Black Legend Reviews

I wanted to like this, but unfortunately I couldn't. The game is littered with janky and clunky gameplay, many quality of life issues and an overall bland UI system. The VO work also leaves a bit to be desired. For the current price, I can't recommend, but if you want to give it a shot, I suggest waiting for a sale.

TL;DR: The bare bones of a team based RPG, with a nice class and combat system that will keep you entertained for a while if you can look past the lack of polish. As it stands, it would be more at home on a PS Vita than a PC, but it's not a bad game. I confess to being a little disappointed with this game off the bat. The sample videos and pictures do a great job of painting it in the best possible light (obviously) and the actual experience is somewhat different. However, the few hours I have played have been engaging, and I do find myself wondering when I will have the time to play a bit more. It has that addictive quality that makes you want to dump another ten minutes into it, take out one extra group of cultists, or search one more little nook. Graphics: A bit on the basic side. Wandering around the city isn't so bad, and the colour scheme and lighting provide decent enough ambiance that you tend not to notice the outdated graphics. Where things can get a bit jarring is when you open the character screen. Character models look a bit clunky, and the pasted on hair reminds me of the original Mount and Blade. Seeing as this is a character focused game, I would have liked a bit more polish there. Customisation: A bit of a follow on from my previous comment, but all of the characters look basically the same. All units are the same build and stature, and once you start to equip armour with helmets, they're really only distinguishable from one another by their moustache colour. It's nice that equipped armour shows on the character models, but there is no distinction between armour of the same type. This seems like a bit of an oversight in my opinion. Classes: The classes are varied and interesting, and the ability transfer between classes is great. Basically, you use an ability 3-4 times and then your character is able to equip that ability when they switch to a new class. Great system! But... The Team part of the Team RPG: What's the point of having a company roster! You can only have a piddly 4 characters in play at any one time, even though you can unlock several more as you wander around the city. If you can change classes at will, why on earth would you ever switch out characters? Just pick the ones that have the moustache you like and cycle them through different classes until you have the abilities you want. Without any class specialisation, there's really no need to give you more than the starting four plebs. Unless of course you play with perma-death, which I wish I had done. It's not even like the guys back at base regain health, which would make alternating worthwhile. This was a big let down for me, as I love a team-based RPG. Gameplay: You wander around the city as your MC and then enter turn based combat when you come across a group of enemies, which is often. The wandering around is alright. There are a few chests to be found and some nice assets to check out, but nothing ground breaking. If you could find items in sacks and crates, rather than just copy/pasted chests, it might make exploration a bit more enticing. Combat: As above, it's turn based. My first impression was that it was going to be like Mordheim or Valkyria Chronicles, but it's standard tile based battles (don't be fooled by the vids). The combat is also not in the style of XCom or Phantom Doctrine, as many people were expecting, based on the reviews. No, the combat here is much more akin to your handheld console games, such as Final Fantasy Tactics, or Fell Seal (for a PC comparison). Know what you are getting in to! So now that we have established what kind of combat we are looking at, is it fun? Absolutely. I honestly think the game shines here. It doesn't lean on RNG, and there's not a cover system to rely on. No, this is good old fashioned stand next to the enemy and whack them with a stick. Flanking plays a part, but really the excitement, and the challenge, comes in the form of applying debuffs, in the form of humours, which you then remove with an attack for drastically increased damage. If the enemy has 3 stacks of red and 3 stacks of black, say, you hit them for roughly four times the damage that you would have normally. It's quirky, and it keeps the battles fairly dynamic. It also forces frequent class changes, to make sure you have the abilities you need to build up the stack combinations required for the best damage output. Challenge: One thing I like about the combat is that you and the enemy are basically toe to toe specs wise. This means that you do and will take damage, and quite a bit of it. The best side effect of this is that you will actually use consumables. I have played many RPGs over the decades, and have used maybe five potions in my entire gaming career. Black Legend has actually forced me to go back to the shop to buy healing items! The otehr consumables are actually useful as well, as they often add stacks of humours to the enemy, and you get use out of them because they don't cost AP to apply. Huge plus in my eyes. On a less positive note, the challenge is also maintained through enemy level scaling. Yes, it makes the figths consistently semi-tough, but, eish, I don't like it. There's pretty much no reason to grind and level up your characters, because the next enemy to spawn will be the same level as you anyway. As someone who likes to be rewarded for pouring time into character development, this one bugs me a lot. I mean, this was ultimately the reason why I stopped playing Assassins Creed: Odyssey. Story: It's there. It's alright. Did anyone come for the story? Voice Acting: Should probably go to hell and die. Conclusion: A pretty good little time sink with some fairly compelling combat. Gathering equipment and optimising classes is fun, but a lack-luster character and team customisation system leaves the whole experience feeling a little hollow. It didn't reach it's potential, which is frustrating, but I will get some fun out of it before probably forgetting all about it. Like my rambling? Check out other reviews from myself and my brother on our curator page: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/BrothersDimGaming

It's a little buggy and very rough around the edges, but it's got its own sort of charm. The setting is more unique than the usual fantasy fair, but the whole package over-all seems a little under-utlilised. Mechanically, things are also a little shaky, and the whole game feels like it could have used a little more time in the oven. Even so, it's a fun time. It's good, but not great. If you're a fan of turn-based tactical RPGs and you want a setting and mechanics that are a little different, give this game a go.

This game is a rare gem, even though there are others like it. It's true that it has gone through some rough stages, but if you like turn based tactics, this is a challenging title. Especially on higher difficulty, but unlike in the other similar games, the Ironman rules are not about the save scumming. You will die if you turn up that dial. That is certain. You will only have one save and one goal, to survive. Luckily they don't throw you in the deep end straight from the beginning, but you won't be able to feel the bottom under your feet either. The encounters will start to come in fast, but if you're into speedrunning, there is a sprint and you can find a way around the encounters. So anything is possible, but towards the end of the game, you will have to do some clashes. The game itself is a Bloodbornish tale set in medieval city and the game follows Souls kind of style, with mobs respawning and becoming harder after each encounter. The narrative side of the game is a bit lacking, but it's not a really bad. I've seen worse stories. Some of the people claim that the game is short. The answer is, anything is short if you run it on Easy. At the moment of writing I haven't finished the story. So in that sense, if you're looking a challenging game that can take you up to hundred hours to finish, check it out. You should note that even though it has gone gold, the story is still evolving and the devs are actually doing some work, plus answering questions in the forums. I am my hardest trying to give a harsh review and yes there are things that could have been done differently. The biggest strategy challenge in this game is finding yourself at the end game, because it can be a challenging to get right roles and keep your people alive. Do this poorly and you'll end up restarting the game or writing a bad review, when there is nothing really to give a bad reputation. This game isn't Fo76. Check it out, it might be worth of your time. And money.

UPDATED WARNING: Encountered a game-breaking bug after about 6 hours of gameplay that required me to load a MUCH earlier save and redo about an hour and a half to get back to that point without issues. First impressions: Disappointing and sloppy. Not worth $30. Some aspects seem rushed and not fully finished. I really wanted to like this but ultimately, it feels like a chore to play. One thing that is a huge plus: the ai plays by the same rules you do. The ai does NOT cheat! Finally a game where the ai is not given unfair advantages!!! It feels like a modded version of mordheim. Better or worse in some aspects. Much more forgiving though. I've completed the tutorial and the graphics, sounds, and style of the game is very familiar and nice. I was able to (kind of) customize my main character and I have been looting everything in sight to get some items and equipment. Update: I've continued playing and it seems like battle after battle and the quests are mostly fetch quests and just go here and hit a button and repeat. The combat is another story. It feels VERY strange and the AI is pretty odd... I had an enemy move back and forth between 2 tiles several times and then finally use an ability. The movement in combat feels a little clunky as well and it seems strange having absolutely no reaction attacks of opportunity for moving, so constantly, every single turn, it is you and the enemy repositioning for flanking attacks and just feels odd. Battles are not done well in my opinion. You can also not attack with melee diagonally, so it results in being DIRECTLY next to an opponent and being able to do absolutely nothing to them very often. [strike]The bite sound effect for dogs and the weird hound like monsters literally sounds like somebody taking a bite of a potato chip... Are you serious? Out of all the free places online to get royalty free sound effects... This is what was settled for. Yikes. I won't refund this for this purpose. Use my $30 to buy a new bite sound. For the love of god.[/strike] Grenades do like less than 10 damage. Characters have a base stat for health around 100 and you can get up to like 300 after a couple hours of gameplay. Enemies also have very high health... Grenades are completely useless. Another thing regarding combat: you can verify this for yourself by watching the store page videos: the enemies only engage you if within their radius which is like about 10 feet away. So you can run around them and they won't even chase or acknowledge you, despite them having a clear line of sight with you just down the street. That's not stealth, that's just odd. The alchemy system in combat with humours is cool in theory but honestly kind of poorly executed. It seems like combat is just dominated by playing a "match the colors" game and it's repetitive and honestly bland it seems like they were so infatuated with their own idea that the overuse of some wording and abilities became a little unbearable... You cannot move through your own units, so my characters often will have a visible 3-5 foot wide gap between them, yet my character cannot slip through so the turn is completely wasted unless I want them to do acrobatics and jump up on some debris first and then move forward 1 tile. Regular movement is weird and you can run up on top of barrels and boxes randomly and it ruins immersion. Enemies respawn every time you switch zones so you have to fight through the same area many times. Classes are not permanent and you can freely and constantly change classes to any that you've unlocked by finding all of their relevant gear. Characters and enemies have a huge amount of health (even on hard) and take A LOT to die. Even using the humours, alchemy, abilities, etc. To kill one dog, it took a molotov, 1 spear hit, 2 crossbow bolts, a throwing knife, and a sword hit from the back. All of those were guaranteed hits by the way. The interface is a bit hard to understand and not the most user friendly, but I've seen far worse. Some attacks/abilities have NO sounds. Very ruining for immersion. Some of the voice acting is awful, some is good. It took me 20 minutes to figure out how to rotate my characters in combat. It says press "R" but it DIDN"T say to click on them as well. I've encountered a decent amount of bugs in my playtime. Quests are terrible, boring, repetitious, and send you literally running back and forth several times (one quest made me go between 4 areas over 6 times, each time to talk to someone yet again) and it made me totally lose interest. First impressions 4/10 Could have been A LOT better. The developer met my criticisms with passive aggression on the forums when I asked questions about mechanics. No.

[h1]Gameplay: 8/10[/h1] [h1]Graphics & Sound: 7/10[/h1] [h1]Narration: 7/10[/h1] ✔️ Interesting and intricate turn-based tactical combat. ✔️ Engaging and deep progression mechanics. ✔️ Very cool costume design. ✔️ The narration is actually pretty okay, even though a bit on-the-nose. ❌ The onboarding is awful - the game just showers you with all the game mechanics right from the start, which makes them a bit difficult to appreciate. ❌ Some annoying bugs. They aren't too frequent, but when they happen boooy they suck. ❌ The environments are pretty monotonous and the enemies really lack variety. Overall, I recommend Black Legend because I find that it is a pretty nicely done turn-based tactical RPG that I personally had a lot of fun tinkering with. The downsides of the game essentially sum up to being a AA game that didn't have the budget for a lot of polish and variety, but they didn't prevent me from enjoying it.

Black Legend is almost a good game. Graphics are pretty decent, if not a little drab. And, the engine is smooth. I don't mind the high learning curve. Whether that's changing your class, adding cross class abilities, equipping /changing items, or even moving during combat. And, speaking of combat, it's not too bad, but definitely needs improvements. However, there are some design decisions that are just poorly thought out. The first is the healing; you can first aid bandage yourself for a few HP (which is a joke) and items only self heal (also, there's no confirmation so you may (will) inadvertently use a potion). The second is enemies (and players) can roam around the battles with no recourse; meaning you have no fear of attack of opportunities (because they don't exist!). This is obviously annoying when you have an enemy 3/4 boxed in and he just happily moves out of this and behind one of your characters to backstab them himself. Backstabbing, which btw, can be performed on the side (which makes zero sense). Additionally, bows cannot backstab (another weird decision). Finally, the thing that bothers me most is the respawning of enemies if you transition to an area. Going back to an area you just cleared only to be filled again is quite aggravating; considering you've probably lost units and used items. Replenishing them is not so easy. I do believe there's a good base here. There's potential for this to be a really good game. But, I doubt anything is being done insofar as QoL fixes. At $10, it's still hard for me to recommend in its current state. Sad though, because this had a chance to be a black sheep.

The game has a fun concept, it works ok enough to be amusing. However it has a lot of bugs that cause the game to crash, and some research shows the dev is just gone. None of these bugs will be fixed, so please Do Not Buy this abandoned game.

It is a good game with really varied synergies and options for classes (kinda the FFT system, but with weapons). Keept me entertained until completion. IF YOU LIKE TURNBASED GAMES; BUY IT! But it has some flaws! I Was playing on normal by the way -Quest systems makes you go from A to B to many times like a courier boy (at least everything is marked and properly signaled in the town, not in the map sadly), the back and forth becomes anoying at some point so no new game plus for me, I saw everything I had to see. -The shops make no sense, at the start everything just cost too much to buy/use, but after the initial battles you wont even need to use and just keep acummulating wealth. -Good starting experience, makes you manage your items and vary your classes, but at some point past the middle you gonna be over flowing with items after so many fights. -First boss its fine (in a normal progression), but the next ones feel underpowered when you finally reach them. -Leveling skills just require you to use them, so attack a few dogs here and there and lvl them up quick. -Ranged attacks felt way underpowered until you get the only good one in late game, happy trigger. -You can climb crates and walls with E, nobody told me! Easy to put in the first tutorial there... (ok im just nitpicking at this point)

I think when judging this game, it is best to keep expectations in check. This is from an indie developer and not a AAA one so there is a limited amount of time and money that can be put in a project. This naturally means some areas of the game will suffer and I am a bit more lenient regarding it. My thoughts: My first impressions of this game were actually very good. This is because I love the 17th Century period in general and was drawn to the turn based approach of this game. I have also wanted to play some of the classes present here in a game. The atmosphere of this game has been good along with how you can freely run around the city. The animations and designs, although not perfect and could do with some work, are still pretty impressive. I paid full price for the game and do not regret it as I do not find it disappointing or sloppy. I have not experienced any game crashing bugs or issues once during my game play and I believe I am coming up on half way through (insert loads of Cyberpunk flashbacks here). Further, as someone else noted the AI plays the same rules as the player. I have not seen it cheat or appear to have unfair advantages. I think it is unfair to compare this with XCOM. XCOM uses a percentage based hit system (which the developers play with for the lol's) whereas in this game the player will always hit. The amount of damage the player does depends on flanking or backstabbing, the amount of adrenaline built up (crit % chance) and which attribute it uses (Strength, Skill, etc). Combat wise I have been thinking for a few days why others would find it cheap, badly done, sloppy, boring or repetitive. The biggest reasons I can think of are for the first few hours scaling is difficult and neither the player nor the AI has any decent ways to build up humours and may also expect other forms of damage to outdo this system (in real life it may not take much more than a sword swing and pistol at short range). This game is based around building up humours as quickly as possible and then catalysing them to deal massive amounts of damage - note the AI is also trying to do this to the player at the same time. Grenades are based this way as well - not damage but to apply a humour or bleeding/blindness. For example if a tank has to run many squares to hit an opponent then get bleeding on him and let the DOT wear him down, or stop the annoying ranged units from doing so much damage by making them blind, or punishing the AI for grouping up by chucking a fog grenade. It is possible to see enemies (not bosses) before you engage them so I used this as a very simple form of Neverwinter Nights or certain MMO's where Wizards have to prepare their spellbooks before engagement. For example swap some skills out to ensure I can stack a load of certain humours on enemies that go deranged. As you go through the city there are sign posts telling the player where to go so I have never got lost. Repeat enemies or similar scenery makes sense to me and to the lore - it is in a 17th Century town covered with fog not in the middle of Tokyo in 2021 with loads of different districts and changing skyscrapers. Disadvantages: I found a few of the sound effects repetitive yet did not notice the potato chip until I read some posts in the forum and now cannot unhear. Also some of the dogs are silent when hit. Fortunately the latest patch seems to have fixed these. The audio levels of the people the player talks to are quite off putting and have not been tuned to fit in the game. I am not too harsh here because this is an indie game. On the plus side they do give it some emotion so at least it is not the same person monotoning by reading a script into the mic. Scaling is also an issue that I ran into. The first area really is the hardest as the mobs are slightly larger and the player has not levelled enough to cope with it. It really is around 10 hours before more skills can be unlocked and the player starts to get into the swing of it. More work could have been done with the scaling rather than just presenting a cliff and expecting the player to keep up. Then again I am happy with the combat so it must work on some level. Finally: I do not really do scoring or reviews (as is probably apparent). I just felt moved enough to write this. I do not regret playing it and will happily carrying on playing it into New Game +. I am very happy the developers are patching the game rather than leaving it.