Legaia 2: Duel Saga

Legaia 2: Duel Saga follows on from the cult classic Legend of Legaia on PlayStation and brought the series to the PlayStation 2 in 2002 under the wing of studio Contrail. The game skips a direct continuation of the first title's story, offering an entirely new world and cast instead, but it sticks to the proven principle that made the series famous — a combat system built around entering directional combinations that chain together into special attacks called Arts, with their gradual improvement and unlocking forming one of the main reasons to keep playing.

The hero is Lang, a young fighter who learns to wield so-called Runes during his journey — special abilities tied to the magical creatures known as Seru, who once lived in the world alongside humans and are now returning in the form of dangerous monsters. The story combines classic JRPG elements — traveling between towns, building up a party, gradually unlocking stronger abilities, and a branching skill tree — with an emphasis on a combat system that rewards players for experimenting with different button combinations and precise timing of strikes, rather than mechanically repeating the same tactic.

Legaia 2 never reached commercial success comparable to the genre's biggest names, and in Western reviews of the time it got lost in the shadow of more ambitious titles, but among fans of PS2 JRPGs it gradually earned a reputation, thanks to its combat system and honest world-building, as an overlooked gem worth discovering even years later.

Why play it: For the original combat system built around strike combinations, which set the Legaia series apart from other JRPGs from the very start.