HomeReviewsFallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants Review

Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants Review

Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants

Developer: YummyYummyTummy
Publisher: NIS America
Platforms: Xbox Series X (Reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $59.99 USD – Available Here $89.95 AUD – Available Here

Overview

When it comes to developing an interesting combat system, making a side-scrolling active turn-based RPG is something of a unique choice but it is one that YummyYummyTummy chose to take when it came to their trio of Fallen Legion games that were released over the last few years. Eventually these games saw a Western release through the Vita and PlayStation 4 though now NIS America has brought the games together into one simple package in the form of Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants. With the titles arriving bundled together and for the first time ever on an Xbox platform, is it worth checking them out?

Story

Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants is something of a unique bundle as the first game is actually a combination of games on its own. Originally released separately, Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory tells the tale of either Legatus Laendur through Flames of Rebellion or Princess Cecille through Sins of the Empire. As such when players begin the game they will select which storyline they would wish to pursue through a fairly short runtime with Laendur’s storyline following the rebel building up an army to fight against the ruling family and the dark influence that the empire is spreading throughout the land while Cecille’s story follows the struggle of a girl who has just found that her father has passed away and must now try and hold the land together with a freshly inherited nefarious talking grimoire serving as her guide. Regardless of which side players pick, they will be sent down a pathway that will pit these two against one another with players seeing the war from different perspectives all while making various decisions along the way.

The story for Rise to Glory is fairly straightforward and interesting in an overarching sense and features quite a lot of detail and political intrigue, especially since players can see unique elements happening on both sides of the tale, but the way it is told is incredibly thin and a bit too bland for its own good. This is likely due to the implementation of choices that are made between combat sections that serve as ways to either raise or lower the morale of the nation while also providing combat benefits. These choices range from encountering a rioting group of peasants and choosing to either destroy them, imprison them, or reason with them or selecting on whether invading barbarians should be ignored, confronted and repelled, or even paid off. These will provide little bits of dialogue and provide players with a sense of the world as a whole but offer so little detail that it is a rather poor replacement for the overarching plot that it draws so much focus away from.

Fallen Legion Revenants is its own separate title and is set in a world where the land has become so corrupted that the living have taken refuge in a castle floating in the sky, leaving the ground occupied by monsters and those driven insane by disease and miasma. Here players once again play as dual-protagonists only this time telling the same tale with the political side of things being handled by the still living Lucien who seeks to overthrow the corrupt and overbearing ruler of the castle Ivor while combat is handled by the recently executed Rowena whose concern for her imprisoned son and hatred for Ivor who she was once the lieutenant of has kept her soul from moving on and instead lingers behind as a powerful spirit. As such, Rowena can travel the land with the help of summoned spirits of her own to take on any enemies that might block her path.

Once again, the overarching storyline is fairly interesting but players will likely be left scratching their heads at times wondering just how certain events come to play as well as the fact that, despite being about manipulation and the overthrowing of a corrupt ruler, the writing isn’t particularly strong enough to capitalize on the setting, often leading to some rather dull exchanges despite a strong setting. As for how events end up occurring, this is primarily due to the fact that players will make various choices and actions while playing as Lucien in the castle that will have various effects on how the story will progress with there being multiple endings available and the possibility of killing off NPCs should players make a series of poor choices and often there is no actual sign that a choice may end up affecting things until events play out. In fact it is entirely possible to wind up with an early ending should players make certain decisions and while the game itself isn’t too long it can be a bit annoying to find out how choices play out with little actual explanation. 

Gameplay

As for how Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion: Revenants play, they mostly handle the same with the latter attempting to refine and add more mechanics to what was offered in Rise to Glory. Players in Rise to Glory will find themselves assembling a team of up to three primary fighters with their commanding unit in the back and then traveling across a 2D screen before encountering an enemy that must be defeated.

The fighters all make use of an active time battling system where each character will have their attacks mapped to a face button and a meter that fills over time. When pressed, that character will attack and players can chain combo attacks together and unleash powerful skills at the end of each combo as long as they aren’t interrupted by an enemy attack. As the main fighters deal damage, the commander will gain mana that can be used to cast various spells such as attacking enemies or healing and reviving their fighters. As enemies attack, players must make use of a blocking mechanic by pressing LB to either reduce damage or time it properly to parry that attack, leaving an enemy defenseless and potentially reflecting an attack back at the opponent.

As players advance through a fighting stage, they will occasionally trigger aforementioned story events that will spawn three cards with choices on them that will offer various bonuses. These can range from a single-use item to temporary buffs for characters or even restoring mana with every choice restoring health in some form. As mentioned before, while players will want to make choices that will affect the story the way they may want, it will often be at the expense of selecting a useless card unless they simply select beneficial fighting choices and pay for it later when the story progresses. This leaves players with something of an annoying conundrum that gets in the way of both taking advantage of every opportunity in battle and trying to shape the story’s side events in some form.

Unlike a standard RPG, players will not level up after fighting but instead obtain various gems that can be equipped to provide various bonuses such as special attacks for certain characters, more health, easier blocking, etc. and it is worth noting that players will often obtain various bonuses that will strengthen characters on their own, though there is apparently no way to see which improvements players have earned. In fact, a variety of combat mechanics are left unexplained by the game’s initial instructions but thankfully an in-game glossary does describe most of what players will need to know.

As for Revenants it still makes use of the three fighter system with Rowena serving as the commander with face buttons still making use of attacks and Rowena having access to magical attacks. However a number of additions have been made to the system, ironically to the detriment of the simple but effective system that was in use in the previous game. Now not only is a small grid system in use for combat that adds some complications such as special moves only attacking certain squares and some characters having limited reach but the spells have also been modified. Rather than restore mana as a whole, players will now earn Mana Orbs that can be used to either trigger a fighter’s special skill or use one of Rowena’s spells, splitting what was previously a simpler system into a more complicated affair that ultimately still plays nearly the exact same way.

It is worth noting that Revenants does have one element that wasn’t too prominent in the previous game and that is an incredibly random sense of difficulty. Often players may make their way through stages easily only to encounter a boss that will put their skills to the test completely or wipe them out. This will make players rely heavily on making sure they know the proper timing for blocking/parrying blows and while a difficulty option is available, it still can feel rather rough even on easier difficulties. This is also due to the fact that blocks/parries now have a short cooldown, punishing those who block a bit too early. 

Players can also obtain a large amount of equipment that can be equipped to their primary characters as well as adjusting other various elements of their party as well unlike before, adding a few extra RPG elements to the game. Often during stages players will swap from Rowena to Lucien back at the castle who will be given a task, often with a time limit, to either make a difficult choice or uncover some secret that can then help Rowena’s progress. As mentioned earlier, this is where many story changing choices can be made and given their importance it is rather rough how rushed and undetailed some of these segments can be. It is also worth noting that these segments still see players walking around the castle and talking to characters so it is a bit strange that they weren’t implemented between stages rather than in the middle of often difficult fights.

Visuals & Audio

It must be said that with Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants arriving on the Xbox platform for the first time that the games ran perfectly fine on the Xbox Series X. The titles share a fairly similar 2D aesthetic though it is worth noting that the medieval and standard fantasy elements of Rise to Glory is quite appealing at times while Revenants often can feel a bit washed out by comparison thanks to its bleaker setting and focus. It is worth noting that while action does flow well, the actual portrayal of a fight can occasionally look like a mess making it difficult to tell exactly what is going on during more heated skirmishes.

With the release of this set of games players will have the option to listen to either the Japanese voice track or the English dub with the English cast handling their characters well enough though it is worth noting that only primary story dialogue is voiced and even this isn’t always the case. The soundtrack does feature a nice collection of music across both games with the boss music of Rise to Glory standing out as one of the best between the titles.

Overall

By offering what basically amounts to three titles in one, Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants is a fairly solid offering for NIS America. Rise to Glory stands out as the better of the two games as it offers a more realized game thanks to its dual perspective and enjoyable combat compared to Revenants lack of depth and addition of unnecessary combat features that appear all the more prominent when played alongside its predecessor and odd choices with Lucien. That being said, both titles suffer from not taking as much advantage of their setting as they should, especially in Revenants, holding their storylines back heavily while also having a variety of issues unique to each entry. 

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Summary

Average
6
Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants offers solid combat and nice presentation but lack of a well told story holds this collection back from being great RPGs.
Travis Bruno
Travis Bruno
After playing games since a young age and getting into anime a bit later on its been time to write about a little bit of everything.
<i>Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants</i> offers solid combat and nice presentation but lack of a well told story holds this collection back from being great RPGs.Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory / Fallen Legion Revenants Review