It's actually hard in many ways to critique LoH2's battle system, since it presents absolutely nothing that's never been seen before, and makes no attempts to hide it, instead making combat as easy and straightforward as possible. Select your combat option from the menu, and watch it happen, with no "real-time" system or "AP points," just ye olde "take a turn" rules. Combat is the exact same way, with inch-high versions of the characters you have on hand (up to four at a time) going mano-a-thingo with various and sundry creations, mutations, wild beasts, not-so-wild beasts, and so on. Everything you'll ever need to do is handled simply and directly through submenus. You'll find all the systems and menus you're so very used to, especially if you're an old school gamer.
What reads as a litany of errors is all very well forgivable on the PSP's small scope, in much the same way RPGs on the Game Boy were allowed to look and sound rinky - deliver the punch internally when you can't deliver in the presentation. Character sprites are small, unanimated, and often difficult to tell apart from any other (they even use the classic Final Fantasy "jump") music that is as far from toe-tapping as it could really be, with sound effects that show up, do their job, and then go home and controls that function without being a nuisance but don't aim to impress.
Internally, LoH2 screams "portable," and the engine, in all its aspects, is strictly 16-bit. Whether or not Jurio and Chris want to deal with problems and concerns of the world is made moot quickly. After leaving her cryptic messages about and touring the Shrines, she and all the Witches vanished into history, never to be seen again. But what ties it all together? The Moonlight Witch, who wandered through nearly the same route as our plucky pair some hundreds of years before. For some, things are awful, with famine and death and giant monsters laying siege others are experiencing unexpected bounties and peace. It becomes evident fairly quickly that, well, things aren't 100% on the continent of Tirasweel. That's not to say all you'll do is wander about. In no small part, the entire "quest" is a huge history lesson, complete with a "timeline" that builds itself in the options menu. It's actually quite charming to watch, and it lets the world spring up and characters form around them. The heroes are not superpowered, not chosen by the gods or prophesied or any of that they're just two fairly ordinary kids out to see the world. So off go Jurio (the swordsman) and Chris (the priestess) on their sort of epic adventure, carrying a bit of money, food, and a Silver Dagger that entitles them to freeload - er, receive the hospitality of the people wherever they go. How exactly the parents think a pair of pre-teens are going to manage in the great wilderness is beyond me, but there you have it.
Yes, our world-hopping superheroes are a pair of young 'uns, 14 and 15, who are setting off to take The Pilgrimage, a traditional tour around the continent to see a series of Shrines, see some wonderful visions, and basically grow up a bit. LoH2 is the rather action-packed and non-standard adventures of. You may have played their greatest international hit, a long-running series called Ys, but otherwise, it's probably passed you all by, until recently.īut let's stick with the game itself, shall we? Okay. I'm sure you've probably never heard of them while they may have produced top-selling games for nearly 25 years in their home turf, in the US and Europe they're significantly less known, usually due to their more simplistic approach and their origins on computers that never existed elsewhere, like the Sharp X68000, the NEC PC98, or the FM Towns. Legend of Heroes II is a traditional-in-every-sense RPG from one of the oldest development houses in Japan, Falcom. But these kids, here? They have to wander the world from one corner to the other, and in the process solve an ancient mystery and even save existence. When I was a wee li'l reviewer-slash-critic, I used to have to walk 48 miles through 16 feet of snow, uphill both ways, with a refrigerator strapped to my back, just to plunk a quarter in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Man, what some people put their children through.