The latest in the installment of The Legend of Heroes series, The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean, continues the series’ fine tradition of being one of the most inoffensive and generic to date. For those of you who have played the previous titles, you might recognize this: a young male and a young female go on an adventure with a pet. Instead of the pilgrimage that Jurio and Chris went on in 2006, Forte and Una travel around the world with Forte’s uncle McBain and his dog Jan as troubadours in 2007. Awesome.

The fact that the characters are troubadours is about the only thing exciting or noteworthy about the title. Much like its predecessors, Song of the Ocean is void of anything more than the makings of a basic role-playing game. As the troupe makes its way around the world in search of resonance stones to piece together the powerful Water Melody, they will be robbed, set on by numerous beasts, enlarge their group, and even befriend a desert rat – the real pet, because Jan is so much more. The rest is talking to townsfolk, either yammering about with strangers or talking to those important to the story (noted by red exclamation points by their chat icons), doing menial tasks, and fighting the wilds. A twist is that early on a gang of thieves disguising themselves as troubadours make things difficult for Forte and company by robbing people blind, creating an atmosphere of distrust for all troubadours, including our heroes.

Outside of the towns various enemies and monsters crawl about with icons over their heads indicating their danger level. Those that are weak scamper away, while those that are strong will follow. Despite the game being fairly linear, the lack of a decent map makes navigating a hassle and I often ran into the same enemies that I had managed to previously escape from. If approached from behind, a party is ambushed, giving the first round of attacks to the aggressor. If attacked head-on or from the side, the parties engage in a standard turn-based combat system. Rick, the desert rat pet, will give out bonuses before the fight starts depending on how it’s been treated, typically either bad (scolded) or good (fed and praised), but it can flip out and behave erratically, going from mad to happy for no reason.

When it’s time to fight, the fastest character goes first, if that’s the enemy, then once they are done the character in your party designated as the first to attack will be selected and their attack radius shown. If an enemy is too far away or is knocked outside the attack radius by an ally, the character will walk to the edge and wait for their next turn. From here, you use either attacks, skills, or magic to fight. Finishing skills are also learned along the way, and they are unleashed through power charged during combat, (naturally) causing more damage than a regular attack. If things get too rough, one of the characters in combat can be switched out from one in an external party pool. If a character should happen to die, they will still get the points from the current and subsequent fights but will be unusable until revived through an item or the party rests at an inn. New weapons and armor will add to the potency of the group, though those wanting a customized group will be disappointed to know that the new goodies will result in incremental stat upgrades and won’t be visually represented. The difficulty doesn’t increase drastically enough so that buying new weapons at each new town is a must, and since enemies can often be dodged they just make combat even less taxing than it already is.

And on it goes. The game is fairly long, but there isn’t anything compelling about it enough to warrant the 50-some-odd game hours touted on the box. There are special sections that allow you to access previous heroes if you have save files still on your system, creating a sort of mega party to tramp around with. My saves were deleted long ago, so it didn’t do me much good. But, still, diehard fans will enjoy it. The game is certainly a looker too, with vibrant colors and subtle animations looking fantastic on the PSP’s sharp screen. The music is also nice, with performance pieces often taking place in town squares, along with the normal tunes that play throughout the journey. There’s a lot to like here, just not many reasons to like it.

Overall: 5/10

The ambitious formula continues! That is to say that this is another bland entry into the series that doesn't do anything particularly good or bad. Since this release’s story is independent from its predecessors, it’s both a standalone title and one that remains of interest only to those who enjoyed the design of the first and second. On its own, it’s not worth full price; in the collection, it makes no difference since they are only rudimentarily tied together. The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean continues the generic streak in fine form.