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| Let the battles begin! | Time to recruit some units! |
Land of Legends, brought to you by Tiny Hero Studios and Shrapnel games, is a fantasy, turn based strategy game. Its cartoony look and feel do have a certain charm, and the game play is deviously simple. Think more Chess than Command and Conquer. No matter which of the three modes you choose to play in, you will essentially be moving pieces around a board, occasionally engaging enemies and taking over cities.
There are three main modes to play in, Campaign, Skirmish, or Multi player.
The Campaign mode is a good place to start, because of the tutorial missions which introduce you to the simplistic style of play. You can then move onto the Skirmish and Multi player modes, in which the objective is to take over your opponents capitol, own two thirds of the cities, or kill the other guy dead.
There are several races to choose from, Humans, Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, Orcs, Undead, The Afflicted, and Arcatta. Each race boasts four variants, and different strengths and weaknesses. You could get deeply involved in utilizing every strength and weakness of each race, but its probably not necessary. There is also a nice range of difficulty level between races, with Humans and Elves being the simplest, and the Undead, The Afflicted, and Arcatta being recommended for advanced players.
The campaign mode is a good place to start out, with every mission building on the next. The games start off quite short, the first ones being rather tutorialish in nature, even if you don't pick the tutorial option. This game will definitely pick your brains, as you find yourself in more and more challenging situations.
If you are a fan of strategy games, this is a good "light lunch" sort of game. It's not exceptionally dense or overly complex, and you can just start it up and begin playing, which makes it a good choice for the beginning strategist also.
The game teaches the basic strategies you'll need to be successful too, not assuming that you can figure it all out for yourself, but once it's shown you the basics, it bows out and leaves you to your own devices. A lot of work seemed to have gone into making it just challenging enough, but not too hard, with the difficulty level increasing over every campaign level.
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| Aren't those just the cutest zombies you ever saw? | Oh the carnage! |
The basic premise is to take over cities. Every city earns you money, which allows you to purchase more forces. Skirmish mode is simply straight out battles and maneuvering around the map, whereas the Campaign mode will give you a reason to defeat the gathering forces of evil.
The Internet multiplayer mode may or may not be good, I don't know because I was directed to use a patch which then did not work, and denied access repetitively. Perhaps the forces of Evil have taken over the Land of Legends server. I sent teams of elves, but have not heard anything back as yet.
Positives to this game include the easy playability, the interface, which is extremely well designed, the quick nature of the games, which makes it good for taking a break from work, and the light and fun atmosphere it has. The cartoon character prompts can be particularly enjoyable, popping up in their two dimensional way to let you know what terrible things are about to take place, or perhaps to foolishly alert you to their evil plans. They're good like that.
The combat system is so simple that it's laughable. Two large 2D figures pop up on screen and one shoots an arrow into the other, or perhaps slashes it.
If damage is sustained, the figure will flash red with a slash across it, or there will be a similarly appropriate graphic depending on the attack.
Hardly state of the art, but you do get the general idea of what is going on.
Musically this game is actually not too bad, the tunes are somewhat cloying and annoying at times, but that actually fits well with the general ambiance of the game.
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| Damn those evil gardeners! Damn them! | The smartest make it online |
LAND OF LEGENDS VERDICT
Playing this game is a little like watching a kid’s school play. There are all the elements of the big kids version there, in very simple format and it’s kind of fun and funny and cute at the same time, though you’d never really take it seriously.
TOP GAME MOMENT
Having the dastardly secrets of Evil revealed to me by a rather silly soldier. Classic.
