No Colors In The Grey
HIGH Great concept.
LOW Overcomplicated, tedious combat.
WTF Does leveling up even do anything?
At first glance, Black Legend resembles nothing so much as a turn-based, squad-based Bloodborne.
Grey, moody environments, chill fog permeating the land, character designs featuring clothing and weaponry from a bygone age — and underneath it all, a creeping evil threatening townspeople huddling within their homes.
Considering the popularity of FromSoft’s blockbuster, the demand for this kind of content is clear, and touching on these themes is a smart idea. Sadly, the reality of Black Legend is that it manages to evoke a similar tone and mood, but struggles to deliver much past that.
Much like the start of Bloodborne, a mercenary arrives at the gates of a city stricken with disease and evil. After a quick tutorial and introduction to the systems, the player meets up with the resistance and receives their first quests.
From this point, the player (and their three companions, who suddenly appear from thin air) are set loose in the city and must make their way to the objective. The paths available are somewhat gated by locked doors and there’s no map, so the player must consult street signs posted at nearly every intersection to figure out which way to go.
While en route, players will run into groups of enemies roaming the city’s alleyways and plazas. When close, battle initiates and the player can deploy their team however they wish before beginning a fight. Combat is mostly standard for the genre with characters moving and taking actions according to how many points of each type they have. However, there is a twist.
Based on the medieval concept of ‘humours’, the developers offer a system where specific attacks imbue enemies with a color, and when those colors complement other colors, the damage dealt by a follow-up strike is amplified. For example, if an enemy is hit with a ‘red’ attack and another teammate hits them with a ‘black’ attack, red and black combine to make the foe extra vulnerable.
There are multiple colors and combinations, but in practice I found this to be an annoyance more than anything. Without using color-coordinated attacks, enemies shrug off too much damage. On the other hand, trying to ‘paint’ them correctly takes multiple attacks and multiple turns, which only adds a layer of fuss that makes each encounter to drag on for too long. Enemies can also use the color system and have no difficulty leveraging it, so it’s common for the player’s characters to take huge amounts of damage after being ‘painted’. I appreciate the attempt at spicing up combat, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
Another aspect of Black Legend that isn’t great are the characters themselves. As personality-free ciphers, the game encourages players to switch weapons and cross-train skills so that multiple characters have a suite of interdisciplinary abilities – the sniper can use swordsman skills after mastering them, and vice versa. In practice, this means doing a lot of menu management and item-swapping between troops, and the result is that every character acts like like every other one. It’s just another layer of cruft to chew through.
Black Legend also stumbles when it comes to presentation. I’m guessing the game was developed by people sitting six inches away from a large PC monitor because everything is murky and tiny on my normal home console setup. When in foggy areas, the graphics are basically black and white – not great for readability. The onscreen text is too small, the indicators for color vulnerabilities aren’t very readable, and in general, the entire game feels like it needs a big boost in graphics and UI. For most of the time I spent with Black Legend, I had to move my chair and physically sit closer to my TV than I normally do, and my eyes still got tired after just an hour or so. Online Casino Betway. Play your favourite online casino games. Roulette, Blackjack, Slots. In this link casino players will find fair go casinos review with bonus codes and much more, including pokies. Get your lucky charms and try your luck in Fair Go Casino, the best place for online and live casino games! In FairGo, everyone gets their jackpot! Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of traditional casinos. Play slots and live casino games or bet on sports. No online casino would be complete without a Slot machine or two – or several hundred!
I love the idea of a turn-based gothic adventure like Black Legend, but concept alone can’t carry it, and there’s little excitement to be had with these dull characters and this tedious, overcomplicated combat. I appreciate the attempt, but I’m going to abandon this city to its fate.
Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Warcave. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/X, and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Intense Violence, Blood, Partial Nudity, and Language. Honestly, the M feels like a bit much. The combat is very standard hack-and-slash stuff that I didn’t find to be graphic (especially considering the art style) and I don’t recall any excessive language. Perhaps partial nudity is a factor past the part that I played, but I recall none during my review period. Seems to me like a T, at best.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Text accompanies all dialogue in the game, but the text cannot be altered or resized. There are no audio cues necessary for play. This game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.
Transformers fan. MOTU stan. Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQIA. Anti-fascist.
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