Legion: Legend of Excalibur

I was a little shocked, but very excited, to see that Midway Games was releasing a game about Arthurian legend. I like to see game companies stretch their horizons, and Gauntlet was the closest thing I could think of to compare to this upcoming title. Sure, Gauntlet was fun, but it was an arcade game – how would this new direction fare? Legion: Legend of Excalibur sets out to wrangle with three hot genres: action, RPG, and strategy. I really don’t know of too many games that successfully pull this off, and like many other games which boast of this combo, Legion ends up feeling mostly like action. It’s that familiar console RPG-like experience (like the wonderful Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance), which really doesn’t bring in real RPG other than for collecting weapons and items.  As for strategy, it’s all about RTS when it does appear, and most of the time there will be so much going on you won’t really have time for strategy – other than pulling your people out of foolish situations – but more about that later…

The game starts off familiar enough – with you playing Arthur, still Kay’s (your brother) squire. After some brief training, you must quickly come to action – oh yeah, and pick up that sword out of the stone. Instantly, you are transformed from a peasant like costume to a glorious and heavily stylized suit of armor and it’s up to you to take on Morgan La Fey’s armies which threaten all of the good-hearted world. The game is divided into single campaigns in which you’ll be responsible for not only your own fighting, but all group members you collect along the way. The basics of fighting doesn’t seem so hard in the beginning – you have a simple sword attack which can be intensified with some well-timed button pushing. Every time you see the flash of light from your sword near the end of the stroke, you’ll need to press the button again to perform more damage heavy combos. This works well, until you get about 6 guys around you (which doesn’t take long, believe me), and then you’ll find it hard to see what attacks you can do and how much damage they are doing. Granted, you will see floating damage points above the heads of your enemies, but when the melee gets huge, you probably won’t be able to keep track of it all.

Making matters worse is a very “Vampire: The Masquerade” type of group mentality. In case you haven’t had the misfortune of having to control somewhat testy ally AI in games such as these, let me try to explain: They’re just not that bright! Many times your allies will do some pretty foolish things (like diving headlong into a pack of enemies even though they’re weak). It would have been nice if you could have controlled your allies default actions a little easier so that they would stay on guard or be a little more conservative like many PC RPGs. Instead, they will just dive in and with the lengthy healing process, you’ll probably lose fighters more often than you would like. There’s nothing more annoying than having allies that are more work that help – and you might just wish you were the only player on the board. Sure we all know it’s not realistic to be able to heal instantly like many games allow you to do, but this is fantasy, and it just makes the game frustratingly hard.

Last, but not least, adding to the “scream-and-throw-the-controller” factor is the fact that there are no save points (also eerily like Vampire: The Masquerade, but at least they made a patch for that). You have to complete the whole campaign from beginning to end without fail, or you will have to start the entire campaign over from the beginning. Because of the intense difficulty of just keeping your team alive, this may deter some gamers who might otherwise enjoy the challenge of completing a whole field at a time.

Graphically, the game appears to have the same sort of ambience as the Gauntlet type of fantasy done previously by Midway. Morgan La Fey is your typical pixel vixen (perhaps even a bit of a caricature), and all the cut scenes have a smooth feel to them typical of an arcade-like cut scene. The play fields are also pretty solid, with nothing to complain about. If anything, things just seem a bit understated or basic. The music is kind of the same thing – just there, enough effort to contribute to a pleasing environment, but nothing to “ooh” and “aah” over. The only thing that does stand out, in the tradition of a sore thumb, is the voice acting, which is pretty sub-par. Like Legend of Alon D’Ar, sounds and war cries get repeated so often you’ll want to plug your ears.

There have been very few recent success stories for the Arthurian legend and/or console RPGs ( **sighs** ). Not that any of them have been bad, mind you, just a little bit on the dull side. Legion, for as much as I waited patiently for this game, seems out of place in the Midway line of games – and I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that the phenomenal arcade gaming company was walking on thin ice with this venture. With weak AI, somewhat repetitive combat, and a very loosely Arthurian based plot, I would say that only Arthurian fanatics should give this game a rental knowing full well that they may or may not be disappointed.

Gameplay: 6
Gameplay, for as much as it tries to be many genres at once, mainly boils down to carefully (or frantically) played action. I like action, and I like strategy, I’m just not sure that the way they were combined in Legion will appeal to very many people. On one hand, it’s hack and slash

Graphics: 7 
Cut scenes have a very arcade-like, but smooth texture – much like Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. Gameplay graphics are also suitable, although a bit underscript. This game’s not about the graphics, although it doesn’t do a bad job either.

Sound: 6
You know how they used to tear up Kevin Costner’s “English” accent in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Well at least he didn’t sound like a poor cast for a low-budget Shakespearean play. The voices are very repetitive, as are the sound effects. The music seems ambient at first, but also seems to skip like a broken record after you’ve played the same field too many times.

Difficulty: Hard
This game is partially hard because of the nature of the gameplay, and partially hard due to the fact that it’s very difficult to control your troops unless you’re somehow familiar with intense blends of action and strategy together. Reality freaks might actually like the fact that healing is near impossible during battle, but people who are looking for the fast paced console fantasy experience will feel like a fish out of water. It’s a very unforgiving system with no real save points between campaigns, and when you take into consideration the AI demands A LOT of attention (dare I say too much?), you’ll find yourself playing through a whole field too many times for comfort.

Concept: 7 
It’s another attempt at bringing the Arthurian legend to the gaming world, although honestly it’s got the equivalent of Arthurian legend you might find in a Disney flick. Not that taking creative liberty is a bad thing, mind you, but if you go into it with a zealous background on the legends, you’ll find it wanting.

Overall: 6
Gaming is supposed to be fun, not frustrating. Too often I found myself cursing at the unusually hard to manage team attacks and screaming as I started the whole field over for the 100^th time. Patient gamers, up for insane multi-tasking, may not find too many problems with this game. But you have to ask yourself… why should I work so hard to have a good time?