Say to yourself the title, "Legend of Heroes." Say it and think, "What does this title imply?" Perhaps at the dawn of video gaming, a name like Legend of Heroes would be super appealing. You would think, "oh, a fantasy adventure with heroes... and a legend. Awesome." The only problem is, we've done that a thousand billion times, sometimes well, sometimes not, and because of that, a title like "Legend of Heroes" doesn't exactly get one excited nowadays. Now, you ask, what does the title have to do with the game? It's just a title, after all. Well it's relevant because the title is the perfect way to describe this game. Legend of Heroes. A mediocre, barebones RPG that tells us the typical legend of some regular old heroes.

The story of Legend of Heroes is pretty basic. You, a young boy named Forte, discover that your grandfather, McBain, has a mysterious past and you end up going out on a magical adventure journey type thing to fight monsters and learn magical spells and unlock his mysterious past. It's pretty typical. You leave with your token pink-haired cute anime girl love interest who can't quite say what she feels about you and, of course, your character is completely clueless despite how you, the player, are not.

In fact, even beyond that point you're playing a pretty typical RPG. If you've played any RPG in the history of existence, any at all, you've basically played this game. You've got enemies that run around fields, you run into them and go into a turn-based battle. You can attack, defend, cast magic, and use items. You inflict damage on the enemies, etc etc. The only original aspect being that where you are on the playing field makes sort of a difference. If you're too far away from an enemy, your attack command simply won't reach, and you'll have to use up another turn to walk that extra distance to actually get to your opponent. You can also get pets on the game which are like party members except sometimes they like you, and sometimes they don't. It's random even though there are ways to make it seem like you're effecting they're mood... but you're not. Though, I'll admit, it was a refreshment that I didn't have to learn all kinds of crazy techniques and mathematical equations just to equip a sword like some RPG's nowadays, but this game simply didn't offer ANYTHING new at all, which was equally as disappointing and frustrating.

You go into towns, meet people, do quests, and so on. It's so typical it's almost as if you can predict what's going to happen next, and most of the time you actually can, because it's so linear. RPG's these days are doomed if they don't offer a huge expansive world to explore unless they have a very good reason not to, and Legend of Heroes offers neither. Go here, do this. Repeat. There is no "but I'd rather go here," or "can't I do this first?" You simply do as your told, level up, and keep going.

There is an interesting control feature to the game that I actually enjoyed, though, and it was this kind of smart wall collision feature. Normally in games if you collide with a wall you simply stop moving. But in Legend of Heroes 3, when you collide with a wall, you keep moving parallel to the wall to the closest key element, like a treasure chest or a door or the path that's leading you to continue. So essentially, if you're outside in a field following a path, simply holding "right" on the D-pad will, most of the time, get you where you want to go. You don't have to fidget to get around walls or jump over caverns. Just hold right. It made the game a lot less painless. Though, I soon realized, it made the game a thousand times less immersive because I was oftentimes holding a direction and then paying attention to something else completely other than the game.

And if I got too distracted and wanted to put it down, it was a snap. You can save wherever you want to as long as you're not in a battle or some kind of conversation. This made it lend itself well to the Playstation Portable and I was very grateful that I didn't have to put the game on hold and waste my battery.

There really isn't much else to say about the game. It's a pretty typical RPG. I'd say if you are new to the genre, Legend of Heroes 3 should be right up your alley. It's simple, intuitive, easy to pick up and put down, and have just about every RPG cliché you could possibly find in one package. It's a solid adventure. But if you're a seasoned RPG veteran, Legend of Heroes 3 is just boring.