Developer: YummyYummyTummy, Inc.
Release date: July 18, 2017 (US), July 25, 2017 (Europe)
Available on: PS4
Side-scrolling RPGs can be a mixed bag. At their worst the characters are your typical RPG tropes and the story the same old, same old- save the world, or the kingdom, from the evil wizard/sorceror/demon god. Some of the best, like Vanillaware’s Dragon’s Crown or Odin Sphere rise above that with strong, likeable characters and an engaging story. These are the footsteps that Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire, from developer YummyYummyTummy, follow in. Fallen Legion gives us the likeable warrior princess Cecille, taking over as Emperor of the land Fenumia, who seeks to save her kingdom from enemies within and without. Among her foes is the Legatus Laendur (whose tale is told in the companion game, Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion, on the Playstation Vita), a man with ruling ambitions himself. Cecille also must contend with the Council of Princes and the March Congress, who also have their own plans in mind for the land. Guiding Cecille is longtime family advise Maurice, who does his best to influence her in a positive manner.
It’s a well done tale, with branching paths based on decisions you make during the course of the game, even if on the surface it is a familiar one. And then we find the twist. Cecille is granted power to call to her side Exemplars, warriors of various talents, through the art of Soulmancy. Giving her this power is a book known as Grimoire. Grimoire also guided her father’s reign, and at first seems to be a powerful ally. But when pages are stolen from Grimoire, he informs Cecille of his actual task- he needs souls to devour. Not just any souls, but very particular ones, and he guides Cecille and her party across the land through sixty stages occurring in various environments- castles, forests, deserts, and caves. The quest for these souls and Cecille’s coming to terms with both herself and Grimoire’s true nature makes the story a bit more than your standard fare, and it keeps you engaged for the fifteen hours or so that it will take you for one playthrough.
Visually, the game is pretty to look at, and environments have a fair amount of detail while maintaining a simpler anime style. The game’s music fits the visual style well, harkening back to arcade games, with mellow themes for those stages that are more informative and and more jazzed up music for combat. There’s a lot of the game world’s history thrown at you which you can read in between stages by accessing the menu. The menu also allows you to view moves you have learned, check on your exemplar’s stats, view traits caused by attacks, and equip gemstones. Gemstones can add perks to your party, such as increased hit points or having a critical strike refresh your mana. Only Cecille can use magic, and she’s controlled by the Triangle button. Just pressing Triangle allows her to launch an attack that hits all enemies. Pressing Triangle with the Up button on the D-pad allows her to use Soulmancy and resurrect a fallen Exemplar. Triangle plus the Down button allows her to heal the party. All abilities require a gauge to fill. Gauges are filled by landing attacks on enemies, though at times they seem to fill slowly.
Your party is controlled by the Square, Circle, and X buttons. Again, each member has a gauge to fill, but unlike Cecille your Exemplars can attack even with a partial gauge. L1 is used for blocking. A well timed block can stun an enemy or launch a projectile attack back at them. Unfortunately, blocking can be inconsistent, and it can be quite tricky to time your blocks right, especially when facing multiple enemies at once. Failure to block can see your party heavily damaged, and if you can’t get Cecille’s gauges to fill quickly enough it’s Game Over. For those who like a harder challenge (the game is no cakewalk), there is a One Life mode. You’ll initially start off with three Exemplars and meet during your travels. These others serve as mini boss fights, and once beaten you can then rotate them into your party. Buffs are awarded at the end of each stage, and are used automatically. It would have been nicer to equip each Exemplar individually, but the game doesn’t allow for that. In the beginning, button mashing will work for combat, but it will only get you so far. Later stages and bosses require you to use a bit more strategy.
The thing is, until you come up against a boss, you won’t be sure of what strategy to always go with. Some really require some trial and error, using different party members or equipping different gemstones. I altered my party from time to time, but my go to set up often was Longinus (pike), Zulfiqar (sword wielding knight), and Apollon (archer). There are some odd difficulty spikes in the game, as it doesn’t progress from easiest to hardest. You can hit one boss and it may take several tries to beat while the next goes down easily. Later general battles can also ramp up in difficulty out of nowhere. Boss battles can be tried again until you need a break or gain a victory, but losing a general battle means you restart the stage from the beginning. Going to the world map to change party members or gemstones will also have you restart the stage. Some battles get very chaotic, and it takes effort to keep an eye on everyone’s gauges, block precisely, and keep everyone healed up. The final battle is a multi-stage affair, and can really give your fingers a workout. It’s a fun battle system, but it’s not without its frustrations. In later levels I did encounter some lag in control input as well as some framerate drops. Nothing game-breaking, but the lag did lead to some cheap deaths.
In all, Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire proves to be a fairly fun action RPG. While your Exemplars don’t have any real personality, the other characters you meet besides Cecille are likeable, and the Grimoire makes for an interesting, twisted villain. The game throws you right into the narrative, but reading the lore in the menu and paying attention to your choices helps to keep things straight. combat is generally fun and frantic, and you’ll need to use both defense and offense to get through the game’s sixty stages. Choices affect the world in terms of what buffs and items are awarded and who may give you aid. The game is not without its issues. Blocking can be inconsistent, gauges can be slow to fill, and you have some odd difficulty spikes. But overall, the fun combat and the story had me engaged enough to overcome the game’s faults, and for fans of games like Dragon’s Crown and Grand Kingdom, this is one to check out.
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