Fallen Legion+ Review

Fallen Legion+ Review

“From Indonesia, With Love”

• Overview and First Impressions

Fallen Legion+ is a PC port containing both Fallen Legion : Sins of an Empire and Fallen Legion : Flames of Rebellion. Developed by YummyYummyTummy and Mintsphere and published by YummyYummyTummy. Sins of an Empire was released in the PS4 and Flames of Rebellion is released in the PSVita. This version is also in the Nintendo Switch if I am not mistaken. I first tried this game during and event named Popcon Asia in Jakarta a while ago and the developer said this has a taste of Valkyrie Profile and since that game is one of my PS1 favorites I am of course intrigued. The combat felt like the active version of Valkyrie Profile and I said to myself that I will review it should it come out on steam and here it is.

• Story Overview

Like I said before this game has 2 stories. Sins of an Empire tells the story of Princess Cecille that was suddenly appointed emperor of Fenumia and was given a talking grimoire by her late father and has to rush back to the capital of Fenumia to become the official next emperor while dealing with unrest within the empire and also dealing with those who rebels against her. Flames of Rebellion takes the point of view to the rebels side where Laendur fights against Cecille thinking that she is possessed by the grimoire while dealing with the unrest within his commanded army and areas that he has conquered. It is nice to serve the story from both sides but I have my gripes about the whole thing but I will save it for now.

• In-game mechanics

• Progression

Progression in this game use a stage based approach with the overworld map as the stage selection screen and each stage has multiple battles. You can look at your Exemplars or to gear up with gems before picking a stage by the way. In a stage after some battles there will be a scenario provided with three choices that you have to pick within a limited time and this can influence the morale of the empire or the rebels (depending on which story you pick) along with other effects for the next battle and the consequences of your choices will be shown in the interval between battles in-stage be it the same stage or some stages later. Some places only serve to be plot points with no battles in it where the consequence of your choices may or may not present themselves there. At the end of each stage you will be scored for reasons unknown to me and I simply consider this as padding. There are also some things that I have gripes with but I will put them for later.

There will be an unrelated incentive to get that A into S

• Combat

Combat in this game revolves around using your summoned units known as Exemplar (the Valkyrie Profile equivalent for Einherjar) in a party of 3 excluding the main character of the story be it Cecille or Laendur. You can move the Exemplars in the middle of battle either to reposition yourself or to swap frontline tanks as you see fit. To make a comparison with Valkyrie Profile (from now on I’m going to use the abbreviation VP for later use) the party is in the left side of the screen while VP is on the right (small tweaks, harmless ones).

To continue what I said before that this game takes the active approach of VP, Fallen Legion doesn’t use turn based combat so you can just mash buttons to attack the enemy and it felt fun but at times it felt quite hard to control. Each Exemplar you chose is assigned to at least one button on the controller so you have to press that button to use said Exemplar’s attack, and each attack use 1 part of the resource known as AP (probably action points) from a pool of 3 for each Exemplars. Each Exemplar has their own deathblow (the VP equivalent of Soul Crush, though not as awesome).

As for Cecille or Laendur (the VP equivalent of the Valkyrie) depending on the story you pick, they can’t participate in the front lines but they can cast spells to help the Exemplars win the fight like healing or casting attack magic, for them the resource pool are different and called Mana and to fill them simply attack the enemies in front of you. Cecille and Laendur are given the choice from 3 spells and to cast a different one simply point the left analog stick (I’m playing on a gamepad) up or down and press the assigned button. There are also relics you can use but I will be honest here, to me the relics are simply a padding feature to add more option either for survival or assault but padding is still padding. Control for combat is quite responsive even though it would be better if you can cancel the attack mid-animation.

Defending is also a crucial part, you can tell your Exemplars to block by pushing the assigned button and perfectly blocking an attack gives you a better edge in battle.

Inviting for a comparison? Yeah.

• Sound, OST, Voice acting

Attack and spell sounds are easy enough to be differentiated but the problem lies when you are facing a full party of enemies and enemy sound are going to be overshadowed by the voices of your Exemplars so you have to rely more on your eyes to see which attacks come first. OST on the other hand are quite nice memorable at least for the boss fights, while the OST doesn’t support the situation and tension that well at least it was suited to the environment at hand while feeling like we are exploring something and for me who is a simple gamer this is quite good though not as good as Hollow Knight. At least they don’t put disco music for a forest stage. 

Voice acting has its own gripes but generally they are well voice acted although I wonder why voice actors are used only for the gameplay and not to enhance the storytelling also (except for the main characters). Also the use of guitar riffs are a bit too much but I don’t have any issue since guitar riffs are good for boss fights AKA time to get serious. Overall they are memorable, but not that great.

EDIT : 

• Graphics

The first game that springs to my mind is Dragon’s Crown since the art style and color palette is closely similar but the similarity ends right there. The Exemplars and the enemies are well animated and it is clear that the devs put a lot of effort in doing it. At least this is a PC port and keyword being “port” otherwise I would have classified this type of graphics and art style to the “portable systems only”. Sad thing is not all Exemplars have character arts beside sprites and I am curious how a certain girl Exemplar can be shown outside of battle sprites.

• Playing Experience : Fun or not? (along with gripes)

Let’s get this out of the way first, if you feel that the title of this game felt like the list of edgy words taken out of a hat then I feel the same too and it reminds me of my edgy days of junior high (but I digress).

The gameplay itself is quite fun and easy to do but there will be time where there are a mixed kind of enemies thrown in one battle and that can be hard and hectic to handle especially if some of them can attack your back members so handling your party to block and attack can be a bit of a mess and this is one of my gripes.

The block button tells your entire party to block but for some attacks that hits the entire party there are some delays when blocking after the first Exemplar blocked it meaning you can’t get a perfect block for the whole party and at least one member will get that damage since perfect block nullifies damage and staggers most of the enemy. There are also attacks that target the specific position of you Exemplars like attacking only the back member or the middle member and that can be dangerous especially if you are in mid-animation attack be it normal attack or deathblow. In my experience my back member usually ended up dying because of major damage done during her deathblow animation and to add tension to the mix my healing spell is recharging at that time and the only way to recharge is to attack so I am forced to play the equivalent of a suicidal aggression while praying that the mana charge will get there at the right moment. Is this bad design? Not at all and it is good since it adds tension to the gameplay that can get a bit monotonous if you are super prepared but if you are looking for that S rank then prepare to be frustrated a lot since there will be many situations like that and it’s simply out of your control.

Speaking about deathblows, I have to say that some attacks are just way too slow and this can be detrimental for survival especially since deathblows can’t be cancelled mid-animation like during boss fights but at least the boss fights are doable and not that frustrating at all.

For the story I think the better one is Cecille as she is always stuck with a bigger stake at hand as she is forced to do things that she doesn’t want to do at all while Laendur’s story is a lot monotonous. In the end both of them get what they desired but the usual “it costs something big” cliché comes up often and can be predictable, heck Laendur’s story seemed insulting to me since he pretty much does the equivalent of a kill steal in an MMO sure he had some great moments but Cecille’s story is way heart gripping than Laendur’s. Many people call this game’s story “generic” but it is still enjoyable, after all I prefer generic yet enjoyable story rather than a story with many convoluted plot points that must be understood in its entirety and needs to be examined again and again. To be honest there are plot points that implicates that Cecille is going to be fully corrupted and become partners with the grimoire, it would be good to see but I guess a man can dream.

Another thing that can give off better plot points are the mid-stage “choose wisely” 3 options but the consequence of those be it the boost for the Exemplars or the morale of the Empire/Rebels can be neglected since it opens some unrelated nodes in the map for unrelated plot points (at least in my playthrough). The best thing I can get for these gimmick is that at some point in the game it will give you a chance of getting a powerful character with the minus side known as the “Glass Cannon”. However the question at hand is still the same, is it enjoyable? Yes indeed.

Voice acting is not a problem at all but there is one character if evolved then the voice over changed from the “war-hardened badass” into “your typical JRPG boy protagonist” and that for me is a bit of a waste. Also in the same topic it would be better for important characters to be given a voice actor like the grimoire, for me that book is evil yet honest although after the mid-point of the game he become your “typical JRPG dark lord” which taunts, threatens, and outright lie to the protagonist. Nothing against this but it is still a wasted potential.

EDIT : It must be noted however that this game is polished altogether and has few bugs or glitches but it is not game breaking at all and at worst only requires you to restart the game again. At the time of writing I encountered one bug that left the screen in black after transitioning from a normal battle before a boss fight and I am forced to restart the game, at least it doesn’t eat my save.

Not fully voice acted, but oh well….

• Conclusion

Overall this game has a lot of untapped potential however it is still an enjoyable experience nonetheless and that is an important thing in games, also for Indonesia who is not known that much in the gaming development scene this is a brave step ahead to make Indonesia’s name to be known throughout the world. Kind of like a new artist or writer that wants to show what they made, and getting better throughout the year. Indonesia can be proud of this game!

EDIT : 

This game is for :

1. Players who want a short but enjoyable game
2. Those who are interested in what Indonesia is capable of in the future

This game is not for :

1. Player who wants a deeper story
2. Players who dislike the art direction that looked like a portable system game

Final score and verdict : 7.5/10 “untapped potential, but a great potential nonetheless”
Recommendation : Worth Checking Out!

You can buy this game on steam through this link :

http://store.steampowered.com/app/612820/Fallen_Legion/

Thank you for reading! If you have an opinion or feedback for future writing then just leave it in the comments as I appreciate them and read it!

(EDIT : added the part talking about graphics, small addition to the fun or not argument, and added who this game is for or not for , and added recommendation status)