The Tales of Legends series is one of the JRPG masterpieces that began in the Super Nintendo era and is also a 26-year-old popular work under bandai Namco. The series, which has broken through double digits, has fallen into a slump due to the 2015 "Legend of Passion" incident, resulting in the sales of "Legend of the Night" in 2016 also suffered, once making players think that the "Legend" series is no longer possible to create a topic in the field of home consoles. But on September 9, 2021, Bandai Namco, in conjunction with the next-generation console, launched the latest work in the series", "The Legend of Breaking Dawn", once again presenting a new challenge to the JRPG world.
Speaking of the plot of this series, old players must be very familiar with it, because there have always been several modes, conflicts between different worlds, confrontations between different races, energy world crises caused by elements and magic, etc. This time is no exception, the story stage is built on two different worlds of people, one of which enslaves the other. The party that has been a slave for hundreds of years plans to rebel and thus involves the male protagonist of this game in this great dispute that affects the relationship between the two worlds. At first glance, it will feel no different from previous series, but when you actually start the game, you can gradually feel the drastic changes in all aspects of this time, and for old players, there may be some places to spend time getting used to.
Role-playing games basically have several standard elements, plot, town and maze exploration, collection elements, battle systems, plot preferences vary from person to person, character portrayal, etc. I can only say that there is a routine of the "Legends" series, no more mention, if you really want to say the characteristics, this work and one of the series works, abbreviated is also toa's work, the initial relationship between the protagonist team is actually not very good, how to watch the team how to play a good relationship, but also one of the drama meat.
Town and map exploration is also the basic form of maintaining 3D role play, talking to NPCs in towns to advance various plots, strengthening players through shops, side quests, and other elements to strengthen the player's team, and then playing to the advantage of the battle surface. The maze exploration element can be said to be the place where players will spend the most time in the role-playing game, this game is to explore various terrains composed in 3D, unblock the mechanism to open the way, but also to collect various materials or find treasure chests to get treasures. Of course, you will see a variety of enemies on the way, and players can choose to contact the enemies and use their skills to defeat them, or just try to rush the way, find a way to avoid the enemies, and go all the way to the area where the maze leader is located, and take down the boss to advance the plot.
Of course, if you really want to say, this part of the maze exploration is not completely static, and there are several changes that players will be surprised by in the past. The first is archiving, and the Legends series usually does not want to archive, but can only be archived on the memory magic array set in a specific location. This time, this element is unplugged, the player can open a menu to save no matter where they are, and the memory magic circle also becomes a recovery magic circle, for example, set in the current area of the maze head, so that the player can meet the boss in a perfect state.
Another element is the CP value, which is an independent value, which can be thought of as an MP common to the whole team, usually to reduce the strength of the team to restore this value to consume this value, as long as the hotel rest or camping will be full, but even so does not mean that you can use it as you like. In some special or important plot bosses in the maze, there will be some puzzle opening elements related to "elements", such as the road blocked by the fire, you must use the protagonist's sword of fire to absorb the flames to open the way, this "open way" action also needs CP. Therefore, in the exploration of the maze, the use of CP and props needs to be measured.
This time it can be said that it is quite important in terms of map exploration, so it is better to open the way as much as possible. One reason is of course the challenge element, the Legends series is basically quite rich in side quests, so there are often players who have to go back to solve the side quests in the final maze, and this game is also full of a large number of side quests that allow players to earn extra money. One of the challenge elements is that there is a special shape of the "large monster" in many mazes, which has nothing to do with the main plot, purely for the player to challenge the technical use, because the strength of those special monsters is usually much higher than other monsters in the area, so the player wants to challenge the current? Come back for a challenge afterwards? It is also a kind of freedom.
Another reason is the "material", which can be said to be very dependent on the materials that players pick up on the road in terms of equipment and cooking. This time, the mini-map is designed to be quite intimate, making it easy to observe the route, and you can also switch maps at any time to find where the next story trigger point is. However, the material and treasure chest will not be particularly displayed, so when the player examines the large map and finds the wonderful space, it is recommended to dangle in the past, and search as much as possible in the early stage of the discovery of the glow.
In addition to the equipment can be purchased with the merchant, it can also be built by collecting materials by yourself and asking the forger to do it, and want to prevent poison? Anti-paralysis? Just collect your own materials to make. In addition, it is also a bit into the concept of mobile games, equipment can be used to increase the level of unwanted materials, in order to create a multi-functional equipment, which is conducive to combat, of course, relatively, the difficulty of the game will also be reduced a lot.
Cooking can also be said to be a series tradition, collecting materials to make dishes to give the team a variety of additional effects such as attack and defense improvement, HP regular reply, and so on. This time it is designed so that players can make dishes while camping, just as each dish has its own effect, and each member has his own cooking that he is good at making (making the cooking better). Basically, it is designed so that the player can decide what kind of food to eat according to the difficulty and situation of the maze.
The reason why the "Legends" series can make a name for itself in Super Nintendo is that the combat system occupies a very important part. Breaking the command-based concept of role-playing, using an action game-like concept allows players to operate characters to run freely on the battlefield, and uses a bit of "martial arts" style moves and mysteries. As the series progressed, the system became more and more diverse, and the production team wanted to make the system closer and closer to the action game as much as possible, making the connection between moves and moves, and the process of deriving the Upanishads or Mysteries of moves smoother and more refreshing.
This goal is officially achieved in this work, and the concept of operation this time is not a small difference from previous works. Taking the PS version as an example, R1 becomes a normal attack, the circle block triangle directly casts the move, the setting of the move corresponds to these three buttons, but it is also divided into air and ground, the same button in the air and on the ground will cast different moves, so it is equivalent to setting six moves at a time, and then because of the different characteristics of each character, and then derive a different way of playing, such as the male protagonist's specific move under the attack button will consume physical strength to derive a stronger Upanishads.
At the same time, R2 has become a dodge button, and even has the element of "instant avoidance counterattack". The player's movement on the battlefield has also become a high degree of freedom, unlike the previous series, which restricted the movement and attack direction of the player character because of the "target-locked" object, this combat system can be said to be very close to the general action game. The use of moves is not the consumption of MP, but similar to the "Legend of Fate Remake", "Legend of Grace" to give the player a value that will be consumed by using magic skills, and the player can use the magic skills at will before the value returns to 0, and after returning to 0, it will stop attacking for a period of time before recovering.
Therefore, a series of moves can be played like a stream, in addition to the use of the arrow keys in the battle can always summon companions to carry out rescue attacks, hit the enemy disintegration can enter a fatal blow, etc., although this time into the battle although it is still impossible to escape reading, but canceled the victory performance, after playing directly back to the map to explore, so this time the battle becomes extremely smooth and well-paced, will not give people role-playing games prone to repeated battles brought about by fatigue.
However, the essence of "Dawn Legend" is of course still role-playing, there will always be levels and growth factors, levels and equipment are related to the ability value, and whether the player uses more moves, one is derived from the cumulative number of times specific skills are used; the other is the astrolabe system. In the game, as you progress, each character will get a variety of "titles", a title represents an astrolabe, each astrolabe has a passive and active skill, the player is to consume a specific number of points to open the astrolabe skills to make the character stronger and stronger. Incidentally, the amount of points used for learning at the beginning of the game can be said to be very small, and most of them must rely on solving side quests to obtain a large number.
Overall, the combat bias is more action games, the interface is clear, the growth system is simple, this game is not only a new "Legends" work, but also quite suitable for new players to join this series, the difficulty of getting started can be said to be very low. Secondly, in the past, due to lack of skills, picture performances and plot performances sometimes had scenes that were embarrassing due to lack of courage. This time, the graphic performance has been greatly improved, and the character action performance has been strengthened, making some action scenes become much more "powerful".
The essence of this work is still as a traditional role play, which not only refers to the story content, the plot performance in addition to the real-time calculus animation, pre-recorded 2D animation, there are still characters plus dialog box form of performance, but this time to pull out the "dialog box" itself, so that players play more like watching animation instead of watching a novel. There are also imports of comic storyboard performances like "Crimson Knot", but this side is more progressive, the characters' mouths and actions will still move, and the lines of interaction between characters during battles are also quite diverse, and the text content can still be said to be quite rich.
Finally, let's make a summary, it is true that after experiencing "Infinite Legend" and "Legend of Passion", the enthusiasm of many "Legends" series players for this series has been seriously extinguished. But Dawnbreaker also shows in many ways that it wants to try to break the framework of past series and create a new Legends work.
In this regard, I think it is true that this work has been done, and the technical and systematic level does make people feel that they have evolved, while the script still retains the traditional role play that has been rare in recent years. In terms of gameplay alone, Dawn Breaker should be able to make players feel the fun that JRPG should have.