The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered was provided by NIS America for review. Thank you!
I am a sucker for JRPGs, especially on the Steam Deck. There is something that makes playing longer games feel so rewarding on portable consoles, thanks to the ability to easily put it down and come back to it without needing to take time to sit down and spend time hunched over to get into the game. One of my recent favorites is the SaGa games, which take a more unconventional approach to how your team will gain experience and grow. So, when I heard The Legend of Legacy, a game made by former SaGa developers, was getting a re-release, I was extremely excited. And after playing it, I just wish they did a bit more to give us the "definitive" version of the game.
As I mentioned before, this is a remaster of the original game that was released in 2015 on the 3DS. Now, with this version, we have improved visuals, a new guidebook function for newcomers, and some minor quality-of-life improvements to make things better. While the updates are nice, I felt the remaster didn't add enough to satisfy a PC release. No option for things like framerate, V-sync, or difficulty; you are locked to 30 FPS, and I do wish some features to make it feel more accessible were introduced, like not losing all progress since the last save when you die or a better tutorial system to explain the features so I am not running around trying to figure out what I need to do for 3 hours. Luckily, I did figure it out with some internet searching, but nobody should have to do that to figure out what to do next.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is a JRPG at its core, even if it has some different priorities. You will choose your starting character and head off into the wilderness to seek treasure. You will navigate different lands, discover the entirety of maps, fight enemies in turn-based combat, and gear up to do it all again. As you play, you will gain the ability to use elemental powers and special spirit arts to overcome your enemies, and hopefully, you will find the treasure you are looking for.
For me, the combat system is probably my biggest joy. It is heavily inspired by the SaGa series, so progression is quite different from traditional titles in the genre. There are no levels in the game, and you will instead get stat increases from the fights you are in. And, if you want new attacks for your different weapon types, you will get them as you use other moves and become more "proficient" with them. Different attacks can also have stats increased, like their attack or guard power. While it can be a little tedious when you want to grow faster, I do prefer this system over the more traditional EXP bars. You can also change your team's formation on the battlefield, which can add another layer of strategy.
I also loved the storybook-esque aesthetic. Going through vibrant environments that vaguely remind me of watercolor paintings and watching different models pop in as if you were turning pages of a book was such a joy. Mixing it with the soundtrack provided a nice atmosphere that kept me going from map to map as I discovered the nooks and crannies of each location.
But there are some issues. Battles can feel a bit slow and tedious, especially later in the game. And, with how long the investment is to actually build up your character's stats and attacks, I didn't feel any desire to use the other characters you can recruit other than the original three you start your party with. It doesn't help that there is a lack of tutorials, like I mentioned above, which makes it almost necessary to look up mechanics online unless you want to spend hours running around and figuring out exactly what to do next.
While the story of The Legends of Legacy HD had a couple of memorable moments here and there, it didn't feel very cohesive, and I wasn't very interested in it. I did find this weird, considering JRPGs tend to be very story-driven. There are some funny moments, though, like when I asked the King if he was single...and learned he wasn't. I do like the ability to use ships in the hub world to send them out and get new equipment for your heroes, though. It takes a range of 1-5 hours in real-life time, depending on the ship you send out, but I found this to be a unique way to get great gear for your team.
You can also buy gear from the stop, but it is a bit difficult to get money for it. The easiest way is to sell completed maps once you explore them fully. You can get some currency via battles, but it isn't all the time and it can be quite minimal. If you are going for new equipment, I would recommend the ships!
Luckily, it is a pleasure to play this one on the Steam Deck, even with some weird limitations from the game.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is perfect to play on the Steam Deck, though it does have some weird limitations implemented in the game. The visuals are fine, and it plays wonderfully with a controller, but it is locked to a 30 FPS limit, possibly because it is based on the original 3DS title. This gives us a lot of battery life, generally between 7W and 9W; most current devices and handheld PCs can push further. There is no option to change this, and there is an option to turn on a Render Scale, which I also find unnecessary with this type of game.
But it runs well right out of the box and is still very playable.
In general, there aren't a lot of settings to choose from for this title. You can change volume, cursor, guide button display, setting sounds, and change keybindings, but that's all.
There is no 16:10 resolution support, so you will have some black bars, but it does have cloud save and controller support. There are no HDR settings.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered has a lot of my favorite unconventional JRPG systems in play from the SaGa series, but it feels a bit unrefined when compared to it. The way you increase stats and learn new moves from combat is much more enticing than traditional JRPGs, and I enjoyed running around the gorgeous world, but the tedious mechanics, lack of quality-of-life features (a 2x battle speed would have been lovely), unexplained gameplay systems, and weirder story brought it down for me.
I also didn't enjoy the lack of PC options like framerate and V-sync, and even though it did have resolution scaling, I am not sure why, considering the type of game it is. It plays extremely well on the Steam Deck, but I would have liked a smoother framerate, which it definitely could have handled.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered has the making of a great, unconventional JRPG, but it needed a little more QoL and PC features. But, it runs well on the Steam Deck!
