Sword Legacy: Omen Reviews

From one of the trailers, some of the narration was: "...and use renown to unlock over 70 skills. Will you turn Fergus, the fearless barbabrian, into an axe wielding beast? ...have Gwen the devious thief, infiltrate the shadows?" notice there isn't any "Or do this" to either of those characters? Well there's a reason for that, yep, you guessed it... So, it's a bit simple overall, some important characters turn out to be pretty useless in combat (I'm looking at you Uther...). As it seems damage and range trumps everything in my play through so far... But... the artwork is great and even though the story is really daft (and the dev's really need some geography lessons) it's not the worse written when it comes to dialogue and the combat is still pretty satisfying.

Sword Legacy: Omen was a very mediocre experience. Not bad enough for me to leave it unfinished but surely unimpressive and at points disappointing. The game is your typical square-grid Tactical RPG with no elevation. 8 fixed characters with different skillsets and a very small and linear FFT-like world map. It's a short game with zero voice-acting and unappealing dialogue writing, the UI and controls are somewhat unresponsive and feel unpolished and clunky. Mission-wise the game is not very varied, random encounters are basically versions of the same exact fight every time and enemy types barely increase throughout the game. Character progression is weird: you only unlock usable skills and passives (no level-ups, no stat increases outside gear, no gear impact outside stat increases), you can unlock more but you can only equip 4 skills at all times (shared between active and passives), buying skills cost a shared pool of points gained as XP. While I would love to support any small developer attempting this genre, I can't recommend this game as it is. Not even on sale.

17% of people have made it as far as I did after playing for 90 minutes. That's because everything about this is hard - hard to like, hard to enjoy, hard to understand the dev decisions. All characters share a collective pool of experience, so you have to choose what to level. The bad news is you only have 4 'ability' slots (which includes passive abilities) per character. The good news is the abilities are so bland and boring that you won't care. Every fight I was in - which was a lot in 90 minutes - was a simple choice between a character basic attacking, or waiting to attack of opportunity enemies within range. That's it. Character variety is basically non-existent since everyone has only one special ability, many of which are completely useless. One fight included me chasing an archer, unable to attack him, as he ran and shot, ran and shot until I finally cornered him. But don't worry about having no health, the ways to restore health are a nightmare. You can either backtrack to an inn (which forces you into random encounters - not a great way to heal - or you can go to a campsite to use a consumable rest item - except this too triggers a fight. So if you want to heal - shut up. The only good way to heal is to brutally and slowly farm these random encounters. But in a game about fighting, I absolutely didn't want to fight, which says a lot.

I'm recommending this game, with a few caveats: 1. It's short. I was AFK a bit when I was playing it, but I would guess it's around 10 hours long. 2. It's very linear. You play one scripted scenario after another, and you don't really have any choice in the missions you take, nor are there any sidequests. 3. It's a bit on the easy side. If you can live with that, it's a fun game with a very pleasing art style that most turn-based tactics enthusiasts should enjoy. You form your party of four from a pool of 8characters. Most of the character roles are fairly well defined, but I found there was some overlap between the Berserker, the Lancer and the Blacksmith. You only have one character who can pick locks, and only one character who can disarm traps, so they'll probably form two of your party for every misison. Combat is turn-based, with team turns. The player's team always goes first. Characters spend action points to use their abilities and move. Special abilities either have cooldowns or are passive abilities. A character can have 4 abilities (including passives) active at any time. During their turn characters can also use consumables, there's no limit to the number of consumables you can use during a turn. However, the game's economy is fairly tight, so you can't really abuse the consumables and upgrade your gear. I would describe the combat as being a little puzzle oriented, like Druidstone or Blackguards. I.e. there are environmental hazards and abilities for moving enemies around that you can use to make most battles a lot easier. You can probably brute force most of the encounters but, if you use the tools the game provides you, you should be able to win most encounters without taking any damage. The story was okay. I found the humour fell a little flat at times, but the overall tone is sombre so there wasn't too much humour. The game isn't voiced and they did have one character with an accent, reading his lines was kind of painful since they typed out his altered pronunciation. There were also a few passages in Latin that could have used a translation. It's not a very authentic retelling of the stories of Uther Pendragon but, if you're familiar with the stories, you know the broad strokes of the plot.

This is a good game, quite satisfying, and I'd like to recommend it, but the difficulty ramp is just a little too painfully quick, and there's no setting. Mid/late chapter 2 is harder and more random than I want to deal with, and starts turning into "Do it again, stupid" gameplay - try the fight, discover from losing what enemies you're up against, do whatever you need to do to optimize your party against them, and then try again. So much for fun. That said, I'd happily buy another game in this genre from these developers to see if they've learned anything. In this style, for recent games with better balance, I might recommend Masquerada.

Game has a major bug in a core mechanic which is completely ignored by the Devs, making it virtually unplayable if you care about content. Journal entries vanish every time you load a game and to make it worse, Lore is a collectibe information related to the core mechanic of the game. No single patch since launch, meaning devs give no S about it.

Sword Legacy Omens is a fantasy XCOM/Final Fantasy Tactics game. The objective is to complete a linear quest from start to finish. It's buggy but I chose to give a positive review. The game is fairly short with only 10 levels to complete, this includes the tutorial. Gameplay-wise, TAB to switch between heroes, 1234 to choose skills, mouse for movement. To use Items, load them onto the quick bar and right click. You play on a Action Point system, where each hero has a set number of action points to use for movement and skills. Typically, Action Points range from 6-10 points per hero but you can temporarily boost them with potions like Nightshade Extract. There are 2 modes in the game, Exploration and Combat. There is no stealth, except in combat unlike Mutant Year Zero. In Exploration Mode, you move around as a group. As long as you don't click on a trap, you won't set it off as the AI pathfinding will find a way around it. Having a Thief is extremely useful as there are doors and chests that need unlocking. All other heroes are pretty redundant. Disarming traps with the Blacksmith is unnecessary as you can walk around them. The other Heroes have no exploratory skill whatsoever. Each hero has 4 slots for skills, you can mix and match a combination of active and passive skills to suite whatever playstyle you fancy. There are also 4 item slots per hero which are quite important as items give you additional Action Points. Willpower is a peculiar system. If you use Willpower, you get +2 Damage, +2 AP but this causes your Willpower to fall, making you more susceptible to mental issues like Fear (where you run away), Despair (lose all AP) and Bersek (attack the nearest unit to you, including friends). Conclusion, try Sword Legacy Omen but with a caveat. There are a lot of bugs. I was about to give it a negative review due to the bugs. This is one of those rare games where I've completed all achievements. Oddly, only 10.9% of all the buyers of Sword Legacy actually completed the game. Final Fantasy Tactics is a little better but Sword Legacy has potential to get better due to Exploration mode. Note: Firecast Studios is a game studio located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with Italian founders. Designers Bruno Lanzarotti, Rodrigo Correa and the researcher Claudio D’Ipolitto are the company founders. +55 21 99146-6933 [h1][b]PROS[/b][/h1] 1. DM Ending I liked it. Tropish but unexpected and cool. 2. Liked the Gorlois Story I liked the dark twist on the old Arthurian Fable of old. The original version was Uther Pendragon got Merlin to change his form to Gorlois so that he could bed Igraine. Uther wasn't a hero. 3. XCOM Fantasy More game realism than XCOM. There's still Overwatch but none of the fakeness of simulated modern weapons. It's hard to do modern weapons with proper range and damage. 4. Exploration Mode Abilities I liked that you needed the Thief to unlock chests and the Blacksmith to disarm traps (Personally, I felt that the trope was for the Thief to do both). But I found no other special abilities. Flint was supposed to search for secret paths but it only happened once. [h1][b]CONS[/b][/h1] 1. Bug - Crow Movement It doesn't fly but it's supposed to fly. Instead the limit of moving up to 10 AP, the game shows you movement up to 24 AP for the Crow. 2. Bug - Blacksmith Liquor Bomb on Smoke Instant game jam. 3. Bug - Flint's (Archer/Keeper) Arrow Aiming If you stand at the corner of a L2 platform, your Overwatch is limited to only 2 directions from where there are footpaths. 4. Bug - Blacksmith Wall Doesn't Work on Lower Levels from High Ground Yes, you can't summon a wall from high above. 5. Bug - Units Don't Move There was 1 map where you had to open the gates to let the units in, Mercia. The one with the mage. All the archers didn't move or attack. Only 1 single archer moved. 6. Repeated Map System Inn, Apothecary, Blacksmith, Black Market. Every single town is the same. 7. Stupid AI I played cheese the whole game. Firecast Studio most likely isn't a big fan of XCOM as it allowed the old XCOM cheese methods into the game. Move snipe, move snipe, then snipe, snipe, snipe with Flint. 8. Items Very rarely used. Maybe some Nightshade Extract, Healing Potion and some Scroll of Invisibility but that's it. [h1][b]NEUTRAL[/b][/h1] 1. Old Nan's Medicine What's this for? Where is Disease? 2. Hibernia What's that for? [h1][b]SUGGESTIONS[/b][/h1] 1. Cleanup the Bugs I was about to give it a negative due to the bugs. 2. Add Permanent Armour Icons Defence +2. I should see armour icons x2. 3. Add Temporary Health If you have a spell that gives additional hitpoints please show the difference. White bar for temporary hit points. 4. Smarter AI At the very least, run to high ground, cover your back for archers. Go into Overwatch mode. If you already know how to code this, just set difficulty levels. Easy, Normal, Advanced. 5. 3x3 Trap Zone So your units won't walk around the trap, which is stupid 6. Hidden Traps Traps are meant to be hidden, right? I'm sure you know this. Makes the Blacksmith a lot more valuable. 7. 3 types of Damage Physical, Magic and Miscellaneous.

Very good game. From the previews, I was expecting a fun but simple/generic tactical adventure and it is so much more. The story, loosely based around characters and locations related to the arthurian mythos, is servicable but nothing earth shattering. Thankfully, we are here for the gorgeous art and the tactical battles and boy do both deliver. I love the art style and I am impressed on the battle systems and their difficulty. No one is reinventing the wheel but this is a gorgeous, very well thought out tactics game, in the vein of final fantasy tactics. Perfect price point too, for a change. If the devs are reading this, I do have one negative, which is the frequency one looses control of the characters during battle. I love the idea of the characters affected by battle lust or fear mid battle (it was a wonderful addition to the battles in wasteland 2 for instance) but not every five seconds because then I just feel that all my strategy becomes worthless. I would advise patching the frequency of these status effect. But overall, well done!

Sword Legacy Omen is a story focused adventure with turn based combat, loosely based on the King Arthur myth. Wessex have invaded Mercia and kidnapped their princess. Meanwhile, the rest of Britannia is under threat from a plague which is creating zombie like creatures. The player controls Uther Pendragon, Merlin, and a few other characters on their quest to save the country. Combat takes place on maps that are divided into a square grid, and each character spends action points to move and attack. The player selects four characters to take into each mission, and there are eight characters to choose from. Turn order is similar to Xcom, where the player moves all their characters together, and then all of your enemies will move. As you complete missions you’ll earn renown points which can then be spent to acquire new abilities for whichever character you choose. Each character has eight attacks and three passives, but you can only have a total of four abilities equipped for each character. The variety of these abilities allows the combat to be tactical, and enjoyable. Most characters can push enemies back a couple of squares, which deals damage if they hit something, and can instantly kill them if they fall off ledges. Merlin has a fireball, and he can also use a teleport to switch places with an enemy, useful for quickly moving an enemy archer into melee range for the rest of your party. Fergus, the barbarian, has an attack which, if it gets a kill, will refund those action points so you can attack again. Gwen, the thief, can throw daggers, has a chance to poison enemies, and also use a flurry attack where she just keeps stabbing an enemy until either they successfully block, or die. If any of your characters loses all their health, they’re unavailable for the rest of the mission. After the mission, they’ll be “gravely wounded”, suffering negative stats until you rest. Fortunately, one of your characters is a priest who can heal allies during combat. You can only save at checkpoint markers, usually located about halfway through each mission, but I didn’t find this to be a problem. The one negative that I can mention about the combat is that the AI is kind of dumb. I quickly realised that enemy archers don’t reposition if you’re out of their range, they just pass the turn. However, melee enemies will blindly follow you all the way across the map, allowing you to easily divide and conquer, rather than fighting everybody simultaneously. When not in combat, you can explore the maps to find loot, and bits of lore, although the maps are quite small. You’ll find weapons, armour, rings, gold and potions. Between missions, you’ll occasionally visit towns where you can buy and sell loot. The story was fine, but there aren’t any dialogue choices, and there’s no way to change how the story plays out. There’s also no voice acting, apart from some cutscenes that have a narrator. Overall I did enjoy playing Sword Legacy Omen, and I would especially recommend it to fans of the Banner Saga trilogy, if you’ve finished playing those games and are looking for something similar. It took me 11 hours to complete, so I’d say a full price purchase, or a small sale, would be fine.

So close to finishing this, when I realized I was playing just to finish, and I'd stopped having fun hours ago. It's not a terrible game. The art style is fantastic, and the combat shows potential, but after a few hours you will have seen everything this game has to offer, and then it becomes a mediocre slog to the finish. The story is of junior high quality, which is par for the TBS course, I get it. The problem is that it tries to borrow from Arthurian legend, and fails miserably. There is little to no immersion into the political or religious struggles of post-Roman Britannia, and early Christianity is purposely omitted from the plot, even though monks, priests, and monasteries abound. I wasn't expecting the mists of Avalon, but if you're going to ride Arthur's coattails, you should do it some justice. The gameplay is very restrictive and linear. There is no exploration, and no need, due to the shadowrun-like loot system that reveals everything when you enter an area. Within the first hour, I had purchased the equipment I've used ever since. All the shops have basically the same inventory. Character variety is limited to fighters; there is only one ranged unit, one healer, and one lockpicker. Almost everything about this game, including the soundtrack, is repetitive and underwhelming. Once your appreciation for the artwork wears off, it gets stale rather quickly.