Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds

Review

The crowd screams with impatience! With a sword in one hand and dressed with nothing more than shorts made of leather, a young slave is guided by a huge half man-half Lion, to the deadly Arena. His first steps into the giant oval structure are nothing less than terror. Right in front of his eyes, his future opponent, the champion, is about to inflict a final blow to his current adversary! If he wants to live, he must win! This is the story of Finn in Legrand Legacy: Tale of the Fatebounds.

Legrand Legacy is a JRPG game with turn based combat scenes where you take control of Finn who is amnesic and finds himself fighting for his life in a gladiator’s arena at the start of the game.

This leads to a tutorial which teaches you how to play the turn-based combat scenes.

This game has eight chapters in total and the main story is really interesting with plenty of twists. Finn will have his freedom bought by an old man who needs a bodyguard to travel through a desert full of dangerous creatures and bandits. This is the quickest route for him to return home and deliver a rare plant which can cure his daughter’s illness. Unfortunately, the desert will get the better of the old man in chapter one. Don’t worry, Finn will meet other characters very quickly and they will be helping each other to achieve quests which add to the main storyline.

The gameplay has different aspects; the first one is exploring cities where you can find out more about the world of Legrand by talking to people like the wise Beggar Uwil, as well as discovering side quests, buying, selling and crafting items or update your weapons and armour. The second is the combat modes, of which I have seen two so far (I am about to finish the forth chapter). The first combat is pretty much what you would expect, but with a twist! When you are facing one or more enemies, you have to choose your attack, which can be a normal attack, a magical attack via a grimoire, or a power attack (AP) if the respective gauge is full, and you can defend yourself by using the guard option. Then a circle will appear with a gold needle that spins quickly in a clockwise direction for an attacking move, and anti-clockwise for a defensive stand. A small portion of the circle will be highlighted in orange with a yellow line right in the middle of it. What you need to do is to make sure you click within the orange highlighted space to have a good attack, or directly on the yellow line to perform a perfect attack. Anything else will result in a poor attack or even a miss. And you have to click the nominated key on your keyboard, or button on your gamepad, to make it even more engaging. The key or button will also be highlighted within the circle. After winning each battle, you’ll receive experience points which will go towards your character gauge. Every time you fill it, your character will receive two ability points which you can distribute to increase his/her strength, vitality, agility and another few other attributes. Another point that I really like is the fact that you can swap characters in the battle. The main three characters will always start the fight but you can replace them in the middle with the other characters who have also joined your party (now in reserve), which can be very handy at times. Don’t forget to make sure your main characters share items between them, especially the bloodstone which will regenerate health to one or several of your characters depending on which type. The other combat mode was in chapter three, and is very simple; you have to defeat an evil nobleman by moving your characters (represented as figurines) on a battle map, which was fun.

Graphically the game looks great and I really enjoy the evolving storyline. The soundtrack is good and suits the game perfectly. Legrand Legacy is easy to play and occasionally has tutorials throughout chapters when needed. I do think the turn-based combat is a bit repetitive. The other point I would like to see is voice acting - there’s plenty to read but nothing to hear, which I think is needed in this game.