When it hit North America back in 1995, many observed the PlayStation's lineup was lacking in a few areas. After an era many refer to as the golden age, noted by titles such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy III, the genre of turn-based role playing games had yet to appear on the latest hardware. It wasn't until 1996, a year after its American debut, that the PlayStation received its first traditional RPG, Beyond the Beyond. Understandably, the release of Beyond the Beyond was highly anticipated, which only served to make the game itself all the more disappointing. To say that it reviewed horribly would be a drastic understatement - though it was the only RPG on the PlayStation at that time, scores from that era hover around the region of 4/10. It wouldn't be until half a year later, the spring of 1997, that a decent RPG would arrive, Wild ARMs, followed by the now-classic Final Fantasy VII a few months later. From there, the flow of quality RPGs remained constant, but for those first two years, it was pretty rough for RPG fans.

This bears mentioning because after a little longer than a year on the market, the PSP seems to be in roughly the same position the PlayStation was at this time. Oh sure, it's got a few more RPGs - PoPoLiCrois, The Legend Of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion, and Astonishia Story - but they're all rather mediocre, simple ports of older games that didn't made it to North America before. Because of their age, it's impossible for these games to do something that will seem new or exciting, something that would provide a unique experience in the realm of not just portable RPGs, but RPGs in general. It's a problem that, unsurprisingly, extends to the latest port, The Legend Of Heroes II: Prophecy Of The Moonlight Witch. That's not to say the game doesn't try and provide a little variation upon the traditional turn-based RPG formula, but these attempts do little to keep it from mediocrity.

For example, enemies are visible on the map at all times. That's cool, because it allows players to take an active role in avoiding battle, instead randomly forcing them into battle every couple of steps. So if a player is careful, they won't have to worry about a lot of battling.

And as the battle system in Legend Of Heroes II is rather mindless, that's a good thing. Again, the game tries to provide some variation upon the norm. Though your party appears in a line at the battle's start, they don't stay that way for long. Attacks and magic spells are dependent their range, and once a character has positioned themselves for attack, they'll stay at that location until the next action takes them elsewhere. There's a lot of potential for strategy here, especially in terms of battle formation.

Unfortunately, that potential remains mostly unrealized. Precisely positioning characters so that most of the party will be in range of a healing spell can be pretty difficult. See, character movement is handled automatically by the game, determined by the character that's receiving an action. So there's really no way for the player to move a character to a strategic position and thus optimize the damage of a spell that has a small, yet extremely effective, radius. This also means there's no way to position a character to ensure they're located outside of an enemy's attack radius, which would be awfully useful in boss fights. As a result, the game ends up playing out just like any other turn-based RPG: hit the same button over and over again and heal when necessary.

Another battle-related issue is that of the power meter. When charged, the power meter allows characters to pull off extremely powerful special moves. But as this meter seems to refill after every battle, these special attacks might as well be standard. There's no worry about the right time to use these moves, as they'll be available again within a series of turns.

Meanwhile, the non-battle portions of the game remain equally as mundane. Though no doubt hampered by the extremely generic plot, two teens embarking upon on a traditional coming-of-age journey and end up discovering something that threatens the whole world, this is mostly a result of the game's tedious design. Find a person that has an exclamation point above their head and talk to them. Repeat this until the game allows you to finally progress and leave. Journey to the next town and repeat.

A pet system also looks to liven things up, only to disappoint. A companion that follows a player everywhere, an icon above a pet's head indicates their mood, and the player can praise, scold, and feed them specific items as they see fit. Depending on the item they're fed, the pet will then hop into the next battle and perform the specific action. This really doesn't seem to be all that useful in most battles though, especially given the balance issue of the power meter. Outside of battle, the pet sometimes finds items in the environment, but as this doesn't require any player involvement and seems to happen regardless of how the pet is treated, this only serves to make the game even more autonomous.

Even the graphics aren't all that great, utilizing a series of poorly-animated 2D sprites placed on a 3D background. And with the clunky menu system (the battle menu takes up a large chunk of the screen) and problematic translation (improper grammar, odd spacing issues that can result in only two words per line), Legend of Heroes II could easily pass for a Flash game instead a PSP title.

In its defense, The Legend Of Heroes II: Prophecy Of The Moonlight Witch is playable, but it's far from the exciting must-play RPG PSP owners have been hoping for. Thankfully, there's still a good chance the PSP will eventually see a series of quality, original RPGs, much like the PlayStation before it. But while we're waiting for the PSP's equivalent of Wild ARMs and Final Fantasy VII, titles like The Legend Of Heroes II: Prophecy Of The Moonlight Witch should still be viewed as the fluff they are, the PSP's Beyond the Beyond, wallowing in the past of the genre instead of moving it forward, a mere means to pass the time until something good finally shows up. Let's just hope that something shows up soon.