Heroes of Legionwood: Age of Darkness (AoD) is the first of a planned two-part series by Dark Gaia Studios. It takes place in the same world as Legionwood and Legionwood 2, but far into the future when the Darkness has overtaken the world. Players need not have experienced the previous iterations to understand Age of Darkness as the history is inessential to the current game. I had a great time traipsing through Legionwood 2’s cruel battles and was eager to see if AoD would surpass its predecessor.
At the beginning, the player gets to choose his own hero: male or female, one of six available classes, and stat point allocation across six traits. Since most RPGs usually have a designated “starter,” I was pleasantly surprised. The Darkness has consumed most of the world, turning every living being it touches into the walking dead. Only one island is left safe from its clutches, but this sanctuary, too, is slowly succumbing. Two opposing factions exist on the island: the Dark Disciples, whose followers believe Gaia intended the Darkness as a punishment and welcome it; and the hero’s camp, whose inhabitants are trying to defend against the Darkness, should Gaia favor them. A dying friend has discovered an item that will likely aid in their fight against the Darkness, but he was unable to secure it. Hence, the hero and his friends set out to find their last vestige of hope.
Much like the previous games by Dark Gaia Studios, AoD offers numerous decisions with consequences. Village houses and shops occasionally contain treasure chests that can be opened, but the hero is chastised for stealing from the innocent if the contents are taken. Four or five tone options are available in dialogues: confident, serious, casual, snide, and occasional class-specific retorts. Characters may react differently based on the replies chosen. However, since it’s hard to extrapolate based on a single word, I found myself disagreeing with the revealed sentences at times, particularly in more emotional exchanges. Occasionally, difficult decisions are thrust upon the player when allies disagree, like deciding if the team should try to steal an item from an uncaring moneybags or traverse a dungeon to obtain it. Conversations can eventually trigger special cutscenes wherein teammates express their support or disdain for your actions, providing distinct repercussions for the player’s choices. Thus, the numerous branching paths are enticing, even if not perfectly executed. Regrettably, 10 hours of a traditional RPG isn’t enough time to build deep characters or complex stories, though AoD creates a considerable foundation for more to come. Perhaps the second half of the series will flesh out the true implications of the hero’s choices, as the last battle seemed to imply the possible loss of an ally as a result of dialogue selection.
Battle systems are typical turn-based fare based on the speed of the characters and enemies. As teammates level up, they gain five stat points and one action point, giving the player much room to customize each playable unit. Stat points are divvied up among Attack, Defense, Magic, Magic Defense, Speed, and Luck. Action points can be allocated to two things: Techs and Talents. Techs are abilities each specific class can learn while Talents are out of combat skills that benefit the party or individual, such as being able to recognize and disarm traps or increasing individual experience gain. In battle, characters can attack, spend SP to cast Techs, or sit tight to gain 50% of their max SP back. Since SP cannot be regained outside of fights, players have to manage their actions well or characters may run out of SP at crucial moments.
Compared to Legionwood 2, I found combat extremely boring — I barely added more Techs than the given base for each ally and had access to all the Talents by mid game. None of the advanced Techs seemed useful enough compared to the cold, hard damage increase I gave each character, though this may change in the next game. AoD offers the option to switch between Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty levels, and though Normal — which I played on — was rather uneventful, Hard might be more akin to other Dark Gaia games that are known for their absurdly challenging battles.
Since many regular enemies by mid game are only weak to magic, I can’t help but wonder if the game would have been more difficult had I not picked a mage/healer combo class at the beginning, because allies don’t have cheap magic abilities or sufficient healers among the group? Though the game starts you off with a cleric, one dedicated healer is certainly not enough, even on Normal, and I had two secondary healers available in my party to ease the burden. Furthermore, magic does way more damage to bosses than regular attacks, so my starting choice may have played a large part in the dull combat experience.
Straightforward character and battle control makes navigation simple: arrow keys or mouse left-click for movement, enter or mouse left-click to select, and escape to bring up the menu or back out. Unfortunately, the key mappings are not quite comfortable, requiring some frequent movement to alternate between moving and selecting on the right hand. A custom mapping option would have been preferable, or something like spacebar to select and Z to exit would have worked much better. Once I got used to the controls I didn’t mind it much, but my initial impression was “why?!” The worst offender is the minor delay between character and enemy turns in fights, which can last as long as a second or two after an action animation plays out before you can choose another. For a game that ended up being an attack fest, those seconds of doing nothing only highlighted how much time I was wasting killing enemies that didn’t matter.
Most intriguingly, passage of time is woven into the game. As game time passes, so does day and night, and certain NPC quests are only available at specific times of the day. Fret not, though, as players can easily fast forward time to get to an evening conversation.
Many locations require some “puzzle solving” to proceed; more often than not, they involve hitting the right switches in the correct order via an excessive amount of predictable backtracking. In fact, there was an instance where the team had to climb up a tower, only to be forced to head all the way back down from the second highest story to retrieve an item from a locked chest that would open the final level. The route down and up was not long, but did those extra minutes and battles really matter? One of the four major hurdles that precedes the final boss — a timed run through an obstacle course filled with moving bubbles — is but an exercise in tediousness; if the hero gets hit at all, it’s back to square one. A few innovative challenges exist, such as rolling boulders a particular way to clear paths, a sliding puzzle, maze, and riddles, but they are sadly a minority. Are the puzzles more interesting than barreling from point A to point B? Yes. Could they be handled better? Infinitely yes.
Similar to previous Dark Gaia Studios games, the artwork is 16-bit and reminiscent of SNES RPGs. I enjoyed the details in most of the environments, and a wide range of material types are clearly used to bring out the differing landscapes. Enemies tend to repeat themselves in areas, usually four varieties per section, and a handful are even recolored. Bosses and dragons look cool, though, and the character faces carry an appealing anime-like visage with fairly emotive expressions. Musically, there’s nothing to harp on about as the unexceptional tunes don’t stick, but simply provide a pleasant background accompaniment.
Age of Darkness is far from a complete game and it shows in various ways. Many promising innovations provide a glimpse of how the series might wrap up, but for now, AoD is just a stepping stone — incomplete and wanting. For fans of Dark Gaia Studios, AoD can certainly allay those yearning pangs; however, most will be better off waiting for the complete series before embarking on this journey. Still, I earnestly hope that the second game, Resurrection, will iron out the kinks and I look forward to seeing Legionwood through to its salvation again.
