The Legend of Dragoon is a role-playing video game developed and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. It was released in December 1999 in Japan, June 2000 in North America, and January 2001 in Europe. Set in a high fantasy fictional world called Endiness, the game follows a group of warriors led by the protagonist, Dart, as they attempt to stop the destruction of the world. The player controls a party of three-dimensional (3D) character models through pre-rendered, linear environments. Combat uses a combination of turn-based mechanics and real-time commands. The game includes a quick time event called "addition" during each attack, requiring the player to press a button when prompted in order to continue inflicting damage.
The game had a development budget of over $16 million, a notably high figure for the era. Production began in 1996 and spanned three years, involving a team of more than one hundred people. Reviewers differed in their assessment of the game, although many unfavourably compared it to the Final Fantasy series. The game sold more than one million copies worldwide, with most sales coming from North America. An album of the game's soundtrack was released in 2000, as well as a novel and manga inspired by the game.
Gameplay
thumb|left|alt=Dart, the protagonist of The Legend of Dragoon, attacks an enemy in his non-Dragoon form. Two blue squares are visible are shown as part of the quick time event.|Dart attacks an enemy and triggers the "addition" quick time event. To execute an additional attack the player must press X when the two squares converge, as indicated by the icon in the bottom-right.The Legend of Dragoon is a role-playing game (RPG) focused on fantasy elements. It features three modes of play: the area map, the field, and the battle screen. In the first mode, players explore the world of The Legend of Dragoon by following predetermined routes on a linear 3D map. At the end of each route are towns and dungeons for the player to explore. The player can access new routes and areas as the plot progresses. In the field mode, the player navigates fully scaled versions of the locations represented on the area map, superimposed on pre-rendered backgrounds. The player can explore the environment, interact with characters and advance the story. A maximum of three characters are used in each battle. The player's opponents include monsters and characters introduced in the plot. On a party member's turn, the player chooses a command for their character to take such as attacking with a weapon, guarding to recover health, using items, or running away. When the "attack" option is selected, a quick time event mechanic called "addition" is activated. Two blue squares appear on the screen and start to converge. If the player presses a button when the squares overlap the character will continue the addition and do more damage. A player can also select a magic attack item where the player can increase the strength of the attack by repeatedly pressing a button.
There are nine playable protagonists in the game. Albert is the king of Basil, a duchy within the game, and Lavitz is one of his knights. Meru is a Wingly dancer and Kongol is a Giganto, a giant-like human, and the last of his species alive in the game's world. Haschel is an elderly man searching for his daughter and Miranda is a headstrong retainer of Queen Theresa. Through different story events, each playable character gains the ability to transform into a Dragoon, a tool used to gain additional abilities and a greater power to defeat enemies. The plot mechanic of a character dying, but having their abilities inherited by another playable character, was used in other role-playing games created at the same time. This includes Final Fantasy V, where Krile inherits Galuf's abilities after the latter's death.
Development
Sony Computer Entertainment was inspired by the financial success of the Final Fantasy series to create an RPG video game. The Legend of Dragoon was developed by a group within Sony Computer Entertainment Japan. Shuhei Yoshida served as producer; it was both one of the last and largest projects he worked on in his first tenure at Sony. The game was directed and designed by Yasuyuki Hasebe, who also created the story outline.
Kenichi Iwata was the game's art director and designer of the Dragoon armor, working on character designs alongside Tatsuya Nakamura.thumb|right|alt=See caption.|Shuhei Yoshida (pictured here in 2022) was the producer of The Legend of Dragoon.|upright=0.7
Production of the game lasted three years. When it started development in 1996, the company was also developing Ape Escape and conceptualizing Ico, so The Legend of Dragoon began with a small team. The production team grew to over 100 staff members and had a budget of $16 million, both considered large for a PlayStation game. Many members of the development team were recent graduates of college or video game schools.
There were originally no plans for CGI movies as the character models were polygon-based and there would be a disconnect between real-time and CGI graphics. The development team acquiesced to use CGI movies for key events because they looked impressive and they wanted to showcase the characters flying through the air. It was challenging for the developers to create smoke because it was their first time attempting this effect. The game's real-time lighting was designed to emulate the lighting used in CGI cutscenes. The development team limited the lighting's brightness and used it to draw attention to important elements on the map. Martin was both the soundtrack programmer and pianist. The soundtrack featured contributions from guitarist Chuei Yoshikawa, bass work by Jonathan Maron (Groove Collective), percussion from Ray Grappone (Hipbone Records), and saxophone by Jay Rodriguez (also of Groove Collective). The synthesizer operator was Tetsuo Yamazaki. The music recording sessions were split between the Tokyo-based SEDIC and the Sound On Sound studio in New York. Mixing was also done at Sound On Sound. The Legend of Dragoon was Martin's first work for a video game; he was chosen because Sony wanted a different musical style to other RPGs at the time. Martin was supposed to compose the game's music himself, but the game's 4 CD-length made this impractical and the Japanese staff hired Miratsu to create additional music. Martin and Miratsu did not meet each other while working on the game, although Martin stated that having a native Japanese composer with a different style broadened the soundtrack's variety.
Martin struggled to create music during the early stages of development. Later that year it was among the games displayed at Tokyo Game Show. The game released in Japan on December 2, 1999.
A North American release was confirmed by Sony in January 2000 Yoshida supervised the North American release following his move to Sony's North American branch. The gameplay was adjusted to become less difficult after feedback from Japanese players, and Yoshida called the North American release the "complete" version.
The game was re-released on the PlayStation Network on December 22, 2010, in Japan and May 1, 2012, in North America. In a retrospective article about the series, Yoshida stated that a sequel was in pre-production after Yoshida left Japan, but was cancelled for unknown reasons.
Reception
The Legend of Dragoon was given a score of 74 out of 100 by review aggregation website Metacritic based on 12 reviews, indicating a "mixed or average" reception.
The game was frequently compared to entries in the Final Fantasy series, Ken Chu, in reviewing the Japanese version, said that it would be considered a good game if it was evaluated on its own merits, instead of in comparison to other video game titles. Neal Chandran of RPGFan wrote "The Legend of Dragoon is one of the most underrated RPGs in the PlayStation era".
Sales
Upon its debut in Japan, The Legend of Dragoon reached second place in sales behind Pokémon Gold and Silver, selling over 160,000 units and becoming the best-selling new release that week. By 2007, the game had sold over 280,000 copies in Japan and 823,000 copies in North America. According to Yoshida, sales in the United States allowed the game to recoup its large budget.
Other media
An original soundtrack album for the game was released in Japan on January 21, 2000, by SPE Visual Works. Chris Greening of Square Enix Music Online gave the album a score of 6/10 in 2010, saying that while innovative at the time, it had been superseded in quality by later soundtracks. He recommended that fans buy the soundtrack despite the album missing several tracks from the game. Both critics praised the main theme of "If You Still Believe" as a high-quality theme song.
The series was twice adapted following its Japanese release; a novelization written by Hiranari Izuno and published by Famitsu Bunko in March 2000, and a short-lived manga created by Ataru Cagiva published in a tankōbon by Enterbrain in June the same year. Dart was also intended to be a downloadable content character for PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. He was featured as a collectable cameo bot in the video game Astro Bot.