Many thank’s to 505 Games and Stride PR for providing the preview code for Re: Legends.
Re: Legend is a co-op simulation RPG game in which players venture into the world of Ethia. The game was released on Steam on Early Access in August 2019. After spending some time in early access the game’s developers Magnus Games Studio are preparing to release the full game in November on PC, Nintendo Switch PS4, and Xbox One.
Simulation RPG Game
Re: Legends starts much the same as other games in this genre. Your adventure starts when you waking up on the shores of Vokka Island. Unfortunately, you have lost your memory and have no idea why you are on Vokka Island. After some short customisation of your character where you can choose the usual female, male, hairstyles, hair colours and eye colour, you wake up in a bed.
After that, you are introduced to some of the characters in the game. From there you are taken by Mayor Moku to a deserted farm and house. This will be your home to look after, where you will grow crops for the island.
Vokka Island
You will see different types of Magnus, magical creatures, roaming around in the wild. You can either choose to defeat them or tame them to be your partner. These powerful creatures are essential to surviving on the island, along with crafted weapons. You’ll also have to master their skills by training the Magnus often. Training ranges from logging, crafting, battling, and more.
To capture a Magnus you throw food that it likes at it, you can get the meat from slaying other monsters in the area or by cooking. Once you have caught the Magnus you have to tame it. Taming is done by completing a mini-game. By jumping on the Magnus’s back and pressing the arrow keys in the direction of the arrow that shows up on the screen, you can eventually tame the Magnus. This is where I encountered my first problem with the control system for the game.
Controls
Even though everything I have read about Re: Legends says that the game can be controlled by a controller, none of my controllers (3 controllers) would work with the game. I ended up playing the games using the keyboard controls. You use WASD to move and F to interact with the items and the number keys to use your quick item tool menu at the bottom of the screen.
Taming a Magnus involves hitting the arrow buttons in time to the prompts on the screen. This proved to be rather a chore on the keyboard. Hopefully by the time Re: Legends is fully released it will have a more intuitive control system than it has now. Once you have captured a Magnus you can keep it in a barn near your home and look after it. Magnus can help in battle if you help them grow stronger. You can even fuse some Magnus to create your ultimate sidekick.
Combat
There is plenty to do on Vokka Island apart from capturing Magnus. For combat, you can choose between wielding two daggers, a greatsword, a magical staff, or a bow. Each weapon has a short combo that is performed by left-clicking on the mouse.
I tried out the greatsword, its combo is just a simple swing to the left followed by a swing to the right. You can also dodge in any direction to avoid attacks. Once your character is proficient with a weapon type it is levelled up to five and they unlock a weapon skill to use with a right-click of the mouse. Later in the game, you can equip up to two runes that grant various combat skills as well.
While the combat is fine, it never felt like that much fun to me, you’re just slashing away at the monster and the mouse controls don’t help. You can craft new weapons, though I did notice when I crafted a new weapon that it does not unlock new combos or attacks but just changes how the weapon looks and give it a slightly higher stat.
Craft, Farm and Fish
You can also cook, craft and fish till your heart is content in Re: Legends. Farming is a simple affair with your little plot of land outside your home. If you have tamed a Magnus it can help you with the crops. You can also go into caves to mine ore, chop down trees for lumber, and befriend and do side quests for the townspeople.
Fishing is also a chore to do with the mouse buttons. You see, you have to try and catch the fish without the tension on the rod increasing to the point it breaks the rod. I lost count of how many tries it took to catch my first fish and the encounter didn’t make me want to rush back to try again. When you catch the fish you can keep it to use in cooking or put the fish in a pond to grow the fish until later and have them compete in races.
Graphics
Re: Legends has quite a cute chibi look that I do like. However, most of the characters personalities felt very generic to me and I didn’t particularly take to any of them, which is a pity as it’s always nice to have a least one character in a game that you like.
You can choose to play with friends in 4 player Co-Op Multiplayer but I didn’t get a chance to try this out. I would imagine it would be a lot more fun to play the game with some friends than on your own.
Final Thoughts
Re: Legends has the starting ground to shape into a decent simulation RPG game, I did enjoy my time with the game even though it feels a little shallow to me in places. A good control system and a few tutorials to explain to the player what they are actually doing in the game would help immensely. Hopefully, by the time November rolls around and the game is released, some of its issues will have been addressed by the developers.
For PC players who have already had a taste of Re:Legend in Early Access, new content will arrive giving them plenty of reasons to jump back in game:
• The final Chapter in the story arrives where you finally face off against the main threat, Mazuel.
• Fuse your Magnus creatures to create stronger partners to take on your adventure.
• Get close enough to that special villager and marry them! Celebrate your big day in style.
• New quests will be available with NPC characters and at the Guild!
You can find the games’ Steam page here. Re: Legends will be available on Steam priced at £19.99/€24.99/$24.99 and on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in November 2021.