Decent handheld RPGs are a holy grail of sorts, and with the best of the genre bundling addictive gameplay and an interesting plot across each portion of a lengthy adventure, it's easy to see why. It can even get to the point where it feels less like playing a game and more like hanging out with some of your closest friends, fulfilling the potential of the role-playing label. Unfortunately, quality handheld RPGs are rather hard to come by, likely having something to do with the time and effort required for gameplay that remains fresh after the hundredth battle and a somewhat original plot. And sadly, The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch doesn't do much to solve that quality issue.

Right from the get-go, Legend of Heroes II seems a bit off. The backgrounds and environment are rendered in three dimensions with polygons, meanwhile, the characters themselves are two-dimensional drawings comprised of pixels. So the game has some gorgeous backgrounds, such as a lake with sparkling water, and characters that looks distinctly out of place, lacking any sort of depth whatsoever, appearing completely flat. It's slightly reminiscent of Paper Mario, though missing the intentional charm of that particular aesthetic.

This brings with it the problem of animation, as the animations of characters appear slightly jerky and don't always match up their actual movements. Certain instances, such as a special attack in which a character pulls out their sword and slides back and forth across an enemy, only highlight these shortcomings. And given that there are numerous titles on the Game Boy Advance with far better animation, and given the hardware difference of the two systems, there's no technical reason this should be a problem.

However, there are some things Legends of Heroes II does right. In a nice twist, the title does away with the genre standard of random battles. Instead, enemies appear on the map throughout the game, allowing the player to avoid them if they so choose. This shift is particularly welcome, as being forced into random encounter after random encounter is quite the tedious affair.

As for the battles themselves, the game falls back on the standard turn-based battle system. The only thing to differentiate Legend of Heroes II from any other turn-based game is its concept of character movement, being that characters don't return to a set line after attacking. This corresponds with each character's range in which their attacks are effective, so that if an enemy is too far away one turn, a movement in their direction should rectify that problem the next. This is rarely a major factor though, and thus battles are typically nothing more than repeatedly mashing down on the X button to choose attack, waiting for it to be carried out, and healing when necessary. Level up, earn some new attacks, buy more powerful weapons at the next store, rinse, rather, repeat.

Outside of battle, the game's design revolves around finding a person with an exclamation point above their head and talking with them. This will generally cause the floating exclamation point to appear elsewhere, and finding that then causes the floating exclamation point to once again appear elsewhere, and so forth. Since finding the next exclamation point is often more a result of luck than logic, like when the player is required to run around town looking for another party member only to find her after going back and forth between two maps and talking to a select few people in the proper order, the entire design ends up more tedious and boring than engrossing. In fact, it's enough to make one long for the dull action of battle, which is certainly saying something.

While running around towns and dungeons, players will notice a pet following them around. By feeding their pet specific items, it will then hop into the next battle and carry out the effect of whatever item they were fed. On paper, this kinda sounds like a neat idea, but with the effect being little more than "hop into the next battle and perform this action," it's lacking the depth and incentive to make it worthwhile.

One of the few other things Legend of Heroes II has going for are its characters. Though the story itself, dealing with two young teenagers on a ritualistic coming-of-age pilgrimage, may not be all that original or intriguing, the characters themselves occasionally display some genuine charm. Watching Jurio and Chris banter and jab at each other as Chris chases Jurio in pursuit of his undies, or having everyone in town give Jurio grief about something he did as a child, is an entertaining and often humorous experience. If only these instances of charm were more frequent, and weren't interspersed by such tired gameplay, Legend of Heroes II could have been much more enjoyable.