[Review] Fallen Legion: Revenants - Nintendo Switch

Developed By: YummyYummyTummy
Published By: Nippon Ichi Software American
Categories: RPG
Release Date: 02.16.21

You’ve heard the term, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, right? Usually it’s for a game that looks a bit of a shabby, but actually is a fun time. Well, Fallen Legion seems to be the exact opposite.

First things first. This is both a great looking and sounding game. The music gives me nostalgic flashbacks to Playstation 1 RPGs I used to play as a child. In fact, the game period seems to have a good PS1 feel to it all in terms of style. I love the character designs. You’re darn right I want a part with a pirate looking dude, a knight, and some gunslinging cuties. You’ll collect a good number of party members and they all have a distinct look. The game gives off some off-brand Vanilla Ware look too, which I always like to see as well as their games are downright gorgeous. It’s pleasing to the eyes, instead of having poor 3D models, I love seeing great HD art instead.

Unfortunately…the game just isn’t that fun or engaging. Revenant is billed as a real time RPG, but it’s slow and stilted. Characters have bars for attacks, but can only attack 3 times before a cooldown is needed. Even at that, you can’t attack in quick succession unless it’s character to character. On top of this, enemies seem to have way too much HP, which seems the only way to really chip away at them is either by perfectly reflecting an attack or by using magic. Magic is earned by attacking enemies, which means you’re going to have to use near useless attacks to whittle down an enemies to defense to use attacks that hopefully do more. Your titular Revenant, Rowena can use magic freely as long as you have MP, but everyone else in the party needs to make sure they have enough stamina to attack, or you’ll just be waiting. Fights can drag on for way too long, especially boss fights. At least the fight music is good.

Outside of fights, and occasionally during them, you take control of Lucien. His job is to speak to others, usually to sway opinion one way or another for paths Rowena take, or political standings, such as rationing food, how to train fighters, etc…This isn’t engaging at all.

This doesn’t mean the story isn’t interesting, because I adore the idea. A man learning of these weapons that can become sentient people named Exemplars. A woman wrongfully executed, wanting to get back to the living world for her son. Both teaming up to take out a tyrant living in a clean castle in the sky, as the people below are dying and transforming due to the toxic air, becoming bloodthirsty. This is a fantastic and intriguing premise. I felt like the game does too little with it though. There’s a lot of dialogue, but the majority of it is uninteresting, even if what is voiced of it, has good voice acting.

I wish I didn’t like music and art soo much, because everything else disappointed me. If the gameplay was just a bit smoother, it’d almost completely make up for the lacking story. If anything, the artbook and OST that NISA is selling with their physical release is worth your time.