in Japan & is part of the Gagharv trilogy. Of the 3 games, this takes place at the middle of the trilogy. The trilogy games are ports from the PC version. The firmware version required to play is 2.71.
Graphics
The still portraits of the characters in the character selection screen are quite good as it has that anime feel to it. Comparing them to the past two games, it's more duller in colour. It still retains that anime feel, but it's more like art instead of animation style. Like the past games, there are a small number of them & I felt some of them didn't match with the conversations that the characters were saying. As for the game sprites, they are basically your chubby SD characters that like to walk when standing again. Although they are in 2D form, it feels like 3D due to their chubbiness. As for their movements during game play, it's pretty smooth. However, a lot of the actions are limited & it's pretty boring to watch them cast spells or pull off some of their Deadly moves. Also, the game now slows down when there are too many sprites on the screen or the background being too "rich". It's very noticeable when Forte runs very slow & the dialogues take time to appear.
The background is beautifully done once again. Like the past games, it's really like living art as it makes use of the PSP's colour capability so nicely. The colours of the background is very rich & the movement is nice. I liked how the water flows. It's almost real, but it's a bit worse from the past games. Also, the colours blend very nicely with the characters & background. No clashing anywhere.
Music & Sounds
Nice, crisp, & clean. Although the sound effects weren't great in my opinion when it got into the fight & battle scenes. The hitting, cutting, & weapon swinging didn't sound real. It's fake. However, but it was fair. Like the pasts game, there are no voices and the sound effects are the same.
The music is pretty nice. But I wasn't able to get into it. It's probably because it's old school & I've gotten use to the new music in newer RPG games. Sometimes, it created the mood well. But, the music wasn't very memorable to me. Nevertheless, they fit the game's theme very well.
Gameplay
The controls are the same from the past games. The coordination are good as you make Forte go where ever you want. But, the running still feels slow even though you can barely walk at a slower speed.
The battles aren't too bad. You get to see what enemies are on the map & they aren't random encounters. You can avoid the monsters depending on the situation. If the monster has a high level than your party, it will chase after you. If its level is lower, it will run away. So, you can pretty much control the situation. As for the battle system itself, it's turn based as you decide what all of your party members should do during each round. This time, The Legend of Heroes III allows character switching during battle as long as the character being switched is alive. Even characters that are on sidelines will gain experience points. Also, the Deadly Moves attacks are perform during the fight rounds. It's not in the command list. If you time your attack properly, your character may be able to take two turns in a round. Even though these new features spices up things a bit, the battles are still boring at times & you may be avoiding most of them. The experience points earned isn't good when you fight some weaker monsters. So levelling can be a pain. Also, if you didn't like how the game played in past parts, you probably get sick of it here as well. I got bored with the battles very quickly when I started playing this game. However, there are very little boss battles here & most of the time you will be read more dialogue & solving puzzles.
The pet system hasn't gotten any good improvements. You still get some free items on the ground & it doesn't happen much or does happen too much again. The best part about it though is that I save money from buying healing or support items. Instead of feeding pet food, you feed it items & equipment which sounds a bit weird. Imagine feeding a sword to your cat. Depending on the item you give your pet, it can act as a support or attacker in battles. This time, it will have elemental abilities depending on the item fed. Feeding your pet will make it happy. However, there were many times where my pet became happy on its own when it was angry. The pet doesn't run away as well.
The story is pretty good. It follows the story of Forte & his friends in search of Resonance Stones that contain parts of a song called Water Melody that was composed from a great musician name Leonne. However, they don't know that their tour would lend to something serious. The translation & use of grammar & spelling hasn't really improved much from the previous game. At start of the game, you don't really see these mistakes. It's only when you get deeper into the game that you see these. Wrong words used, missing words, bad sentence structures, etc. Although you can pretty much make out what the game is saying, the mistakes are an eye-sore. People that played the Japanese version of the game have stated that the North American/English version is missing a lot of parts of the story that makes this game interesting. Since I never played the Japanese version, I can't make a comparison of the two. However, I liked the story as it is despite the poor writing. As a bonus, some characters from The Legend of Heroes I are part of the main storyline to keep it interesting & tie the Gagharv trilogy together.
Saving is very important if you are playing a RPG game on a portable system & this game doesn't disappoint much again. You can save anywhere in the game with the exception of battles & cut scenes. These are not quick saves. However, sometimes the cut scenes can be very long & waiting for the chance to save your game can take time. Other than these, it's very nice. What's also nice is the loading times again.
Like the past games, there is very little loading involved in the game. The longest load I've seen is around 5 seconds. However, it seems the loading times are starting to increase a bit. The game actually lags now when you reach certain areas & the "Now Loading" screen appears a bit more. But the loads are still pretty fast.
Extras, Bonuses, & Secrets
There's a bit more extras in this game now. Aside from book collecting where you can get a special item, you get to play characters from the past The Legend of Heroes games in an extra. This is only if you have the game saves from those two games & find a passport item to obtain these characters. The problem with this is that you can't use these characters in the main storyline & they start out at level one when you find them. Plus, the side missions are pretty hard when having a team with very low levels & HP. But, beating them will reward you with nice experience points that you can't get in the main storyline. Each mission is unlocked when your character level goes up.
Also, The Legend of Heroes III has a CG & music gallery. To get these bonus, you need to find them as items throughout the game's main storyline & side missions. For the music, you need feed your pet these items to hear the sounds. Sounds weird to treat your pet as a music player. Music items don't disappear when you feed them to your pet.
Replay Value
The game has little or hardly any replay value. Once you past the game, it's finished. Luckily, this is a long game. Even with the side missions to make it longer, it's still boring with the battles really.
Overall Conclusion
If you played The Legend of Heroes lineup, it wouldn't hurt to pick this game pick up. This is probably my second favourite game out of the trilogy. I give The Legend of Heroes III a 8.5/10. The game play isn't too bad, but the battles can get old as leveling starts to become painful. If you are picking up the battles from the past games, you may grow tired of them if you didn't like them at over time even with the switchover function. Although it's got a beautiful storyline that got me feeling for some of the characters, the translation & scripting job is terrible. It really affects the mood & this is one of the biggest downfalls that prevented me from giving this game a higher score. Also, the game isn't for everyone. If you didn't like the past games, I don't see how you will like this one even though it has a somewhat standalone storyline. I've seen more copies of this game available on shelves in some stores as the game is starting to become a bit hard to get at some places at the time of writing this review.
Last updated on August 1, 2007
All images shown on this website are copyrighted to their respective companies & owners.