With the release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC, I’ve seen a lot of people ask what is this whole The Legend of Heroes series. Of course, this also leads into the question what is the Dragon Slayer series. I recommend reading this post for an overview of Dragon Slayer games.
[Edit 07.04.2020]
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This is the 16th 17th (?) revision of the chart. I recommend checking the Sorcerian Data Room out, it’s bloody awesome and made Sorcerian dates less a chore, unlike with others. There are few conscious omissions, like Legends of Xanadu‘s Korean DOS port, and Chinese and Korean PC ports of some of the Kiseki/Trails games. This chart concentrates on Japanese and Western releases. Future charts may include a requested info if there exists fan translations on the games, but that requires some research on my part as well. It has been about a year since I last updated this chart, and with the release of the third Sen no Kiseki game, it was time to fix few typos and reformat the chart slightly. Next update will probably be about changing the overall look of the chart rather than adding new information.
I just keep forgetting about this. Without further adieu, here’s the selected track of the month. Turn your volume up to eleven.
I wanted the theme for this month to be both melodic and striking, and luckily Ys Zanmai had the perfect track for this. We can argue if this is or isn’t the best track on the disc, but Ys music is starting to be a bit overused, and Feena’s theme has seen perfection already. The only way it can be made any better is by having a virgin maiden voicing it with complete honesty and out of love towards an equally pure young man while a guardian, a veteran of many wars, plays the harmonica with his hands that have seen and felt more blood than anyone else on this earth.
Things are a bit hectic at the moment. By this I mean that I’m falling behind all of my schedules, but I intend to push out at least three posts until the end of next week. That’s +1 post to the normal quota I try to keep up as much as I can.
But as for now, do enjoy the music and the upcoming summer. Next month we need a bit more fresher tunes.
Yuzo Koshiro without a doubt is one of the most important persons in video game music. Koshiro was one of the first musicians who went from bleeps and bloop, from small jingles and tunes to full blown music with FM Synth.
Koshiro mastered his craft as time progressed, but his master Joe Hisashi has been a great influence to Koshiro. However, Koshiro found his own way in crafting music, which made him the legend he is today.
Koshiro is most known for his Street of Rage and Shinobi music, but his most influential music do come from PC-88 with Ys, The Scheme and Misty Blue. This man isn’t just an artist, the man’s a master craftsman.
If you’re anywhere near Washington during MAGfest (and I mean anywhere near as in anywhere on the same continent) do yourself, and to me, a favour and go MAGfest and listen to him. Because damnit, it’s Yuzo Koshiro.
The Screamer (スクリームの人) is an odd fellow. Odd, but pretty cool. He makes videos where he covers different songs with his violin from games and other medias, and on top of it all he is pretty damn good. I’d recommend you to listen his Ys songs, as his violin adds quite a lot to them. He has improved quite a bit since his first videos some years ago, and has managed to create better sound quality. I wish he’d remake some of his old videos just for better quality. I recommend you to check his cover on Silver Will, Golden Wing of the Legend of Heroes ~ Trails in the Sky. He really puts his best in there.
However, I chose this song to be featured because of Sorcerian’s connection with the Dragon Slayer series, my way of showing more respect towards the metaseries. The song Desert/ Cursed Oasis is a mellow song on its own, and it flows well with a violin. There’s certain level of sadness in there, a melancholy of memories if you will. Released 1987, Sorcerian was overshadowed by Ys, as the latter proved to be more popular. For a good reason, but nevertheless it’s a bit shame.
The other reason why I chose this song was to ask you to stop for few minutes and just be. Life is hectic as it is. Sometimes it would be a good idea to abandon all that.
Dragon Slayer is an interesting series of games. It consists of series of games within their own series of games. There’s pretty much only one common thing between the games, and it’s that They share bulk of the same staff members. There’s not continuing story (thank God) and the genres actually vary quite a lot between the games themselves.
This is part of PC gaming in Japan in the mid-80’s
The first game in the series was the game that named the whole ordeal; Dragon Slayer. A 1984 PC-88 game, Dragon Slayer can be best described as dungeon crawler with a rogue heart. The game is time consuming, as the player is gimped from the very beginning and has very little chances of survival at first. The game’s not very interesting, but what it spawned is.
The first Xanadu actually has some sort of strange thing for manly bare chests
Dragon Slayer II; Xanadu is a sequel and a progenitor at the same time. It could be argued that everything Dragon Slayer was Xanadu isn’t. While the mechanics are clunky today’s standards, it was one of the best selling PC game at the time. I’m not to argue against that, because the gameplay is pretty fun, even if archaic as hell.
Xanadu had a spin-off that should be rather known in the West, known as Faxanadu. If you ever wondered where the name came from, it’s a combination of Famicom and Xanadu. It’s ties to the Xanadu series is in the name and spirit, and the strongest weapon in the game is the eponymous Dragon Slayer.
As a separate series, Xanadu is an interesting entity. Faxandu and Xanadu Next do no carry the Dragon Slayer name, but PC-Engine’s The Legend of Xanadu I & II do. They are officially regarded as the eight game of the Dragon Slayer series, and the final ones to carry the name thus far. The Legend of Xanadu also again revamps the gameplay mechanics completely and follows more Ys’ mechanics than any of its predecessors. However, there’s more things to see and do in the Legend of Xanadu than in Ys games, and the scale of everything is much larger.
Listen to that music
Currently the final instalment of the Xanadu series is Xanadu Next, a PC game released in 2005. Much like the Legend of Xanadu, this game has very little to none to do with its predecessors. It’s a dungeon crawling Falcom hack-n-slash with some indirect adventuring of Metroid and mold of games like Diablo. There’ very little story as such, but history of the lost kingdom of Xanadu is revealed from stone tablets you find. Gameplay is the most important part, and it delivers. The story is there to give a frame to it all, nothing more. The key item in the story, and in the game itself, is the legendary Dragon Slayer sword.
Now, let’s return from 2005 back to 1987, where Dragon Slayer III was released; Romancia.
Also known as Dragon Slayer Jr., Romancia shares a lot with Xanadu’s gameplay mechanics. It’s a much simpler game, thou it’s practically broken in its core mechanics, where controls and damage distribution are completely off. Levels are large, but empty and with no content, and most of the game is based on fetch questing. Romancia isn’t what I’d call a good game.
Dragon Slayer IV; Drassle Family, or as known in the West, Legacy of the Wizard, is one of the most known Dragon Slayer game here in the west thanks to its NES release. Dragon Slayer IV is a huge game that will take a lot of time to go through completely, and some regard it almost impossible to beat without a guide.
There’s no story provided in-game, you’ll have to read it from the manual, as everything was made so that the powers of the NES could’ve be harnessed for the dungeon. Yes, the game is one huge dungeon that will kick your unprepared ass. It’s one of those games that are vast and extremely rewarding, even if frustrating as hell at times. You can spend hours just wandering around the rooms in the dungeon and end up finding nothing of value, but perhaps something that helps you advance forwards with another character. From the all games that have been released in the Dragon Slayer series in the 80’s, Drassle Family/ Legacy of the Wizard is clearly in the top three.
Dragon Slayer’s fifth instalment is Sorcerian, a game series which has an awesome Mega Drive box.
Sorcerian is what happens when you take Romancia’s mechanics and actually make it into a good game. Sorcerian gives you an impression of being brethren to Ultima and Dragon Quest, but is actually side-scrolling action RPG that has lots of things from both sides of the pond. Yuzo Koshiro also composed the music, so you bet it’s good. What ultimately separates Sorcerian from Romancia, outside being actually good, is that you have free reign of creating your characters. Sorcerian is quite honestly rather intimidating to get into, and the scale of manageable things are rather high, and the amount of menu text makes the Japanese versions almost impossible for those with no knowledge on moonrunes. However, when you get into the gameplay proper, you soon realize that Falcom’s love for action has taken better of them. The controls are simple and consist of three buttons; Melee, Magic and Change party leader.
Sorcerian Forever was released on 1997 for the PC, and is a second game in Sorcerian series, but not really connected to the Dragon Slayer series, much like Xanadu’s sequels. Falcom took everything that was in original game and made it smoother, better and shorter. Sorcerian Forever is a great RPG, but it’s way too short with only five scenarios, and Forever never got expansions like its predecessor did. However, Sorcerian Original hit PC in 1999. As the name implies, it’s a complete remake of Sorcerian with everything upgraded to an extent, and has all original fifteen scenarios playable, plus the five found in Sorcerian Forever.
Dreamcast got a Sorcerian game subtitled Disciples of Seven Star Sorcery, but the less said about this game the better.
Let’s track back a little bit in time again, and enter the most well known Dragon Slayer series, and the second pillar in Falcom’s arsenal next Ys; The Legend of Heroes series. Much like Sorcerian and Xanadu, Legend of Heroes series started it’s own series which has nothing to do with Dragon Slayer, but also started yet another series which has nothing to do with Legend of Heroes series. Falcom seems to enjoy doing this at times.
In short, Legend of Heroes itself can be split into three series; the original two Legend of Heroes, The Garghav Trilogy, and the Sora no Kiseki trilogy, more well known as the Trails in the Sky. The Kiseki series as well spawned it’s own series of games; Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki, and Nayuta no Kiseki, which dropped the Legend of Heroes name.
Let’s go over this again in a simple way;
The Legend of Heroes I & II carry the Dragon Slayer name
The Legend of Heroes’ Garghav Trilogy is not part of the Dragon Slayer series
Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky /Sora no Kiseki starts the Kiseki series, and is part of the Legend of Heroes series
Nayuta no Kiseki is not part of the Legend of Heroes or Dragon Slayer, but bears the Kiseki name and belongs to the Kiseki series in spirit
Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki return with the Legend of Hero naming with a VII in the name
Sen no Kiseki I and II carry the Legend of Heroes banner, but have dropped the numbering.
Of course, as new games are released, this will change with time.
So, what kind of games are the Legend of Heroes games? The first one is a blatant Dragon Quest clone down to the grindy and archaic gameplay. It was a competent RPG when it came out, even if its only real contribution to the game industry was the Legend of Heroes series. The second game makes all things better, but isn’t really noteworthy. Both of them are actually pretty good games, especially if you compare them to Romancia. Then again, almost any other game developed is better than Romancia. Other than the Dragon Slayer name, these two have nothing to do with other Dragon Slayer games.
The Garghav trilogy consists of three games; The Legend of Heroes III The Moonlight Witch (Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch), LoH IV Vermillion Tear and LoH V Song of the Ocean. Falcom decided to drop the Dragon Slayer name completely, and the Legend of Heroes became its own entity. The Garghav Trilogy was brought to the west on PSP, but the translation was botched. It’s almost a machine translation, and a lot of little things are lost as are accents and some of the meanings. However, the gameplay is still good as ever. When Falcom decides to do something that’s their own rather just copying existing mechanics, they always end up with a good product. Look at Ys for another reference.
While I keep ranting that story needs to be kept down in games, Legend of Heroes is well known for its vast and complex storylines. Garghav is the one that actually began this trend, and all games tie to each other. The PSP ports aren’t bad, but you do feel their archaic design from the start, and the translation will cause you wonder what the hell is going on. It just doesn’t do justice.
The Legend of Heroes VI; Sora no Kiseki FC, or The Legend of Heroes; Trails in the Sky, is the sixth and arguably the best game in the Legend of Heroes series alongside its sequel. It’s story is grand and vast, but at the same time very small and kept within certain borders. There’s no real way talking about FC and SC separately, as they both carry the VI in their name, and are in reality just one big game that had to be split in two due to the sheer size of it all.
The gameplay has given an overhaul for the sixth games, and has elements of TBS games mixed with traditional Dragon Quest mechanics. There’s similar spirit in there as Skies of Arcadia, which we all can agree is a good thing.
Trails in Sky is ongoing series in the West on the PSP. The first game was released last year, and the second game is going to get released this year. The translation is superb and shows how much love both original developers and XSEED’s staff has put in there. Funny how Garghav Trilogy is actually fetching higher price from stores rather than Trails in the Sky, even if Garghav is all around worse product.
Trails in the Sky was well received by critics and players alike, as long as they tried the game. I’m recommending everyone to check it out, as it is one of the reasons anyone would want to own PSP nowadays.
Legend of Heroes; Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki dropped the numeric from their names, and thus are more in spirit of spin-offs of the Legend of Heroes games, and are more in-series with any game that carries the Kiseki name. Both of them have similar elements, and most likely take place within the same world, but in different continent or nation. They’re worth checking out just as Trails in the Sky is, but the language barrier is quite high as per standard Japanese RPG.
Nayuta no Kiseki is not even part of Legend of Heroes series, let alone Dragon Slayer. It carries the Kiseki name as according to the director there’s the same spirit the other Kiseki games have had. We’ll see how it turns out when it’s released.
Now that we’ve glanced at the Legend of Heroes games, let’s return to Dragon Slayer’s seventh game; Lord Monarch.
Lord Monarch has to do the least in the series with any of its brethren, as it’s a real time strategy game with RPG elements. It’s an interesting one, as it has diplomacy option which changes the gameplay a little bit, but ultimately it fails as it is usable only during the first five minutes, and all it really does is delaying the war’s outbreak. It’s an interesting game and there’s very little games like it, but overall Lord Monarch should be left alone as it is.
Now we come to a conclusion with our small overview with the Dragon Slayer series and its eight games and spin-offs. Dragon Slayer was there before Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, and you can see their influence in both of them, thou you can see Wizardy’s and Ultima’s influence in Dragon Slayer series overall. As of now it seems that Dragon Slayer as a series and as a franchise is dead, but it’s spirit was being carried by the Legend of Heroes series, which seems to have finished it’s tale with the Kiseki series, which hopefully will carry it’s predecessors spirit onwards. Damn Falcom, get your series straight and give us a new Dragon Slayer.
I agree that my description on the games are lacking in detail and I’m overusing videolinks. However, this was meant to be an overview of the whole series. If you’re interested hearing more about a single game, throw me a comment and I’ll see whether or not it is doable.
Aaltomies 