PREMISE

The Legion Saga series was a trilogy of RPGmaker games released in the early 2000’s (there was also a remake and an action RPG spin off, but neither was ever completed). All three of them took place within the same universe (albeit in different countries), featured the protagonist getting a castle, recruiting an army, and then fighting a war. Despite being very derivative of Suikoden, they were extremely well received by the community and went on to become classics. They’re still downloaded and played, even today.

Legion Saga Arcade is a fan game that seamlessly merges/reimagines the story of all three games together.

You play as a man named Nastra, he’s just got done killing the Kaiser of Vermonde and is trying to flee into the neighbouring country. He’s intercepted along the way but is saved by and then later recruited by the Legion. A secretive organization that has existed since the Century of Strife and who are sworn to safeguard the Legion Sword, an extremely powerful magical artifact created by the space bourgeoisie. This is a problem because with the Kaiser dead his Dark Elf son has taken control of Vermonde and is eyeing up the sword, so they want Nastra to go form some alliances with some neighbouring countries and keep him away from it. Also you get to pick a name for the Legion’s castle.

Arcade gives you the option to ally with/liberate said neighbouring countries in whichever order you want. There are three countries, each of which have three cities (in which you’ll be able to recruit up to three potential legionnaires) and three dungeons. After you’re done with that, you fight a war mini-game where you defeat three armies, and then fight a boss. Also the number three seems to come up a lot.

PRESENTATION

The graphics in this game are... interesting. The original Legion Saga games all used different assets but generally tried to look as realistic as possible, given the availability of graphical resources and the technical limitations of the engine. This game doesn’t do that.

The art style looks like a cross between South Park and a Homestar Runner cartoon. I really wasn’t sure what to make of it at first but after the first half hour or so, it definitely grew on me. I’m still not the biggest fan, but I don’t think the game could have been made any other way. There are forty characters to recruit plus antagonists and generic NPCs; making extremely detailed and animated sprites for each of them would have been a massive undertaking so I think this was a good compromise.

The maps are all minimalist, but functional. There was never a point where I couldn’t understand what something was supposed to be, or wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be able to walk. Some even look fairly good. I remember actually really liking the graphics for the ships.

There’s no sound in this game. At first I thought there was something wrong with my computer, but, no. I looked through the project files and there’s no audio folder. This is a bit of a let down. I really missed hearing Luca Blight’s theme every time something bad happened or hearing Forest of Cutting Shadows while I was walking on the overworld. Wandering around Higanasu just wasn’t the same without it.

GAMEPLAY

Battles are a sort of scaled down Dance Dance Revolution mini-game. An arrow flies off left side of the screen. When it reaches the middle, you press the corresponding arrow key, and then enter. If you do it right, you hit the enemy, if you don’t, they hit you. That’s about it, there’s no way to heal in battle, and your HP will regenerate instantly once you win.

Instead of a traditional experience based level up system, Nastra gets a buff to his strength, defence or speed every time he recruits a legionnaire. Battles start off easy, but by the time you’ve recruited most of the characters enemy soldiers will fall like wheat to a scythe. Sometimes recruited characters will show up and play an attack animation alongside you. As far as I can tell, it’s completely random when they do, and you’ll do the same amount of damage regardless, but, it’s still a nice touch.

The War System is a let down. It’s a tactical rock paper scissors mini-game, so Swords beat Arrows, Arrows beat Magic, and Magic beats Swords, the catch is, you always know exactly what the opposing army will do ahead of time. As long as you can remember what beats what, you’re basically immortal. There’s no challenge here, and there really isn’t much of a sense of accomplishment when you win.

Duels on the other hand are a fun change of pace. It’s also based around rock paper scissors, except you need to listen to what your enemy is saying to guess what they’ll do next. This is a system borrowed from the original Legion Saga games (and by extension Suikoden) but Arcade handles it a slightly better, because every character involved in the duel will talk. This prevents what should be a personal fight from feeling like your opponent is just talking to himself constantly. They’re also a little challenging, since it’s not always obvious what each dialogue cue means.

NARRATIVE

Before I downloaded Legion Saga Arcade, I took a look at the screenshots and figured I was in for some lighthearted, silly, nostalgic fun.

I was not expecting to have Nastra and his friends stop Colonel Rautzen from destroying the Krisdean welfare state and save the Kobolds from his ethnic cleansing program.

Legion Saga Arcade starts off with a quote authored by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, and that sets the mood pretty well. Despite what the cartoony graphics might have you believe, the writing in this game is very serious, and deals with themes about exploited labour, free trade agreements, anarchy, wealth redistribution, racism, socialism, slavery, and military dictatorships. That’s just scratching the surface, too.

That being said, some of the characters can feel bland. You can choose to tackle the game in any order you want, meaning that Nastra never really goes through any character development, and his relationship with the rest of the Legion is left largely unexplored. Some of the side characters you’ll meet in the towns do get character arcs though a lot of them remain static.

If there’s one criticism I’ve got, it’s that the writing is almost too serious. Legion Saga wasn’t a comedy game by any means, but it had its lighthearted moments. There were ninjas, clowns, the word ‘baka’ was used unironically, people would talk about trading cards during an invasion, you could use a cat in the war minigame to slaughter hundreds of enemy soldiers, and there was a scene in 3 where you’re late to a battle because your mom was busy shopping, and couldn’t babysit for you.

In Arcade, I only ever remember there being one joke in the entire game, and it comes at the ending.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I think Legion Saga Arcade is a pretty cool casual game.

You don’t really need to have played Legion Saga to enjoy this. A lot of the characters and lore have been reinterpreted (I don’t even know if Shotan is trained as a ninja any more, I think he just wears the mask to hide his scar) so you’re not missing too much if you haven’t touched the originals.

But if you’re like me, and really loved the originals, then, yeah, it’s really fun to bring the band back together again. I’d recommend it.