Developer: YummyYummyTummy
Publisher: NIS America
Platform: Switch, PlayStation 4
Tested on: PlayStation 4
Fallen Legion Revenants – Review
The end is near, the world has been brought to its knees and the remaining humans are struggling to survive in humanity’s last refuge. Sadly this place is being led by a dictator that only cares about power and intimidation. Luckily, there is still a group that wants to oppose the evil forces and fight for what is right. Lead the resistance, build your army and purge the world from the miasma and the dictator that tries to end the world for once and for all.
Story
Just like in most RPGs, the story starts rather vague. It begins with your party making their way to the Welkin castle, which serves as the last refuge from humankind. The tyrant who controls Welkin must be stopped, who is also conveniently a prison warden. Suddenly the game takes you back a few months before this incident. It takes a while to get the story going, as there is a lot of exploring and talking to do. After a while, it becomes clear that the world has been covered in miasma and this has brought disease upon humanity and turned them into uncontrollable monsters.
The story is mostly split in two, with your Exemplars on the battleground being lead by Rowena the mage, requiring intelligence from Lucien in the castle. Lucien is a young politician who must gather information while pulling favors from other counselors. The main goal is to discover old relics that hold trapped warriors, the Exemplars. When finding these, you must bring them back to Lucien in the castle, so he can examine them in the library. Once examined, the Exemplar who is trapped inside can be released and added to your party. They are needed to overthrow the tyrant while making the right political decision for the remainder of the survivors. The story flow is pretty slow and it will take you some hours to uncover the first layers of the game. While the gameplay is really light and accessible for many people, it means that the story comes in second place, so you don’t have hours of text to skip before being able to do anything.
Graphics
At first glance, it might feel that the graphics look a bit simple, yet this is a serious misconception. When you take a minute to appreciate all the hand-drawn assets that the game uses, you will immediately get charmed by the well-crafted visuals. Because of the graphics, it might feel that the animations are a bit stiffer, yet this isn’t the case. Every character and enemy is nicely animated and this makes combat a wonderful sight to behold. Another great addition is a simple and easy to work with U.I. that shows you all the information you need right in front of you.
Sound
After starting the game you will be met with the many fully voiced characters of Fallen Legion Revenants. As there are a quite large collection of Exemplars to be had, it is astonishing how much work there has been put in voicing each individual character. As the game progresses, you will have different party members and each of them will have different views on the events that are taking place. Next to the high attention to sound details, there is also great music to be heard in the background. This sets the mood for intense combat, hectic moments, and calming intermissions between raids.
Gameplay
Fallen Legion Revenants is an action game that takes certain elements of traditional turn-based combat and RPGs. It then mixes these components into a game that is both accessible for newer players and fun for more experienced veterans. The whole game is set in a 2D universe, so the only directions you will need to go are left and right. In combat, this is especially simple as you only need to navigate on a grid of three spaces. This location is rather important because it affects your timing to block or parry attacks, the speed at which you can attack the opponent and use spells. All of this is explained in the initial tutorial and while it seems really complicated at first, it all starts to make sense quite quickly. Controlling the game is really simple, with only a few buttons needed to navigate through the castle while playing as Lucien and during combat, each character just needs a simple button press to fight. This highly accessible game means that inexperienced players can enjoy a turn-based game without having to learn too much, while veteran gamers will be able to perfect their fights and get a high score during raids. Fallen Legion Revenants is a game that is easy to pick up and easy to master while staying fun and challenging along the way.
The combat itself is really easy, each warrior is mapped with a button. By pushing the button, the corresponding character will attack once. Fighting consumes Action Points. Once these AP are spent, you will either need to wait for them to replenish or successfully parry an attack to gain one AP back. The combat can be tailored to your playing style, with clear differences between close-quarters combat and ranged attacks. Once you have saved up enough mana orbs by fighting, you can unleash a deathblow. This powerful attack deals devastating damage and can be used to move around the enemy formation. After certain moments in the game, you will be greeted with a boss fight. These fights can be really spicy and will have you utilize the maximum of your skills to come out victorious. While hard, they are not impossible thanks to the quick reviving on the field and healing spells that Rowena possesses. However, if you clear a raid without dying and parry many attacks, you will get a much better score and better end rewards.
Besides all the fighting taking place, the game loves to split the screen between the Exemplars and Lucien. Lucien the politician must uncover secrets to aid the search of Rowena to find certain locations and/or relics. Because of the freedom, you will have to explore the castle and talk to people within a time limit, then reminiscence about the information gained and give this to Rowena. You can always decide to either trust Lucien’s information or decide for yourself. We noticed you can still change your mind during ‘missions’. When out and exploring, your main goal is to find relics that hold Exemplars, take them back to the library to gain a new follower, or get new weapons and armor for current characters. As there isn’t really a level progression, you could upgrade characters with a mastery that is unlocked after achieving certain scores in combat. Each character can also be fitted with extra augmentation so they gain a shield or move faster in fights.
Conclusion
Fallen Legion Revenants is a game that can be enjoyed by just anyone. The simple and accessible gameplay ensures that you can pick it up and enjoy it right off the bat, while mastering it gives a high sense of reward as boss fights will be a breeze. The game loves to switch between action and story as you gather information as Lucien to pass to Rowena on the battlefield. The graphics are lovely, the animations are cool and the fully voiced cast makes the experience even better. Combat is fun thanks to the many tools at your disposal, all packed in an easy to understand U.I. and with the absence of items, this means that you don’t have to stress packing your bags, because your mage keeps the party alive and kicking.
Fallen Legion Revenants – Review,
Related Items
1 Comment
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[…] 2, another “older” PS4 and Switch title is now on Steam (as well as PS5 and Xbox Series X/S). We took a look at the PS4 version of the game last year, but with Fallen Legion: Revenants, a sequel to Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory, now available to PC […]