Zoids Legacy

 Rewriting this article with updated screenshots from the game since i believe the series deserve some better treatment. This game was my gateway to Zoids series and I think i have finished this game like four times already both in emulator and back when i had GBA. While Zoids Legacy was riddled with plenty of bad translations it does not ruin much of the gaming experience.

 Some examples how terrible the translation work by Atari on this game, i think the worst one from what i recall is they translate 落ちろ! to simply "drop!" which just didn't make sense for the context

Zero Schneider CAS

To its core Zoids Legacy is a mecha collecting game where you try collecting Datas for the zoids that you desire and collect its core to make it and then put it in your dream team and fight other Zoids. The game offers more than 100 Zoids good enough to get familiar with Zoids Universe in general. Zoids Legacy features popular Zoids like Liger Zero, Genosaurers or Gojulas complete with the CAS feature as well as some minimum customization for your units.

 Zoids Legacy makes very good gateway to the Zoids series, being one of the few translated Zoids Games and i think it was the last of its iterations of its series in GBA which means it has plenty of contents. The game is quite easy and virtually a cake walk when you used a fully upgraded endgame unit like Berserk Fuhrers but can be really challenging if you put yourself a handicap by using low end zoids like Molga. My main gripe with the series is that Not all cool looking zoids are equal in this game. Some of the cool looking units like Lightning Saix and Command Wolves are rather weak and unusable once you get near to endgame as most of the wild Zoids will make short work of you due to low limit of Hit Points. Also the game have plenty of redundancy issues as well with most of the stuffs from weapon shops are obsolete other than the status boosting equipments as the default armaments of Zoids will exceed those weapons even un-upgraded.

 Zoids Legacy overworld is decent enough with plenty of Cities and Dungeons even if it is rather monotonous. At the beginning of the game you navigate the Overworld with Gustav which is unable to traverse water terrain and slowly upgrading your Vehicle Zoid to the Flying one to travel around the world. The random encounter in the game is too frequent especially in the dungeon which can be annoying when you are backtracking on something. Legacy also have plenty of Zoids Tournament which pits you against other Zoids Warrior both in overworld or inside the city with some pre-conditions occasionally.

While Zoid's Legacy gameplay is very enjoyable, the storyline of the series are cheesy at best. Basically the protagonist named Zeru got into mysterious Zoids universe where different Zoids series got combined due to time-dimension experiments gone wrong. In this universe his encounter with mysterious girl named Juno basically starts all of the plot of the series.

 The main villain group in this game is called Terra Geist who are basically your average Zoids series main villain group. The Terra Geist constantly tried to kidnap Juno for their agenda and they are also responsible for backing the Zoids Tournament in the game. At the end of the game, Zeru will face Terra Geist's leader Prince Zard who is enigmatic through the end of the game but he could be closely related to Zeru.

 The Zoids Legacy utilize bits and pieces of story from many Zoids series but out of all, New Century Zero got the most coverage considering most events in the second continent are from that series. I guess in the previous game, Chaotic Centuries had played a big part already thus New Century Zero takes the spot for this game.

 Zoids Legacy is probably one of my memorable part of my time with GBA, even though not the best it was my gateway to Zoids series which i have watched couple of their animation series which is pretty much Toy Commercial. At some point i will play the Zoids Saga on NDS which was the sequel of this series that feature Fuzors and Genesis which was untranslated but should be doable enough since it only require Danball Senki level of Japanese comprehension.