Was legends 2 really that bad?

[allysprite]

So apparently one of my friends thinks legends 2 is a really bad game for a multitude of reasons, one example being the teisel fight and the zenny grinding (probably the nino ruins too).
Personally legends 2 is one of my favorite ganes ever so I'm probably extremely biased.
To anyone who knows, was it really as horrible as he said it was?

[Dashe]

It wasn't as horrible as he says it was, no. For a PS1 game, it was surprisingly big. Now, I personally didn't like it as much as Legends 1 because Legends 1 focused more on making one really believable area that you get attached to, with dungeons based roughly around utility without getting overly themey, while Legends 2 seems like they ran out of disc space for what they were trying to do and had a plot that was a lot more openly based around collecting Macguffins than Legends 1 was. They really beat you over the head with elemental ruin themes, and there were so many rivals going after the keys as well that none of them really stuck out too much. If I had to pick which ones to keep in Legends 2 if I were in charge of making cuts, I'd pick Bola and Klaymoor. We see them the least, and I'd like the chance to get attached, you know?

But Legends 2's controls are a lot better than Legends 1's, and the graphics are better, too. They probably did themselves a disservice putting it on the PS1 is all. The story is also pretty deep, and Yuna's awesome. Part of me wishes I could've seen more of her, but the other part of me doesn't want to wreck it with oversaturation. If Sera had been more around during the key collection, or the game at least gave you options to try and pester her or try to sell her to the player as a Legends 2 Ira before making her into the final boss, that would've been awesome. As it was, you really just find her and forget her for the bulk of the game.

So, not a bad game, but not the great game that Legends 1 was. There are a lot of things I'd change about it if I could.

[RockmanCosmo]

I concur with Dashe. While the game does have its lows, they are nowhere as low as he puts them out to be. I find it difficult to weigh which game I prefer the most. Legends 1 has the weaker controls, but it has the better-developed world/story. Legends 2 has superior controls and graphics, but its story was definitely inhibited by the PSX's limitations. In fact, in a recently translated interview from Dengeki PlayStation, Inafune stated that he wanted Legends 2 to be on the PS2, but didn't want to leave systems like the PSX in the dust. I believe that if Legends 2 ended up being on the PS2, its world-building shortcomings like under-developing Bola/Klaymoor and formulaic thematic dungeons would have been resolved. They clearly had a lot of ambition with its story, especially with Elysium. 

In my personal experience with Legends 2, I never found myself grinding unless I wanted to upgrade a certain weapon to a very high stat. In both Legends 1 and 2, I voluntarily grinded the Shining Laser to its maximum stats via Downtown's Sub City and King Miroc, respectively. However, I do agree with your friend's point that Nino Ruins sucks; it's a total chore and undeniably drawn-out. I did like its peaceful Reaverbot, though! 

[chris3671]

May 6, 2022 10:56:34 GMT -5 Dashe said:

It wasn't as horrible as he says it was, no. For a PS1 game, it was surprisingly big. Now, I personally didn't like it as much as Legends 1 because Legends 1 focused more on making one really believable area that you get attached to, with dungeons based roughly around utility without getting overly themey, while Legends 2 seems like they ran out of disc space for what they were trying to do and had a plot that was a lot more openly based around collecting Macguffins than Legends 1 was. They really beat you over the head with elemental ruin themes, and there were so many rivals going after the keys as well that none of them really stuck out too much. If I had to pick which ones to keep in Legends 2 if I were in charge of making cuts, I'd pick Bola and Klaymoor. We see them the least, and I'd like the chance to get attached, you know?

But Legends 2's controls are a lot better than Legends 1's, and the graphics are better, too. They probably did themselves a disservice putting it on the PS1 is all. The story is also pretty deep, and Yuna's awesome. Part of me wishes I could've seen more of her, but the other part of me doesn't want to wreck it with oversaturation. If Sera had been more around during the key collection, or the game at least gave you options to try and pester her or try to sell her to the player as a Legends 2 Ira before making her into the final boss, that would've been awesome. As it was, you really just find her and forget her for the bulk of the game.

So, not a bad game, but not the great game that Legends 1 was. There are a lot of things I'd change about it if I could.

If they had waited another year or two and put it on PS2 in 2001 or 2002, It probably would have been a better game than what we got. 

[hauntedsmores]

I'm the same, with Legends 2 being my favorite game ever for so many reasons.
I once had a friend tell me while I was playing Legends 1, "This is the worst game I've ever seen." I laughed it off but also felt a little hurt, not too much though because he plays Call of duty and Fortnite XD

Just let everyone have their opinion I say.

[Anime64]

No, i found Legends 2 to be overall better than 1 and consider it to be one of my favorite games of all time. Not to say Legends 1 was bad, far from it. But 2 mostly improved an already great game. But i mean that is your friend's choice if he thinks this game is bad. There are several games i didn't like that others do, but don't let that dissuade you from liking something.

[Mikéy]

*peeks in*

Better late than never right?

I would've been interested to know the friend's opinion on Legends 1 compared to 2 but it is what it is.

My initial take: both games are great but if you play Legends 2 without experiencing Legends 1 a lot of the charm is lost. It takes a certain attachment to what's going on in the games with an eagerness to know more about what exactly that is. Assuming the friend did play Legends 1 then this is a nonissue.

My take on mechanics: Legends 1 is stiff as sin but revolutionary for its time, and Legends 2 expands on that. I think some of Legends 2's new mechanics even up the difficulty a bit since I was never expecting to run into status effects among other things, and not a single one of them ends up being fun or easy to deal with. I can see how things like that might lower the overall quality to someone though.

Nino Ruins especially feels like a constant status effect while underwater. Get knocked down, land on your head guaranteed with chip damage if you like looking at Rock's hair, neverminding the slowdown.

Compared to Legends 1 the zenny grind is laughably easy in Legends 2, so much so that you can get yourself to zenny cap in a few hours by just holding down the vaccuum arm button with a rubber band while never actually taking damage. It was probably done that way to add artificial longterm playability but it was completely unwarranted and misguided, so ends up further dropping the quality.

Some of these things get fixed in the PSP version as I understand. Nino is less slow and upgrade costs are cheaper; but that ultimately doesn't help when we've needed a new game and a PC remaster for as long as we've gone without.

Overall: great games, Legends 2 tried to be further innovative on the innovation Legends 1 had, but they took more than they gave at the end of the day.