Something New: Re:Legend

Something New: Re:Legend

So a few years ago I backed a game called Re:Legend (my best friend totally didn't influence that decision at all). After a few setbacks including blowing past all of their goals and adding a bunch of time onto development and even their office getting robbed, the game finally came out on Steam Early Access.

Since this is about as new as a game can get, here we go!

Re:Legend is an Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG, Simulation that was released on August 30 by 505 Games. It's developer, Magnus Games Studio, was actually helped out by Square Enix during development so they got to take advantage of Square Enix's connections (like working with the Video Game Orchestra). They don't actually have an ESRB rating, though, whether that is because it's so new or technically an indie title, I'm not sure. 

The game is, at its core, a farming/RPG game like Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon but 3D and with more of a focus on monsters and multiplayer. There's farming, obviously, fishing, Mundus (the monsters) taming, Mundus fighting, mining, woodcutting, crafting, NPC... romancing (if you can call giving someone a rainbowfish every day for a month romancing), and much more. 

I got to play a very early beta a few months ago for about five minutes so this was basically the first time I'm playing Re:Legend. Before I start, I want to say this is still in Early Access, there were a few bugs I ran into on my adventure. I won't talk about most of them since the developers are already working on fixes and they seem super active with getting back to everyone on the issues. I also played with my best friend since there was such a focus on multiplayer. 

With that out of the way, let's get into the good stuff.

Controls and Learning Curves

I hate to start off on a negative for something I've been looking forward too, but alas, I must. For the most part, the controls are okay. Standard WASD for movement, F is to interact and left click is to attack. That was the easy part. What was not okay is how the tutorials can pop up while enemies are attacking you so you quickly skip through it and don't catch the bit about how to equip a weapon... if it was there at all, I'm not sure. 

Luckily, my friend was able to help me since she already started her own game yesterday. Even then, I still had difficulty equipping my bow because apparently if you accidentally put it in your hot bar it just refuses to do anything. Not a great way to start. After that snafu, it was okay. 

However, it turns out you have to click/push every time you do anything there is no holding down, which is just carpal tunnel inducing. Also, there is no scrolling through or clicking your hot bar so you have to hit the number key to swap items, which for me is the worst since I can't see my keyboard normally. 

I loved fishing though, that was awesome. I love the control scheme on that. Instead of a weird 'keep the fish in the thing' it's more equivalent to red light, green light. Unfortunately, no tutorial popped up for it, or if it did it wasn't when I approached the fishing spot and forgot. So, my friend taught me how and complained about how long it took her and her cousin to figure out. 

Graphics

If you love the anime/manga but 3D art style then you need to look at all the art and screenshots of this game. I absolutely love it and everything is either adorable or awesome looking. My friend complained about the lighting, but I didn't really see anything wrong with it. If you need any convincing, look at this dragonewt. I love it. 

It's colorful and the models are fantastic. Everything just feels really alive and with a game like this, it really works. Also, one of the creatures I had to talk too was a giant ghost jellyfish with a mustache. If that's not amazing, I don't know what is. 

Audio

As I said in my introduction to Re:Legend, the music for the game was done by the illustrious Video Game Orchestra. If you don't know who they are, they are the ensemble behind games like Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. What I heard while playing ranged from some epic adventure music to some island peppy stuff... I'm not sure if I'm describing that well, but I have no idea what instruments they used for the island one. 




All in all, the music fit really well and the sound effects were just as good. Everything seemed to match well. Nothing really stood out, though, in the SFX department. Finally, all of the audio was way too loud on startup, however, that's a pretty minor issue. 

Story and Characters

So, in my two and a half hours of game time, I really didn't get far in the main story partially due to a little bug and also because I'm pretty sure the story is supposed to take a while. What I did see was pretty interesting, though. Your character starts by getting pushed off a cliff and waking up with amnesia and at night is haunted by a ghost creepily whispering about some corruption while you sleep. 

The characters seem pretty fun so far. For some reason, there's just a penguin family among the village you wake up at, not sure what that's about but the dad of the family was pretty chill. The kids not so much. One called me an oldie and asked me if I used my "oldie powers". That's a first. 

There are quite a few characters so I won't comment on each of them, but overall their character designs look good. Hugo has pink chesthair in the shape of a heart... pretty sweet. According to their bios, they seem pretty standard to games like these so there's that. 

Overall Gameplay

Overall, I had a fun time playing with my friend. There's a lot to do in this game and we really only scratched the surface in the time we had to play. It actually feels more like Mabinogi to me (an MMORPG I used to play) than Stardew Valley. I also still haven't figured out how to tame another creature and that's kinda important for this game. 

I also want to talk about one bug that happened really fast. On one of the first main story missions, you're sent out to talk to some Magnus that were fighting with each other. It ends with you fighting one of them and we ended up doing that boss fight seven times. Seven. Then we gave up and found out later that it's broken on co-op right now.

Really the only function that I felt really good about was fishing, oddly enough. The farming is a little janky since it's a diagonal grid based off where your character is looking, my dragonnewt doesn't really do much, and I'm not really sure where a lot of stuff is even with a map. 

We'll see I guess... It's promising. 

Changes

Heh... this feels a bit unfair to go into since it's Early Access. Obviously, I'll avoid bugs since those should be ironed out soon. 

That said, I would say what needs to be changed the most is the controls and tutorial system. I already mentioned what I had issues with, but I'll list them anyway:

• The ability to hold down buttons
• The scroll wheel changing hot bar item
• Clicking changing hot bar item
• A reviewable tutorial
• Maybe using the mouse to farm instead of character direction

With those, I feel like this game would feel 100x better than it does right now.

Yay or Nay

Maybe. Hard maybe. If you like games like Harvest Moon or Stardew (or any of the other games of that category) definitely check Re:Legend out. If you're not a fan of works in progress, maybe just go on Steam and hit follow or get their newsletter to see their updates.

I really feel like the potential is here and Magnus Games does appear to be very active. When my friend posted the bug report about the boss issue, we got a response less than three minutes later. 

If this does sound like a game you're interested in, and you are okay with playing works in progress, then it is on sale right now until the 6th. 


So yeah, that's Re:Legend.