Legion: The Legend of Excalibur

"Legion: Legend of Excalibur can't pull the sword from the stone"

On the surface, Legion: Legend of Excalibur certainly has the appearance of being a slickly produced RPG. The striking game cover and memorable opening sequence to the trailer suggest as much. This, however, is far from the truth. What gamers have been offered is an unfinished and in many places shoddy game that appears to still be in prototype form.

The premise is simple enough - Arthur begins the game as a lowly squire determined to thwart the machinations of his evil sister, Morgan Le Fey. With each successful mission, Arthur grows in strength and his exploits also attract knights willing to pledge their allegiance, who subsequently become optional characters. Success in each mission also allows the player to purchase better weapons and armour. In theory this sounds interesting but in practice it is a shambles.

Each character has a set of command codes the player may use in game play, such as Summon, Guard and Retreat. Almost none of them work. Even trying to set a Cleric to "Heal" mode for the party is a disaster. The A1 is terrible, with characters often getting stuck behind buildings or simply running around in circles. To make things worse, the combat system is simple button mashing with no added finesse at all. Spellcasting is interesting but again the A1 doesn't use it wisely. A particularly frustrating element of game play is the inability to enter and exit levels - if a player forgets to take an item from one character to equip another, they must use both characters in the next level to affect the swap.

There are voiceovers, and while some of the voices are quite good, the script is terrible and not helped by the modern euphemisms. Cut scenes are bittersweet, as while they look sharp and promise much, each consecutive level delivers very little. The sound effects, however, are impressive, with the clang of swords and release of magical energies sounding authentic.

There are also some serious glitches that defeat the purpose of the game. A prime example occurs during the "Infestation" level. Once the party confront the Black Knight, they need only retreat to the nearest Church, and the Black Knight and all minions will be destroyed as they attempt to cross the threshold. Another occurs during the "Camelot" level. Bring Percival and when fighting the fourth King, keep him outside and out of range of spells. Then as Arthur continue to collect the gold until you have at least 100,000 - enough to purchase any item - and just retreat to Percival when in need of healing. When confronted with such flaws, the player must ask: "Why bother?"

Some of the background effects also reek of silliness. In the "Siege of Camelot" level Arthur addresses what is meant to be a huge crowd yet we see possibly ten people, all of whom are carbon copies of each other. There is also coloured confetti falling from the sky - in the Middle Ages? Not to mention torches that continue burning despite the torrential rains that appear later in this level. Other levels also suffer. The "Grail Maidens" mission has a moving choral piece and lovely three-dimensional background terrain, but is spoilt by the fact that the third party member will always remain voiceless, despite any commands that may be issued to them. The following level - “The Grail Castle” - is missing an introductory cut scene entirely.

The game ending is appalling both creatively and technically, as it consists of a single shot of Arthur in his "superhero" armour with Camelot in the background. There is no capacity to revisit previous levels, and saving at this point also WIPES all game play, forcing the player to restart the entire game.

In conclusion, this game is an utter disappointment. Given the richness of the source material, this could have been an outstanding effort if the best aspects of other notable RPG's had been combined and incorporated into game play. The fact that the game designers had three years of development and this was the best they could do is disgraceful. Unfortunately, Legion: Legend of Excalibur is nothing more than a very amateurish and therefore flawed attempt at retelling the Arthurian legend.

3 points - one for the cut scenes, one for the background terrain and one for the sound effects. Nothing more.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/05