Oh, how much I want to lead a digital mercenary squad through adventures with white blows. This is the ultimate video game. You feel both like a hard cooking warrior and a strategic brain. So I totally agree with the premises of Black Legend - a game that asks you to combat a worship in the streets of a foggy European city. Unfortunately, although there are intriguing tactical battles to lead, Black Legend is a game in which style undermines the substance.
The first thing I noticed about Black Legend is how much it's a hideous game, but I did not want to allow it to train. There are a multitude of fun tactics games to find if you are willing to ignore some graphic gaps, and I fell in love with some very primitive games after giving them a chance. So I was ready to be convinced, even if the first things I have noticed were the palatable color palette of the Gray and Brown Game.
After a while with the game, however, I dubbed. You see, the ugliness is twice the head in planning and execution. Black Legend takes place in the city of Grant, which seems to be in medieval France. This means a lot of Gothic architecture, cobbled streets and sharp iron fences. It is an extremely overrepresented aesthetic in video games, and Black Legend does not do much to convince you that she is approaching in a new angle. But, in addition to the setting without inspiration, you must overcome the fact that all this sounds like a creation of the PS2 era. There are worlds on which their foundations are constructed in this way as an intentional approach to the material. But here, it really seems to be the limits of time and money.
And it's a shame because I dig the story of Black Legend. It is impregnated with scary alchemy stuff. The chief of the perverse worship that you are fighting is called Mephisto, and his grip on Grant is incredibly supernatural. Even if it is rendered in low resolution textures, it's a story that some daring pulpful visuals could back up. A touch of color could be nice. Perhaps ostentatious hats. Everything to help me remember to have played this game. In the current state of things, I find myself to look at every detail to remember that yes, I have the names of all the people and all the places.
Where things seem a little better for Black Legend, it's in real battles. This is a tactic game in turn, where the positioning on the grid is essential. You get bonuses according to the direction in which your target is turned, and you can increase this bonus by surrounding the wicked with your own men. There is also a well implemented work system, which allows your characters to learn the special movements of different classes. After a few levels of control, you can mix and associate an archer at a mercenary and build a hybrid fighter.
In addition to this system is the most intelligent innovation of the game - the combat alchemy. Each attack is coded by color (red, black, white or yellow) and has a cool name on the theme of alchemy as "rumbado" or "citrinitas". If you touch a target with a "catalytic attack", you can combine the different alchemical elements to inflict tons of damage. There was a bit of learning curve, but once I understand how to read color-code icons, I found myself playing a lot more intentionally. You must make sure you have several complementary colors represented in your party to maximize efficiency - a choice of fantastic design! More importantly, this system was strong enough to change the way I built my party and developed strategies.
But again, things that should be a superficial job to undermine the smart design. I enjoyed the games with less sophisticated animations, but Black Legend is fighting a chore by drawing his long and repetitive combat movements. I liked stacking different colors triangles to gain huge amounts of damage, but I found myself to avoid fighting to move to the next sequence. It's not because of a problem with the fight, but because I knew that the fighting would slow down the game to a ramp.
The rise of independent PC games has brought a new golden age for this type of turn-based strategy. This environment has led to more experimentation in the kind that I would have thought possible. In more difficult times, I may have recommended Black Legend. This is the kind of game I would have received as a gift by a well-intentioned parent who knew my predisposition to the frightening medieval stuff and the stimulating strategy. And as a child without much money to spend for games, I would have neglected Black Legend's defects and devote an insane number of hours.
But now there are other strategy games in turn. You can gather a squad of Méchas, a clan of mages, an elite military unit or even a pig and a heavily armed duck. You can fight extraterrestrials, fishmen, soldiers, pirates and existential terror. What I mean is that I like Black Legend's ideas, and I applaud developers to stay loyal to their vision. Although it is an environment with fierce competition, and I was quick to feel my attention elsewhere. Black Legend will undoubtedly have his fans, but magic is just not there.
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