The Legend of Heroes III. Song of the Ocean

Aaron Gray

If you’ve played the previous iterations of Legend of Heroes (LoH), you’d be bound to have some doubts with the third installment, Song of the Ocean. But as they say, third time’s the charm.

LoH III is a Role-Playing Game (RPG) where you take on monsters and baddies to gain experience, points and money. Along the way, you could also recruit other heroes to join your party of merry men. Earning experience allows you to learn more powerful spells and skills for your characters as you progress, an essential requirement for almost every game that falls under the RPG genre.

It’s no different with LoH III, though there are some issues that still plague the series like its rigid storyline that doesn’t allow much exploration. The “History” feature is helpful at times, but it doesn’t list down objectives you need to achieve in every task. So if you’re forgetful, you might find this scene familiar: you saved and left the game somewhere, to only be frustrated when you resume weeks later. You had to backtrack quite a bit – maybe from town to town – before finding out what you need to do.

Anyhow, the story in LoH III begins with you (the player) in the shoes of a young musician named Forte. He’s very much dedicated to playing music with his best friend, Una, and his grandfather McBain. One day, McBain receives a book with some of the lost phrases of the Water Melody. But the adventure really started when all three accidentally stumbled upon a magic map that shows the location of 24 magic stones.

Eager to recover the entire Water Melody, the trio, including McBain’s dog Jan, set out across the world of Weltluna in search of the stones. Along the way, you’ll meet and gather new party members (maximum six characters).

According to the game developers, LoH III features new limited battle arenas called Scenes. You will notice them as massive tuning forks scattered around the landscape. Some of you might think them to be simple landscape markers, but they’re actually bonus areas where you can gain additional experience.

But the best bonus is left for the player who happened to have saved data of the two previous LoH games on their Memory Stick: these locations provide access to skills and abilities of the previous heroes from Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch and Tear of Vermillion.

Players can even add heroes from the previous games to their party if they complete enough scenes, giving Forte stronger helpers triumph against the odds. This is definitely an incentive for owners of the previous games as well as a nice bonus to completing the trilogy.

For the most part, LoH III does not throw you into random encounters in areas that are infested with monsters and baddies – like the previous iteration of the game, you get to see them in physical form on the map. This is good for those who want to quicken the pace so as to not engage any enemy in battle. But then again, boss fights are unavoidable, so it’s best to have high experience levels that give you access to powerful magic and skills (given you’ve the right weapon/accessory to use them). The only way to gain more experience is to fight the lesser of two evils.

If you think fighting monsters is a tough job, think again. Each one has an elemental attribute, allowing you inflict more damage than usual if you get the right elements to  counterattack the enemies. For the finale, there’s always the option to combine magic spells for the ultimate attack called the Ensemble Magic.

Some of you who’d played LoH: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch might think that LoH III would handle the pet system efficiently, but no such luck. Your animals will display various attitudes at random without reason regardless if you praise, scold or feed them. Since you have no control over their moods, you have no idea when or if your animals will join you in battle. Well ignore them until it brings you an item, at least it is useful for item tracking.

LoH III may still retain a few kinks here and there from its predecessors, but the game still boasts some fantastic visuals on the PSP. New players can also jump right into the game as its storyline is a standalone. One of the better RPGs available on the PSP – need I say more?