The following article contains suggestions and fan-made rulesets to The Legend of Dragoon to provide competitive or replay value to the game or to increase the game's difficulty for advanced players. These challenges are unofficial and outside of the scope of how the game is intended to be played, and as such are a work of the fanbase and player community.
Many challenges listed below can be combined to even further restrict a player's options, particularly in regard to the Item and Equipment challenges.
Speedrun[]
Probably the first kind of challenge invented for games, if not 100% completion. Uncomplicated in principle: The goal is to beat the game in a time as short as possible. There are two ways of measuring the game time, by using the in-game timer (IGT) or by real-time attack (RTA).
There are two main cateogries for speedrunning The Legend of Dragoon: The Any% Legit Speedrun, using Savestate corruption to advance into later stages of the game very early on, allowing for run lengths of less than 3 hours, and the Any% Classic Speedrun, which completes the game in the "regular" route, but using a variety of strategies to minimize time loss in battles and cutscenes. With a run length of over 10 hours, it is a category rarely run in single sessions.
As of February 2024, world records in both categories are held by blackdeathdoom and can be seen on YouTube, with run lengths of 2:24:54 in the Any% Legit category and 10:22:23 in the Any% Classic category.
A Speedrun of Legend of Dragoon, as in many games, is also a Low Level (LL) game.
100% Completion[]
Another common category in the gaming community, this challenge sets certain requirements which are extendable. It may require obtaining all items, dialogues, opening all chests, killing all monsters at least once and fulfilling every optional quest.
A combined challenge with a speedrun, often referred to as "100% speedrun", is common among video games, but a category deemed unviable for The Legend of Dragoon due to the length of the game.
Low Level (LL)[]
A challenge greatly enhancing difficulty, with the goal of beating the game with character levels as low as possible.
This challenge requires "juggling" characters to spread EXP gained around. It is not a viable strategy to let party members fall in fights, as the experience gained from the fight is distributed towards other characters. Also, the majority of random encounters should be avoided, which also results in the inability to level up additions and to obtain the final addition.
Lavitz will always be at least level 3, Shana level 4, Rose level 8, Haschel level 13. Albert with the same level Lavitz was when he left, Meru level 17, and Kongol level 19. Miranda will always be the same level Shana was when she left.
With enemies in the game almost always spamming magic once they get to low HP, there is a large spike in difficulty at the end of each fight. Repeat items such as Magic Shield or Power Up are helpful. As the ratio of enemy power to player power increases, the game gets increasingly more difficult.
Item and Equipment Challenges[]
No Attack Items[]
The player is not allowed to use Attack Items. This challenge is a great way to learn to appreciate Dragoon Magic: Additions can't attack all enemies at once, and with the exception of using Weapons dealing elemental damage, are unable to exploit enemies' elemental weaknesses.
No Healing Items[]
The player is either not allowed to use HP healing items or all healing items altogether (including body purification, mind purification and depetrifier). This challenge can also be limited to item usage within battles. Greatly increases difficulty.
The Clinics and Hotels in towns become much more valuable in a No Healing Items run, as do some healing dungeon features such as pure water and rock fireflies. An additional challenge can disallow the player to visit those as well, having to rely on Blocking to restore HP and Dragoon Forms to restore status problems.
No Repeat Items[]
The player is not allowed to use repeat items.
Initial Equipment (IE)[]
IE is the equipment that characters have on them when they join Dart's company, ranging from the four defense Clothes to the 46 defense Lion Fur, as well as from the 2 Attack Broad Sword to the 45 Attack Axe. This challenge disproportionately penalizes Dart and characters who join the party early in the game.
This challenge can be broken down into several, less difficult sub-challenges.
No Offensive Equipment[]
The player is only allowed to use the starting weapon of all characters. Accessories such as the Power Wrist and using high-damaging additions become more important.
No Defensive Equipment[]
The player is only allowed to use the initial armor of all characters. This can encompass the entirety of armor, helmet and boots, or be limited to only certain parts.
Bracelet Challenge[]
All characters must wear a Bracelet, i.e. the player is not allowed to use accessories to boost their character's performance.
No Shops[]
The player is not allowed to use shops and instead has to rely on item drops by enemies and chests.
Skill and Gameplay Challenges[]
No Addition (NA)[]
The player is not allowed to use additions and can only use single-hit attacks. Changing the addition in the addition menu for varying amounts of SP gained per hit is allowed.
Initial Addition (IA)[]
A slightly less restrictive and arguably more interactive version of NA, where the player is only allowed to use a character's starting addition.
In this category, Dart's Double Slash gets 202% damage and 35 SP, Rose's Whip Smack gets 200% damage and 35 SP, and everyone else except Meru gets 150% and 50 SP. Meru gets 150% and 34 SP.
No Final Addition[]
The least limited of addition challenges. The player is not allowed to use final additions, and has to choose among the basic additions depending on the task at hand, with some additions being strong in damage and weak in SP (e.g. Moon Strike, Cat's Cradle, Gust of Wind Dance, Hex Hammer), some good in SP and weak in damage (e.g. Madness Hero, More & More, Cool Boogie) and some providing a good compromise (e.g. Crush Dance, 5 Ring Shattering, Rod Typhoon).
No Dragoon (ND)[]
The player is not allowed to use Dragoon forms. Also called the "Human Campaign".
No Chests[]
The player is not allowed to open chests with the exception of the ones mandatory for progressing the game.
Other Challenges[]
Hardcore[]
Hardcore in its truest sense means starting the whole game over if a character dies, with no reviving allowed. Normally, it means that every character is an essential character, which means that any character dying in battle means a complete reset of the game, as the story cannot be completed in the intended way anymore.
However, the challenge can also be limited to Dart, i.E. if a secondary character dies, they are treated as if they left the party and cannot be used anymore for the rest of the game (with the exception of where the game requires it).
No Reviving (NR)[]
Not to be confused with Hardcore mode. A more lenient version of the challenge, where no reviving is allowed inside of battles via Items or Dragoon magic (or equipment such as the Holy Ankh), however, there is no "permanent death", as characters are revived again with 1 HP after a battle in which they got knocked out, and the game can be continued normally.
Solo[]
A challenge where the game is to be completed with only one character, where possible. There are some difficulties within this, as any knocked out character is revived after the battle with 1 HP, thus, it is required to wait for enemies to knock out the remaining party at the beginning of a battle. This can be difficult e.g. in the Hellena Prison, where the damage output of opponents is too low to make a character reach 0 HP when guarding. Because of this, it can be allowed to use no-addition attacks with the remaining party if it is not possible for them otherwise to reach 0 HP. Random encounters should be avoided in this challenge wherever possible, as should be Hotels and Healing features in dungeons.
Caution must be given in regard to Disc 4, where the game requires Solo Battles with all characters. So, to prevent any character from being hopelessly under-leveled, the party members to "fall" at the beginning of each battle should be switched out regularly.
This challenge usually leads to the "chosen" character being massively over-leveled, as experience gained is distributed between the characters that participated in the battle, and should a character have 0 HP, the EXP the character is supposed to gain is distributed to the other characters. However, status problems such as bewitching and petrification pose significant threats to this challenge, and Items such as the Talisman are required to beat it in order to prevent "Can't Combat" attacks by enemies.
Gambler[]
For a certain section of a game, e.g. one dungeon until completion, several factors are determined by gambling, e.g. which characters to use, which addition to use, which equipment to use, enabling/disabling item use inside or outside of the battle and enabling/disabling Dragoon forms, etc, with the option of doing everything character specific (e.g. character X is allowed to use items but no Dragoon, character Y is allowed to use both, character Z may use Dragoon but no items). This challenge requires the player to keep a large weapon and armor inventory to be truly unpredictable and leading to strange and possibly humorous character builds.
Once the section has been completed, a new "gambling round" decides on the party, equipment and rules in the next section.
New Weapon[]
Play a team member until another gets a new weapon, then replace a team member with the member who got the new weapon and equip it. It can be ruled that items bought from stores do not count, or purchased weapons also force the player to change the party.
Always Dragoon[]
There is a drawback to Dragoon form that is seldom recognized: using Dragoon levels up XP just like normal form, but that is all. It does not even level up itself. However, this drawback does lead to a remarkably organic if mild form of challenge: always use Dragoon form if you can. Organic because you still use all the provided means at your disposal, but the more powerful ones are more limited. One could also extend it to a requirement of using Magic whenever possible, which is a challenge to inventory management to keep full on Magic Points. In order to keep from going Dragoon with all characters and preventing item use, pull your punches and leave Additions incomplete. The player may decide they want access to Special, allowing SP to accumulate until the third member has their bar, or even allowing the member of their choice to initiate the Special.
Links[]
- My Shot at a Dragoon Challenge
- LLIENAND - thanks for the term, "Initial Addition", but none of the added strikes are used, and everyone else calls it, "No Addition"
- Challenge LL IE NA NR NRI ND - Ongansan. Familiar name. Yes.
- Challenge Run NI ND NUA LL - first time doing this run didnt do to bad for low level
- Initial Equipment Challenge dragoon is a lifesaver for defense anyway i enjoyed this run