Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory Reviews

Fast and yet strategic, Fallen Legion Rise to Glory actually caught me by surprise by it's "minimalistic" interface yet mechanically deep gameplay and beautiful presentation despite my wrongful expectations. Basic gameplay is very easy to get into; button masher style game where one button corresponds to commanding a party member to attack, while also building combo bar to unleash their specials. But later on enemies start to get stronger and/or numerous and have to mind your parry timings. All this is presented with an approachable learning curve however, and the timing is rather lenient, so you'll eventually get there. Aside of the satisfying gameplay you also have an amazing soundtrack and visuals accompanying your entire adventure. Pretty amazed how much production value it has. You're also offered lots and lots of choices that affects not just the battle you're on (creating a little roguelite-ish experience), but also the entire story; and even secrets; allowing some fresh view of the same tried story of two emperors fighting for the throne. That said, as an RPG where you expect some kind of power progression, whatever progression you have felt rather minimal, and equipment pieces in form of gemstones can be rather tedious to grind since you have to do one stage completion to get them and even then whatever effects they have are randomly generated. Characters only level up (or actually, evolve) through story events, and even then they're locked behind choices, so you can easily screw your playthrough. The mechanical combat system is not without it's faults, as sometimes combat can get rather messy with enemies scoring chains of attacks and you can only parry once in a while; trying to get back your footing can be difficult. Enemy variation is also an issue, resulting in a repetitive feeling. Playing in short bursts is recommended. Overall the whole satisfaction comes from the anticipation of what happens next from your series of choices and the good feeling of scoring perfect blocks of increasingly tricky attack behaviors. After all, only the truly skilled one can become Emperor.