| “ | Emperor Doel say he make world where every species equal. World needs strong leader. Whether you can be leader, Kongol will watch to the end. Giganto's sadness should not be repeated... | „ |
| ~ Kongol |
Kongol (コンゴール, Kongōru) is a supporting protagonist and playable character in the 1999 video game The Legend of Dragoon. He first appears as a boss at Hoax and then Kazas. He is once again encountered at the Home of Gigantos after he tails the main party, and from there on out, he remains with them as an ally. His brutal strength and gigantic size are a deadly combination.
Kongol is the last of the Giganto species and one of Emperor Doel's trump cards in the civil war in Serdio. After being bested by Dart and his entourage twice, however, his honor as a proud warrior leads him to join the team as they liberate the Gigantos' ancestral home from the Gehrich Gang. Additionally, he is the last to gain a Dragoon Spirit, inheriting the Golden Spirit from the memory of his brother within the Moon That Never Sets.
He was voiced by Masashi Sugawara in the Japanese version of the game and by Ernie Fosselius in the English version.
Appearance[]
As a Giganto, Kongol towers over the rest of the cast and is at least over eight feet tall. He is mostly bald aside from a small mohawk of black hair in the middle of his head, his eyes have no irises, and he has two thin red markings on his forehead that continue past his eyes down the rest of his face, which are either face paint or scars. Both when he initially fights Dart and Lavitz at Hoax and when he joins the party later, in terms of attire, he wears a brown cross belted armor with a skull insignia at the center of his chest, yellow armor on each of his shoulders, a brown loincloth with a black belt with a bull shaped buckle and a traditional black furred with steel strapped gray boots. He also wears traditional brown gloves with black furred sleeves and wields a giant axe.
During the second encounter when he faces Dart and the group in the Black Castle in Kazas before they confront Emperor Doel, Kongol is seen in traditional Giganto armor that's similar to what his brother Indora used to wear, but with a skull motif, and he fights using claws instead of his usual weapon. The color of his armor is light gold and black. However, when he was defeated, his armor is destroyed to reveal his primary outfit, which was concealed under his the armor.
As a Dragoon, Kongol wears mostly gold Dragoon armor with indigo blue accents, and his usual axe is transformed to have a more archaic steel design.
Personality[]
While he initially comes off as little more than a violent brute, Kongol demonstrates a much more benevolent and honorable persona the more time he actually interacts with others, especially after he is defeated twice by the protagonists, first by Dart and Lavitz in Hoax and then by Dart and the rest of the current party in Kazas. He is very loyal to those that show him kindness, as seen both towards Emperor Doel due to taking him in when he was young and vowing to make a world where all species are equal, and later to Dart and company due to the party sparing him after they defeated him despite wanting to be killed out of shame for his failure at the time. Beyond saving them when they nearly got crushed by a giant pillar at the Home of Gigantos, he decides to stick with them due to being intrigued by their strength, because like Doel, he's also motivated to help create a world where all species are equal, which is probably in large part due to being the last of his kind and not wanting to see any other races exterminated out of prejudice the way his likely was. At first, he doesn't really understand the concept of "friends", but after others use the word to describe their relationship and having Albert explain its meaning to him while they're travelling on the Queen Fury, Kongol begins to value the others as such the longer he sticks with them, especially Dart, as evidenced when he interacts with an apparition of his brother on The Moon That Never Sets.
As an experienced warrior, Kongol is very serious and fierce when engaged in battle. However, outside of this, he is fairly quiet and tends to keep to himself, especially in more casual circumstances, noticeably talking and otherwise interacting with the others the least out of all the party members during many of their conversations as they travel together. As a Giganto, Kongol also doesn't come across as especially educated or intelligent, and as revealed when the party visits the National Library in Mille Seseau, he never learned how to read human letters. However, his senses, such as his sense of smell, along with his intuition, are very sharp, as demonstrated a couple of times when the party is travelling through the Forbidden Land, AKA the Winglies' former capital city of Kadessa, where he recognized the smell of blood when they pass through an ancient colosseum and a picture symbol in a teleporter room as a Giganto symbol, as well as when he warns the party of the incoming Windigo that attacks them in Kashua Glacier.
While Kongol doesn't generally get as much focus as the other party members, he still goes through some character development, though some of it is only noticeable if he's spoken to before the final battle; in addition to coming to value the other party members as friends, he comes to realize that anyone, regardless of their species, has the ability to change the world for the better if they have the will to make it happen, even without necessarily being a strong leader like Emperor Doel, whom he originally thought were the only ones that were capable of creating change. He also acknowledges that anyone, regardless of their species, also has the capacity to destroy the world if they desire it, giving him an all-together more rounded perspective than what he started out with.
Abilities and Attributes[]
Due to being a Giganto, Kongol possesses immense physical strength, a particularly good demonstration of this being when he single-handedly catches a giant pillar in the Home of Gigantos that Mappi had caused to collapse in the hopes of killing the party, and throws it aside. He is also very skilled with the axe he wields and is powerfully built in a way that allows him to have strong resilience against enemy attacks. Naturally, in battles this translates to him having very high physical attack and defense stats, allowing him to hit very hard against enemies and in turn, barely take any damage from their regular attacks. While his techniques are fairly limited since he only has three different additions, this means he only has two to master before having access to his third and most powerful one, Bone Crusher.
However, Kongol's also got some very glaring weaknesses to balance out his strengths; while his physical attack and defense stats are the best of the party, he's also got the worst magical attack and defense stats, making him extremely vulnerable to any sort of magic offense, especially wind spells due to being associated with the element of earth. This makes him a very risky choice to use against many bosses, most of whom specialize in strong magic attacks, especially the ones the party fights beyond the point he joins them. Additionally, he is easily the slowest of the party, so he gets less frequent turns to attack or even raise his defense compared to everyone else, making him all the more vulnerable to strong magic if he's targeted.
After receiving the Golden Dragoon Spirit, Kongol gains the ability to use earth magic, all of which consist of attacks that deal damage to the whole enemy party. However, due to his aforementioned weak magical attack power, his ability to do damage is strongly hampered, especially if the player doesn't diligently backtrack to Lohan and get his Dragoon spirit early since otherwise, he only receives it close to the end of the game after defeating his brother on The Moon That Never Sets, leaving very little time to use it or level it up before the final battle.