LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds
LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds is a love letter to our all time favorite JRPGs with a fresh take on classic turn-based combat and tactics. Welcome to Legrand, a beautifully hand-drawn world riddled with curious creatures, devastating wars, and intriguing tales of vengeance and redemption. Embark on an epic adventure through this sprawling fantasy universe and fight alongside the Fatebounds as they attempt to bring peace to Legrand! But be careful who you trust because everyone has a secret to hide… HIGHLIGHTS A fully immersive experience with stunning FMV, fully rendered 3D cinematics, and epic original soundtrack 3D models and original assets come together with gorgeously stylized hand-drawn backgrounds Action packed turn-based combat and tactical warfare scenarios that will test the limits of your wits
Steam User 175
LEGRAND LEGACY: Tales of the Fatebounds is a wasted potential, but overall still comes out as decent and enjoyable experience made by developers who listen to the community.
RATING: 6/10.
I'll start off with what I dislike:
Sub-par narrative. - WARNING spoiler potential
The game started off nicely. Party members were interesting with their own distinct personalities, backgrounds, and personal issues. Along the way, they found themselves in disagreements, having trust issues, while they needed to face trials to test their "worth". With this scenario, you would expect each character to have a personal development throughout the game, right? BUT THE GAME SAYS HELL NO. You are going to see this pattern very often: At first, let's be friends! -> A moment later, fck you I don't trust you! -> And then a moment later, I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, my bad -> aaand a moment later, fck you all I'm done with this shit!. Some party member have either bipolar disorder, or they are just a bunch of idiots who do not learn from their mistakes.
Bad ending - non spoiler
After the narrative and some characters tortured me for hours, the ending finally executed me and my controller. It tried to be that "philosophical" bittersweet ending with "deep meaning", but it just didn't deliver nor it was rewarding. It left me with this kind of "Uh, what? Seriously? That's it?" feeling.
Horrible level design - non spoiler
The most noticable flaw and it can totally ruin your experience. There is no random battle. You need to engage your enemy from behind to ambush them and receive a free turn, OR accidentally get ambushed by enemies thanks to: awkward camera angle, small collider/enemy hit detection, quick-sudden enemy movement, and your slower movement. Good luck fighting enemies in this game while getting ambushed. More often than not, you can expect yourself to reload your save file after that fight.
Unintuitive inventory & storage UI - non spoiler
Inventory system automatically "expands" when you have so many types of items. You can either scroll up or scroll down on that 1 big page to access different parts of your inventory. The issue is, when your bag is filled with tons of different items, and you transfer 1 page worth of those items to storage, somehow the system does not automatically scroll up to show me the "next page" of items I am supposed to see.
Poor animation quality - non spoiler
This may not detract the experience for other players as much as it did to mine, so players may ignore this part if they want. I am aware this is an indie title made with tight budget, but I still want to give my criticisms as my support for the devs for their next project. In short, animations are floaty, characters have poor posing, with lack of understanding how a body moves in general.
Poor graphics quality - non spoiler
Same as above. May not detract the experience for other players but it does bother me. Graphics has lack of cohesion. This means character models do not blend with background, UI doesn't blend with background, and characters' shadows are poor. Maybe it's a good idea to add some post-processing? Or if the game already has it, then please improve it. This is a quick tweak that should make the graphics overall look better significantly.
What I like:
Tactical, intense, challenging turn-based combat
Combat involves QTE where you are required to press certain button at the right time in order to get good or perfect results. This system makes me truly focused on each fight and prevents me to mash the attack button. But what makes the combat feels tactical and challenging is the combination of brutal enemy design, different types of attacks (impact, slash, pierce, elemental attacks, and debuff magic that works against boss!), item management (each character is only allowed to carry 4 different items during combat), as well as both of your positioning and enemy positioning.
Tons of side contents
Tactical tabletop combat, fencing/1v1 dueling, archery mini game, gladiatorial mini game, fishing mini game, shopping mini game. These features are not available since the beginning, however. So go find out yourself.
Good soundtrack
I am pleasantly surprised for the quality of soundtrack.
Despite my complaints about graphics and animation, I like their usage of Live2d for facial animations
This add charms and personality to each important character. I hope more games use this approach.
Close to zero technical problems upon release.
I experienced no bugs, no graphic stutters, and FPS is consistent at 144 at max settings (I'm using GTX980).
Developers listen to community's feedbacks
Players complained about auto-save? Developers implemented it a few days later. Players wanted to be able to craft directly from storage items? Dev implemented it as well. Now this is what we need more from this industry. This is a sign the developers love both their game and community. I am personally going to keep an eye out for this SEMISOFT team and support their future endeavors.
Steam User 61
For the first 15 minutes, this game made me want to smash my keyboard, take a baseball bat and go after the devs while frothing at the mouth.
Took the wise decision to close the game, take an imaginary pill, go to sleep and try it again the next day.
Turns out my problems were caused by the default control settings that are a bit nonsensical, and the weird way the controls work didnt help either. After tinkering a bit with the control settings and getting used to how the interface works, everything was fine.
This game turned out to be a very pleasant surprise in almost every way.
The atmosphere and the story sucked me in from the start and it only went upwards from there.
So many RPGs nowadays try to imitate the old style in order to appeal to fans, but all they produce is just a soulless imitation, that you will get bored of as soon as the nostalgia moment is over.
This game is different, because it has a soul and a heart, it really manages to recreate the joy and the wonder we used to have while playing the old RPGs, and its fresh and genuine, not a metoo imitation.
Basically im a cynical and jaded grumpy old player, and a game like this managing to keep me glued to the screen for 4hrs in a row...color me impressed.
This game manages to recreate the joy of playing old console RPGs with an immersive story, without even claiming to do so.
Of course the graphics are not exactly cutting edge, the maps are small and the game is linear...and this made me realise how these things are not bad at all when done right, and thats exactly what this game does.
Steam User 35
Honestly, i really enjoy this game to the max.
Overall, it's a good throwback to classic JRPG, especially things that you played on Playstation 1 or 2. I don't get the complaint about the battle, since for me, it works just well.
Since you gotta punch a button a right timing to get the perfect attack, framerate is something that you need to make sure, your PC able to handle. Legrand itself isn't that heavy performance game, but you gotta make sure your PC can play it really well. If you suffer little lag, it might affect on your timing, and in the end, make the whole battle experience sufferable.
I need to point out that, this is not a game that you can hit "Attack" Button, and hope to win. You have to strategize, positioning your team member well (for example, i put Eris as healer behind Finn, so she seldom got attacked since they need to go through Finn first), and of course, learning about your enemy itself and exploiting their weakness. The first 3-4 hours really kinda lame, and then the pace picked up after at least, you get the to one of the "Arena City" that i forgot its name, since it kinda escalated to a more heavier story.
The soundtrack also catch up later, with some awesome song will ready to make your experience more enjoyable. The hand-drawing for the enviroment is top notch, and the difficulty, especially on boss battle is no joke.
For me, there are 2 annoying parts that need to be fixed:
1. Weight Management System
You have weight limitation, but the loot keep coming since you can't decide which one to pick. The result? Your inventory got full fast, ends up with Finn can't run, ends up with you need to sort your inventory and throw everything that you do not need, ends up with more free space, battle again, filled up again, repeat. It's annoying.
2. Dialog
Doesn't feels natural, and there are a lot of awkward moments that just doesn't click to me. For example? When they decided to talk about virginity, in one of the scene. Like, what the hell?
But despite all that cons, for its price compared to the content and experience that you get, i totally recommend it. This is not a JRPG that you can decide in just 3 hours gameplay. Give it a time, gather your party, meet a lot more bosses and side quest, go to the Dumville, enjoy the mini-games and the strategy battle ala Suikoden 2. I think most of you gonna agree with me.
For me, it's a 7.5/10 experience. Recommended.
Steam User 50
Review - LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds
RATING: 7.5 / 10
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Overview
Legrand Legacy is a turn-based squad JRPG taking place in the lands of, you guessed it, Legrand. It tells the tale of Finn, a young slave freed from imprisonment by the mysterious Master Geddo, and appointed as his bodyguard for reasons yet unknown... Finn will have to travel the perilious deserts and mountain ranges of Legrand in order to know more about himself and the events Geddo set in motion by liberating him, along with many friends he will meet along the journey. Legrand Legacy takes all the distinctive elements of JRPGs, both classic and modern ones, and also tries to differentiate the gameplay by implementing fresh, experimental mechanics to the combat.
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Gameplay Analysis
General Gameplay
Gameplay of Legrand Legacy fully takes inspiration from the classics of squad-based JRPGs, such as Final Fantasy and many others. The game world is divided in sectors all placed on a fulyy explorable World Map, while each area is divided in smaller sub-areas filled with enemies, environmental hazards, treasure and also puzzles, while Cities are safe zones divided often in quarters full of NPCs to talk with and unlock side quests and hidden rewards. The interaction with NPCs will often limit to a single line of dialogue except for important ones, whcih is typical for the genre. The title also wants to keep itself modern by adding more recent mechanics such as Crafting System and Material System to the mechanics, so mobs will not be hunted solely for the sake of the grind but also for materials useful in crafting weapons and equipments. Exploration of both Cities and Dungeon Areas is quite linear and honestly could have done with more intricated map designs, but still keeps on a decent level. Variety of weapons and equipment is aswell decent with also crafting included, you won't be changing equipment as often as some other JRPGs though.
Combat System
Combat is what Legrand Legacy uses as spearhead to differentiate itself from other similar games, and the developers wanted to do so by adding unusual, experimental mechanics to the well-known ones of JRPG combat. The first and most important of said mechanics is the introduction of Quick Time Events when Attack and Defense are concerned, it means every time you either attack an enemy or defend against an attack, you will have to time a cursor inside a small circle and stop it in the right area to score a successful Attack, Defense or even a Critical if you get the cursor inside an even smaller area. This system is then applied to the classic JRPG-like turn based combat we all came to know, with elemental weaknesses, various types of melee attacks, and all the complete set of JRPG shenanigans applied to combat. The second mechanic that makes this game a bit different are Formations, in a few words characters can be put either in the Front Row (focused on Defense and Melee Attacks) or the Back Row (Focused on Ranged Attacks, Magic and Support), deciding where your party members are most effective will be fundamental in succeeding in combat, this adds depth to the whole gameplay for sure. To add even more depth, there also is an Interrupt System that basically differentiates all types of attacks in Standard and Charged, charged ones usually have special effects and are more powerful (they are skills and not regular ones), but often need more time to be cast, and if a character casting a Charged attack is hit, there is a chance for him to lose focus and fail the attack altogether. Overall the combat system is solid if you do not mind the QTEs, which many people hate for a lot of reasons, and personally i also have to say implementing them in a JRPG is a very experimental and risky design choice, which may not please many people, but also please others.
Content
As stated by the developers themselves, this game should last around 30 hours with onyl the main storyline to consider, and 50 hours if you plan to complete all the side activities. Since these estimates are in almost all cases exaggerated, i'd say 20 hours for story and 40-45 for the completitionist run is a good estimate.
Balancing
As far as i've seen, the game balance looks pretty solid. This is one of those games where if you want you can grind the same mob field a thousand times to overcome strong or difficult enemies, so if you are in trouble you can keep grinding and eventually, with a bit of tactics you WILL overcome any challenge. The only thing i noticed to be a bit OP are the Arcanas, which are basically the "Ultimate Abilities" of each character, which deliver insane amounts of damage if you get the QTE right and can even 1-2 shot bosses.
Challenge
Hmm, the combaat with all the system implemented requires strategy and planning, and a wise use of the consumables, which are quite pricey and limited in number, enemiescan deliver a serious punch, defending and attacking at the right turns is fundamental to survival. I'd say overall this is a JRPG that can deliver a good challenge to even veteran players, because it freshens up the combat in risky ways, but in the end this toughens the challenge, i am not saying it is all for the good side of it, but it toughens nonetheless.
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Technical Analysis
Graphics
I'll be frank here, for being a game coming out in 2018, graphics are totally not impressive. The hand drawn environments are quite something i agree with that, they are artistically beautiful and really well done, character models are not quite detailed and with the overall quality you'd expect by nowadays'standards, but are not terrible either. The absence of mode "dynamic" environments with particle effects, advanced effects and so on is partially mitigated by the design choices and art style. As far as graphiccs goes, do not expect a really high quality, but also not a terrible one, it is on a sufficent level overall.
Sound
The soundtrack is really beautiful and often is perfectly adequate to the situations the game proposes, combat and misc sound effects are of decent quality but nothing special, soundtrack tho, that is quite something they managed to pull off, i really liked it to be honest, and i did not expect that in the first place.
Performance
No problems to report.
Stability
No problems to report.
AI
Enemy AI follows simple, pre determined attack patterns like in most JRPGs, there are no advanced Ai features worth mentioning and such, it is a typical standard JRPG AI, nothing more or less.
Quality of Life
Menus and UI are good enough with a controller, the game loses some quality of life if played with a keyboard for the QTEs and also navigation, i'd recommend playing with a controller to avoid some troubles and annoyances in commands, but is playable decently in both ways.
Bugs / Issues
Nothing to report.
Conclusion
Legrand Legacy is a new entry in the JRPG world that dares to experiment with new mechanics, has a good story, interesting characters, and can do muchwhile no having a AAA level budget. While this may not be the next JRPG of the decade, is in my humble opinion a title worth playing if you liked the good old classics of the genre and also look for something fresh.
Steam User 15
Hmm, I have mixed feelings about this game, but overall I like it.
Then again, I'm an older player (>35) and I remember the days of FF VII being the most epic game in the world. That's why I don't have the reservations that the others do. I grew up with limited cinematography and actually like the fact that I don't have cutscene after cutscene after cutscene (cough... Final Fantasy 13... cough). And for a group on indie devs -- and let's not forget that this is an INDIE game and not Triple A -- this is a well done and beautiful game. And I love the conversation poses while the avatar is speaking. Small touches like that make games phenomenal. Those are the pros.
My cons are exactly the same as everyone else's: WAY too much dialogue. Like WAY too much. Like WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY too much. They need to hire an editor to cut the dialogue by seventy percent. Then it would be great. This game runs hot and uses a LOT of processor speed, so if you're computer isn't up to snuff, you won't be playing this game. The combat system is a "love it or hate it" style. Personally, I don't like random encounters in games because it's an excuse to throw ten thousand monsters at you and dub it an "adventure game," but at the same time, having monsters chase you down and hit you in the back while you're running from them isn't fun. And the bonus modifier from back attacks will have you cringing in your seat. And while I'm not a fan of the battle's Good, Great, Perfect or Lame system, I can live with it for short periods of time. The unskippable cutscenes though. Sheesh!
And while this game is a homage to the classic games, it REALLY needs voices. Exactly zero professional games are all text these days. A group of good voiceover actors would've made this game truly epic. You just can't feel a person's emotions flipping through screen dialogue. Despite what other flaws it has, the lack of voice actors is the biggest drawback of this game.
But the pros of the game outweigh the cons. You won't be spending fifty bucks on a game like you do for Triple A games (greedy bastards). And you'll get some great looking artwork and entertainment in the deal. I like it, but I can understand why younger folks don't. This is nostalgia to me. This is the game I grew up on. I'm willing to let some small things slide.
TWO YEARS LATER: The devs said that they cut the dialogue but where?! These scenes are HORRIFICALLY long-winded. I'm not even reading half of them because the dialogue is long and most of it is ridiculous! There is VERY little character development and most of the game is word vomit. There is so much stereotypical nonsense in the game, WOW. This is a very poorly written game.
Steam User 11
If I'm being honest here, this is a total B rank game and a shining example of what a $20 indie game should be. Don't get me wrong, a B is still an excellent score where I come from.
I've played a lot of JRPGs in my day and I was pleasantly surprised to see a turn based combat system in a 2018 released game. It feels like a lost art these days and I'm always happy to see it. The combat in Legrand Legacy was fun but never really got too challenging. There's not a huge variety of skills per character so there's not a ton of room for build flexibility. It was certainly not a bad system and it's exactly what I'd expect from an indie team. But it could use some improvements in a future release.
The world was interesting. It's nice to see a JRPG that isn't afraid to dive into topics like slavery and having important character actually die throughout the story. I will say this though, Finias has to be the worst designed zone in the game. The aesthetic was fine, but slow walking through ankle deep water was frustrating and I didn't look forward to the times I had to return to the zone. The story took a while to get going and pick up speed, but it definitely picked up speed in the last half of the game.
The text was "mostly" error free. Wasn't perfect, but you knew what the characters meant even with the occasional typo. I wasn't much of a fan of the writing style. I know this is subjective, but the characters didn't feel very natural. I'm assuming English wasn't the developers native language and some of it just accounts to a rough translation and cultural differences.
It was also great to see a handdrawn 2D world map with 3D sprites on it again. Really brought back that nostalgic feeling.
Overall I'd definitely recommend this game to JRPG fans. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a very solid $20 indie game and exactly the type of thing I'd love to see more of in the future by this team and others. The AAA gaming industry is a joke and indie devs are the real kings now.
P.S. Scatia best girl. Don't @ me.
Steam User 9
This game pays tribute to the old school JRPG classics. However there are plenty of things wrong with it as well as plenty of amazing things too. Nothing in life is perfect and neither is this game. First off the combat system is hit or miss, literally and figuratively. Some people enjoy it, some people dont. Think of super mario RPG attack style. Hit the button at the right to deal a crit during attack, get bonus damage and hit chance. Hit the button at the right time to negate ALL damage and debuffs when guardian. If you can't do this, simply "git gud."
The items in the game are very helpful. Nothing bad, but also nothing game breaking either. Use the items to make the game easier.
Side Quests are enjoyable and VERY rewarding. Nothing but praises there.
The weapon system is odd,I would prefer to be able to swap weapons but there is no need, for each better weapon recipe increases all your stats. No need to go back to an older weapon once you forge ahead. No need to grind countless bosses either. All drops from all bosses are used in your crafting and you literally do not need to grind at all in order to craft legendary weapons.
The mini games are decent. I personally cant get passed some of them because of bad hand eye coordination. However there are some that require no thought and senseless time wasting fun. Also the minigames provided excellent rewards via score system where you can trade in your scored points for nearly any consumable, material, or danaar.
This review may seem like praises so far but just like Billy Mays there is more. The maps look beautiful but however there are some collision issues in the game where it looks like you should be able to move to spot X but you can't because it just isnt part of the map. Some parts of the map are designed in a way that enemies hide behind an overhanging structure and you will not see them and walk into them unwillingly. Many of the "dungeons" have hinderances that make walking the map a chore and avoiding enemies or ambushing them difficult, but not impossible. See Finias and Ice Mountain.
The monster designs are great. Completely all orginal enemies besides the ugly harpies. Your "magic" abilities are VERY impactful, and beneficial to fighting. Actually needs thought to win so you can not just spam one move over and over unless you grind ahead. The characters are great, actual development whether or not you like the characters or not. Story line is decent, nothing too crazy, nothing too boring. Able to follow along with the story the entire time.
If you like JRPGs just get the damn game. It's a good game with great gameplay and story, hit or miss mechanics, challenging boss fights, and an amazing soundtrack to boot. Overall this game gets a 8/10