A couple of years in the past, FuRyu launched The Alliance Alive HD Remastered for Swap—an uprezzed port of an awesome RPG that was sadly missed by most as a consequence of releasing on the 3DS after most gamers had already moved on to Swap. But The Alliance Alive was not the corporate’s first launch on Nintendo’s previous handheld; that honor belonged to The Legend of Legacy. This preliminary launch debuted to a divisive reception in 2015 (we awarded it an 8/10 in our evaluate), however evidently the Alliance Alive remaster did nicely sufficient to warrant giving its predecessor a second likelihood with The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered. Although we might nonetheless say that is the weaker of the 2, FuRyu did an awesome job of sharpening up this ignored 3DS dungeon crawler; it’s not a stellar instance of this style, however followers will make sure you discover loads to like right here.
Legend of Legacy doesn’t function very a lot of a narrative, which can come as a disappointment to many gamers. After selecting one among seven potential characters, you journey to the mysterious island of Avalon—a just lately found landmass that rumors say is the house to a grand, historic treasure. Every of the seven has their very own causes for coming to Avalon, and as you discover its varied dungeons, you’ll slowly uncover artifacts revealing bits of lore detailing the civilization that when thrived there, the occasions that finally led to its downfall, and the distinctive methods through which the seven protagonists are tied to it.
We’d’ve appreciated to have seen extra of a plot than the comparatively sparse framework provided right here—even titles within the Etrian Odyssey collection have discovered methods to introduce enjoyable and fascinating narrative components with its player-made groups—however the lore bits are nonetheless a cool means of telling a narrative, reminding us considerably of the way in which the Chozo lore is dealt with within the Metroid Prime collection.
The characters, nonetheless, are one-dimensional cutouts of assorted archetypes you’ve seen in loads of different RPGs, and their relationship to one another and the general story of Avalon feels surface-level and incidental. The narrative right here may use some work, then, however one silver lining right here is that it largely stays out of the way in which of the gameplay.
Legend of Legacy follows a dungeon-crawling format that’s paying homage to one thing just like the Etrian Odyssey franchise—there’s just one city, and also you usually return to it for provides and upgrades in between dives into a close-by dungeon of your selection, with every try normally leading to your social gathering pushing slightly deeper. Every dungeon options distinctive theming and has set layouts, and a giant a part of the development is centered round you mapping out each ground of each dungeon so you may promote the maps again on the town for some massive payouts. It is a easy, however rewarding gameplay loop, because it appears like there’s at all times one thing new so that you can do, whether or not you’re returning to city to scoop up contemporary gear along with your winnings or operating again right into a dungeon with a tuned-up workforce that’s ready to tackle its challenges.
Fight unfolds in a typical turn-based format, however it integrates an fascinating and dynamic method to social gathering formation that provides it a extra tactical edge. Social gathering members stand in one among three rows, with every giving totally different momentary stat buffs, comparable to bolstering a personality’s motion velocity or protection. You may program just a few formations within the menu forward of battle, after which swap between them as wanted throughout a combat, a bit just like the Paradigm switching from Ultimate Fantasy XIII. You will have everybody in assault mode for some time, earlier than switching your tankiest character to the entrance to dam a giant strike, then swap your healer to the again on the following flip to allow them to patch everybody up shortly. Most fights don’t rely upon actively partaking on this system too deeply, however there are sufficient robust encounters to maintain you in your toes.
Including extra choices to think about, there’s additionally a persistent elemental system that impacts the sorts of actions you’ll select in battle. Primarily, the air round you is at all times charged with a combination of 4 components, and the one which’s most strongly represented will give fight advantages to actions and characters that match it. You ideally wish to compose a workforce upfront to make the most of probably the most frequent components in a dungeon you’re focusing on, whereas nonetheless leaving your self some choices for when the fundamental steadiness shifts. It’s a cool concept in idea, however we felt it led too usually to being compelled into singular workforce setups and methods, as selecting something moreover the optimum compositions could make fights unnecessarily robust.
Legend of Legacy is remarkably forgiving in the way it handles well being restoration, although, which feels prefer it makes fight each simpler and more durable in several methods. Your complete social gathering is absolutely healed after each combat, and even when somebody goes down in battle, you solely must forged a therapeutic spell to carry them again—no want for a particular revive talent or Phoenix Down. The one downside is that they lose extra max well being each time they get knocked out, and this may solely be reset to full for those who head again into city to sleep on the inn.
In some ways, this makes Legend of Legacy very simple, however it additionally provides the designers license to throw some robust enemy encounters your means, which ends up in a really inconsistent-feeling problem curve. You’ll be marching by way of a dungeon, leveling any foes that dare cross your path, solely to stroll into one other space and discover that now the boot is on the opposite foot and also you’re having to revive a number of members of the social gathering just a few instances in each combat. It may be irritating, then, once you’re making respectable progress solely to hit a wall that comes out of nowhere.
Character development is dealt with in a really related option to the SaGa collection, which is to say that it’s totally random and largely past the participant’s management. There’s no such factor as expertise or character ranges right here, as a substitute finishing battles will see your characters periodically gaining everlasting boosts in particular stats, comparable to HP or Assault. The identical goes for increasing a personality’s skillset—generally you’ll degree up a person talent, growing its effectiveness in battle, whereas generally you’ll unlock a wholly new talent for no matter weapon that character is wielding.
This random improve system isn’t essentially higher or worse than the usual development that the majority RPGs make the most of, however it’s fascinating the way it provides the continued development of a given dungeon a a lot totally different really feel. Grinding to battle a boss is successfully a pointless technique right here, because it’s totally doable you may undergo just a few consecutive battles and don’t have anything to indicate for it. However, you’ll generally end a combat towards a typical trash mob and have every character achieve a number of stat and talent bumps abruptly. Typically, development nonetheless strikes ahead at a tempo that’s roughly equal to what you’d count on out of a typical development system. This variable ratio reinforcement schedule ensures that each encounter, from boss to grub, feels equally rewarding — or unrewarding, maybe — given that you just’re hypothetically at all times just one extra combat away from one other main breakthrough.
So, fight is satisfying and character development is ok, if random. Our greatest criticism with all that is that Legend of Legacy shortly exhibits you that it’s a one-trick pony—it repeats its gameplay loop with none main additions or alterations for a number of dozen hours till it simply ends.
Dungeons are solely superficially distinct from one another, sometimes sharing most of the identical enemy varieties and doing little to introduce distinctive gimmicks or degree options to distinguish them, whereas the low enemy selection implies that your methods and workforce compositions not often have to be adjusted between fights as soon as you determine the ‘proper’ setups. On this sense, Legend of Legacy is nice as a ‘second monitor’ type of sport that you just play whereas solely partially paying consideration, however prolonged periods with it will definitely turn into tedious and monotonous as you undergo the motions with out novel content material to spice issues up.
Visually, Legend of Legacy has acquired a pleasant decision bump from its humble origins on the 3DS, and whereas it’s nonetheless clear that this can be a title that originated on a lot weaker {hardware}, the artwork type is powerful sufficient that the outdated, chunky fashions don’t really feel too misplaced on Swap. There’s a painterly, watercolor type to the visuals that appears particularly nice on a Swap OLED, whereas we appreciated the Paper Mario-esque means through which bushes, boulders, and different dungeon components will spring up throughout you as you roam a dungeon.
Apart from the visuals, there aren’t actually every other modifications or updates to Legend of Legacy, and this lack of iteration feels a bit disappointing. Legend of Legacy has aged comparatively nicely within the seven years since its first launch, however FuRyu missed an awesome alternative to handle among the criticisms of that authentic launch, comparable to including some new enemies to carry extra selection. For higher or worse, that is successfully the identical sport that launched on the 3DS, simply cleaned as much as give it that HD sheen.
Conclusion
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is an honest, although unspectacular, dungeon crawler that does job of defying some conventional RPG tropes. Mechanics like the fundamental system and the randomized character development assist this stand out from the pack, whereas its easy dungeon-crawling format carries the fundamental, however satisfying gameplay for dozens of hours. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take very lengthy for this one to really feel prefer it’s overstaying its welcome, and extra may’ve been finished to sand its rougher edges. Legend of Legacy is probably not the very best instance of this style, however it’s nonetheless an pleasant launch for the dungeon-crawling cognoscenti.