Developed and published by Warcave, Black Legend is a brand-new turn-based strategy RPG that appears to be heavily inspired by the art style of Bloodborne. Unlike traditional turn-based titles, Black Legend takes a unique approach to its turn-based combat with unique combat mechanics not usually found in the genre anymore. Fighting the cult and beasts prowling the streets, your task is to take back the city and help the local resistance strengthen their foothold in the city. This is our review of Black Legend in which we explore a beautiful city and take on a bloodthirsty cult while trying to unfold the mystery behind the fog.
Black Legend is set in the fantasy city of Grant where you are in charge of a group of mercenaries. After your arrival in the city, you join with the resistance who is trying to take back the control of the city from a deadly cult. The city of Grant is shrouded in a mysterious fog and your goal is to find the reason behind the fog and ultimately take the city back from the cult. The city of Grant is a 17th-century city where you will find plenty of nods to the architecture of Northwestern Europe. The whole city is open to you where you can fight with enemies, take on side quests, look for loot and also play through the main story of the game.
Black Legend features turn-based combat however in its current state, it is not very refined. This might be because of the fact that you have to fight the same battles so many times that it eventually becomes boring and repetitive really fast. The game gives you the option of skipping combat as well with stealth if you manage to remain hidden from your enemies’ line of sight. While moving around, all your party is demonstrated by your main hero however when combat starts, you can place your entire party on the battlefield in different grids. Since most of the battles do not offer too much space, this deployable area is often limited and since the characters cannot slip past each other, it means that sometimes some of your characters will be blocked behind and until the ones at the front move, they cannot take part in the action.
After the placement of your characters on the grid, you can start fighting with the enemies. Similar to most turn-based combat titles, each party gets to either move, use abilities, items or attack the other one within their allowed Action Points. Once the Action Points have been depleted for that character, it switches to the other party which then can play their turn according to their own terms. This then continues until either the player wins the game, or the AI wipes out all members of your party. For the early part of the game, the combat seems a little dull and boring however once you have leveled up enough and unlocked more skills and better weapons, you can start unleashing some really powerful attacks on your enemies. One of the unique mechanics featured in Black Legend is the ability to land Humor on your enemies.
While Black Legend is a rather entertaining game, there are a few in-game mechanics that desperately need some more polishing. One of the things that you will notice pretty early in the game is the lazy delivery of the dialogue. While this is acceptable for the audio bit but the text stays on the screen for an absurdly long period of time even after the dialogue has been completed and when you click yourself to move on, sometimes it auto-changes causing you to accidentally skip a dialogue. It would be better if the text changes quickly to the next dialogue on its own. There is no dialogue speed setting in the options to change this as well.
Another thing that I found tedious in the game is the enemy respawn timers. It is completely fine for enemies to respawn in RPGs because they allow you to farm them and gain XP to level up however if you have to move around the same area multiple times for the same quest, fighting the same enemies in the same location becomes really hectic and repetitive. Since there is plenty of backtracking in Black Legend, this means that every time you go back and then come through again and then have to go back to a particular area, you will have to fight all of the battles again and again and again. It is fun at the start but later in the game, it just ruins the tempo of your quests and story.
The combat is made better with the inclusion of 15 classes in the game that you can unlock by finding and collecting their gear. Each of the classes comes with its own weapons, items, and skills. Skills are divided into active and passive skills. Active skills can be learned if you keep using them in the game and once learned, you can use them with other classes as well. Passive skills are locked to classes and if you change classes, they will be changed as well with the new class ones. You can switch your classes on the go once you have unlocked them giving you an edge over your competition. The more you use a particular skill, the more proficient you become with it, and ultimately, it becomes part of your arsenal permanently even if you change your weapon or class. Black Legend also brings the concept of Alchemy where you can apply colored Humor to your enemies.
These include Rubedo, Nigredo, Albedo, and Citrinitas. Combining them together allows you to land a different type of Humor on your enemies and once it has been applied, you can match pairs for some of the most powerful Catalyzing attacks in the game that deal massive damage to your enemies. One unique twist here is that your AI can use these mechanics as well, so the game offers an equal battlefield to everyone. Overall, the AI of the game is both dumb and good. In most situations, the AI will make you cry while sometimes the AI will use the dumbest attacks and simply ignore different attack opportunities that you end up thinking that the AI is just dumb. It is hanging in the middle at this point. You can also take advantage of some additional damage to your enemies if you position your characters right and flank enemies or use backstabs.
Visually, the city of Grant looks really haunting and indulges you to explore more of it. The levels do not look too different from each other however the art style of the game is just brilliant. The foggy streets and open areas present a haunting look and if this was a first-person or third-person camera game, it would have been really scary. The enemy design is really good as well however I would have liked some more crazy design for non-human enemies. The cult enemies are the most generic human enemies in the game and also the most boring ones to fight in the game. You can also interact with different hiding NPCs if they have a lantern glowing outside their doors. This is a huge nod to Bloodborne and I loved it. The streets are also filled with loot for you to find so exploration is somewhat rewarding.
Coming to the technical aspect of Black Legend, the game plays out really well and there are no visual or technical hiccups in the game. The frames remained steady throughout all of the sequences and I did not notice any major visual glitch that would make me say that the game is not optimized well. I can easily say that the game is optimized pretty well and runs fairly well even on older systems. The audio and the soundtrack design are pretty solid too and the music picks up the pace and slows down according to the in-game action setting up the mood for incoming battles or action sequences. Visuals are not too demanding, but the game looks fairly good with all sliders maxed out. With controller support included, you can choose between the mouse and the keyboard or a controller of your choice to play the game with. Most of the bugs in the game have already been patched however the developer is working on the title post-launch to make it even better.
Black Legend is a great title in its current form but some of the mechanics require a little more work and Warcave is fully aware of it. Since its release, the developer has released multiple updates for the game patching multiple issues that players pointed out and even added a new feature or two as well. Another patch for Black Legend is already in the works and I was going through what we can expect from the upcoming patch before writing this review and I was happy to see that the developer is bringing additional and brand-new features to the game that some of the fans want in the game. This shows that Warcave is serious about the game and it has the potential of becoming a solid turn-based combat game in the future.
Final Verdict:
Black Legend is set in a beautiful fictional city that is atmospheric and reminds me of one of my favorite games from the previous generation. At this point, the game requires a little more polishing when it comes to combat and some other mechanics but overall, Black Legend is a pretty decent turn-based combat game. One of the best aspects of the game is that Warcave is actively listening to fan feedback and rolling out regular updates which address these issues and problems with the game. If the developer keeps going like this, Black Legend will eventually become an excellent turn-based fantasy title however at this point, I will say to wait a bit and let Warcave release some more updates for the game. Additional features and fixes are on the way and they will make Black Legend a lot better. If you want to jump in the game right now, it still offers plenty of action and a beautiful yet atmospheric city to explore. If you love turn-based titles with a bit of fantasy thrown in the mix, Black Legend is certainly a must-play title for you.
Final Score: 7.0/10
