Legna Tactica (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Taking too much inspiration from one source can lead to a product feeling uninspired, lacking a proper identity of its own, and this is exactly the problem with Legna Tactica.

The story follows Leck, a young soldier thrust into a world of clashing ideologies and political conflicts that feel all too similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. Leck, himself, is a very weak protagonist paling in comparison to the Ramza he so desperately wants to be.

Dialogue options are featured to add some degree of control to the story, but Leck's choices don't require or promote any sort of deliberation. These moments are too brief to be impactful and seem to exist solely to justify having multiple endings.

Multiple endings certainly need justification given their very nature, but Legna Tectica seems to feature it purely because other SRPGs have had multiple endings, instead of for its own benefit. It's a design philosophy that unfortunately plagues the whole product.

Maps have depth in the sense that units can move to higher or lower altitudes depending on the design of the stage, but lack depth in that enemies are pathetically easy and require no real strategy to defeat. A unit that's on a higher plane than another will get an advantage when attacking, but the mechanic serves no real purpose other than ending battles sooner than they would have otherwise.

With depth, maps could have been designed accordingly and challenged Leck's party. Final Fantasy Tactics often used depth as an incentive to promote smarter play styles, but Legna Tactica is seemingly content with including mechanics that it doesn't quite understand.

To its credit, there is a skill tree that, while hardly unique, does stand out as one of the few original ideas that isn't ripped directly from a better strategy game. Skills, however, are never fully realised, as there's little to actually challenge Leck's party enough to necessitate smart upgrading.

From the game design, to the music, to the writing, Legna Tactica comes off amateurish. Dialogue is littered with exposition to the point of exhaustion, and maps feel slapped together at the last minute. For a title that pays so much homage to Final Fantasy Tactics, it's baffling how much it gets wrong, and that's unacceptable on a handheld where strategy RPGs are well made and plentiful.