Title: Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Developer: YummyYummyTummy, Inc.
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software America/Arc System Works (Japan)
Release Date: May 29th, 2018 (NA)
Review copy provided by Nippon Ichi Software America
This is a game created by Spencer Yip, who some may know as the founder of the popular gaming news site Siliconera. This is actually a two-pack of games previously released on PS4, Vita, and Steam; Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion, and Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire. What’s this game like and is it fun? Read on and find out!
The game select screen
Fallen Legion is an RPG… sort of. It’s more like an action game with… time-based elements, that looks like an RPG at first glance. See, the combat isn’t turn-based or features traditional action combat. There’s no experience or leveling up, so that’s a major RPG element absent. For the gameplay, you have a set of three characters, or Exemplars. And two characters in the front each have an A button above one and a B button above the other. Each said button has three sections called Action Points (AP) around said button, and that’s the amount of attacks you can use before you have to stop and auto recharge your AP gauge.
You wail on your opponent by pressing A and B buttons, but again it’s not turn-based, but rather time-based. That’s because the action is always going on. If you do nothing, you’ll just get beaten. You have to time your attacks to make the most of your AP. Another thing is that holding ZR and then A or B will use up your full AP gauge to use a more powerful attack, so use that when you can. Your third character in the back is your mage who is able to unleash an attack, heal your two characters, or revive them should one die. These are selected by holding the D-pad up or down depending on which ability is which and pressing the X button.
A battle screen
One other ability is the block function which is activated by timing a press of the L button when an attack is about to hit you, and it’ll bounce back at foes. An issue is though with multiple enemies coming at you, it can be very tricky to get the timing down consistently. Multi-hit moves (such as a laser beam) can be blocked by holding the L button while it’s used however, so that helps. Another gameplay element to note is the choice system that pops up sometimes between battles where something happens and you have to choose what to do about it. Here you’re shown three cards, each with a button below them and an effect associated with each card.
As mentioned before, Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory is a compilation of the two games Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion and Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire, each starring one of two characters. The story in both is sort of linked together, acting simultaneously. Think of it like the Hero Story and Dark Story in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. The game’s story structure is basically divided up into sections on a world map, and have a pattern of a mission, then a story segment, then another mission, and so on. The story is told via still images against a background most of the time, though some bits of dialogue will occur during missions also. There’s also next to no voice-acting aside from the main character of each game having inner monologues to themselves, almost acting as the narrator. Funny, there’s a “talking” book, why not have THAT be the narrator? Anyway…
The results screen
Visually, I’m actually impressed. The artwork is very similar in style to classics from Vanillaware, makers of Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. The game is entirely 2D and the game moves in a side-scroller fashion. The animations during battle are actually pretty good as well. Something comparable to the Ubiart games (like Rayman Legends) I think, with that “puppet” look to them. It’s a shame that cutscenes are static portraits aside from expression changes.
Music-wise I was also impressed. Some of tunes reminded me of Kenji Yamamoto’s works in the Dragon Ball series which is high praise since I adore his work in the Dragon Ball series so much. The minimal voice-acting sounds perfectly fine. There are voice clips during battle by your Exemplars so that helps liven things up a bit. Sound effects sound just fine. I just wish the game was fully voiced, it could’ve made a big difference to make the experience much more appealing.
One of the times you have to choose an action for a bonus effect
All in all it’s a decent game even though I didn’t find it that memorable or anything. It’s not something I feel like coming back to unfortunately. The time-based stuff is a bit hectic and outside of the nice art, it’s nothing that special in my personal opinion. A thing to note is it’s literally in indie project which explains why it does feel light, especially with the minimal voice-acting, so the budget had to have been small. What IS really cool is that as mentioned above, this was the creation of Spencer Yip, the man in charge of the popular Japanese gaming news site Siliconera. Seriously, that blew my mind. I may not have been terribly impressed with the end product, but I AM impressed that someone who’s most known for a small gaming website creating a decent game when all is said and done. Huge props from me for that!
You’ll Love:
+ The art looks nice, especially the creatures. Basically everything has a nice style and clear effort put into it.
+ It’s got a unique gameplay style with the time-based system.
+ The voice-acting present sounds perfectly fine.
+ It’s two games in one.
+ Music’s pretty damn decent.
+ Has screenshot and video capture support.
You’ll Hate:
– Voice-acting is very minimal, only present as monologues for the main characters and during battles.
– The time-based gameplay is hectic and its hard to block when you have enemies coming at you at differing paces.
– Cutscenes are just static images on a background.
– Not the most recommended for the price personally.
Score: 7/10
