Review: Fallen Legion+ Is a Fast Paced Good Time That Needs Just a Little Push

Platform: PC
Developer: YummuYummyTummy
Publisher: YummyYummyTummy
MSRP: $29.99

Fallen Legion+ is the PC release of the PS4 and PS Vita titles Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire and Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion baked into one collective title. They’re now represented as two campaigns in one title, letting the player experience the lament of the Kingdom Fenumia from two viewpoints.

One campaign follows princess Cecille, who is in the middle of learning of her father’s demise while on the road to pacify her newly inherited Kingdom of Fenumia. A talking grimoire, a relic passed down from her father, aids her in this goal. Legate Laendur, the other protagonist, is seen as a traitor to the throne while he seeks to redeem what was once promised to him. Both characters seem to be misinformed of the intentions of the other, making the story play out interestingly.

Both campaigns play in the same style, though their stories are different.

Being a combination of two games, Fallen Legion+ actually holds a lot of gameplay hours. The action takes place in a 2D side-scrolling action-RPG. Cecille or Laendur play the support role of a summoner and spellcaster, providing their teammates with a group heal, resurrection spell, and an enemy attack spell. Their allies, called Exemplars, are the embodiments of legendary weapons. Summoned by both protagonists, they represent the usual RPG classes such as tanks and damage dealers and come in a variety of ranged and melee. They have their attacks assigned to their own face button and can set off special moves if their attacks land on its designated space on the action queue.

Battle requires quick thinking as well as strategy. Having specific characters assigned to a button can be very helpful in keeping the action going. The main component of battle is setting off these special moves, as they cost nothing extra to perform. Mastering what special move to use when and knowing how to set up the action queue to set them off is the name of the game.

The game moves along in stages, but in between battles within these stages, the party rushes from left to right, having conversations to progress the story, or making quick decisions on how to continue, which will actually give bonuses and drawbacks moving forward. Considering both protagonists have stakes in the kingdom, many decisions made affect the surrounding lands. Beyond in-battle buffs/drawbacks, the decisions will also affect the morale of the kingdom. Choices that negatively affect morale may give sought-after buffs, while a morally sound decision could come with a combat drawback.

The pace of battles is welcome, but an inconsistent difficulty curve gets in the way.

Most of the game takes place in the battles described above. Exemplars have cooldown timers that show how many times they can attack. Some Exemplars can attack more times before needing to cool down, while some attack less, but recharge quicker or hit harder as a trade-off. The level of depth on paper is great, but often times, the pace at which the game wants you to go may encourage button mashing and getting free cooldowns whenever you can to avoid playing a more strategic game of patience.

With weaker enemies, button mashing your way through battle is surprisingly effective, but more difficult opponents will often trounce you, proving that the previous strategy is flawed. More difficult opponents aren’t a bad thing per se, but if the game took more time training you to use the other moves at your disposal, like blocking and countering, then besting a harder enemy may feel more satisfying instead of them feeling like they slam on the brakes of your progress train. This could be fixed with more intermediate enemies that offer a challenge higher than simple mobs, but less than a super difficult mid-boss.

Gameplay gets repetitive, but the story can keep you engaged long enough to finish.

Fallen Legion+’s gameplay is pretty simplistic overall. That’s not exactly a bad thing, given the game’s preference to “go go go!”. If the game followed a more traditional JRPG turn-based mechanic, it would likely not stand out from many others out there.

But because it is essentially two games in one, the repetitive nature starts to show pretty clearly throughout the second campaign, in whichever order you decide to take them on. If the two protagonists played even a little bit differently, the slog of playing two campaigns just to get the full story would mostly be resolved.

The story throughout Fallen Legion+ is clearly well thought out and the two campaigns differ enough to at least entice you to try both, even if you don’t end up finishing the second one. The art, while sometimes simplistic, looks charmingly hand-painted with a nice coat of animation to go with it. Ironically, the two protagonists are the ones lacking in this department. The Exemplars’ animations far exceed those of Cecille and Laendur. While most of the action is dealt by the Exemplars, it still would have been nice to see more life brought to the action sprites of the people we’re supposed to pay the most attention to during story scenes.

Overall, Fallen Legion+ is a solid mix of traditional JRPG and fast-paced action. While currently only out on PC, a Nintendo Switch version is planned, and honestly this game seems more fit for Nintendo’s handheld/console hybrid with its quick nature and ability to pick up and put down. The simplicity of the mechanics with the ability to shut off the screen and put it in your bag for later would be a big draw in that sense.

Lastly, the MSRP for Fallen Legion+ is $29.99. This would seem par for the course on Switch, but as a currently Steam-only release, that price tag seems a bit high. The mobility of Nintendo Switch would justify a high price like that, but without it, it seems more like a $15-$20 adventure. It’s definitely a game to look for during a sale, however.