Rise of Legends

8.5
Good

Gameplay	9.0	"It's got magic, religion, and truly insane technology thrown in."
Graphics	7.5
Sound	8.5
Value	8.5

By Jess Nickelsen

Welcome to the weird and wacky world of Rise of Legends. It’s a strange sort of game, crossing strategy, resource management, steampunk technology, traditional magic and Mayan-esque culture. It sounds like a bit of a mish-mash, but the combination works more often than not. What’s more, each of the three different nationalities, which embody these elements, allow for three quite different approaches to the game.

The game sets you down in the world of Aio, home to three quite unique and interesting cultures: The Vinci, the Alin, and the Cuotl. Each of these is inspired by quite different source material.

The Vinci, for example, are technologically-focused, with their designs coming straight out of the notebook of Leonardo da Vinci. Units for these guys include clockwork men, mechanical spiders and steam canon. Special districts for the Vinci are research-based Industrial areas, and allow you to develop new technologies, such as telescopes, or clockwork miners.

The Alin, meanwhile, are magic users, and their building and element types are based on the desert elements of Glass, Sand, and Fire. They have some very awesome units, such as salamanders and dragons. The specialised district for the Alin is a Magus District.

The Cuotl are quite possibly the coolest nationality. Unlike the other two groups, the Cuotl do not use gold as their monetary unit. Instead, they employ ‘energy’, which is gathered with large reactors. Their unique district is a Holy one. The Cuotl are extremely religious, and have bloody powerful units, such as UFOs.

There are quite a few different gameplay options, including a multiplayer mode. I didn’t touch on this aspect of the game, but there was a great deal of diversity available to me as a single player: the campaign, of course, as well as quick battles, from which you can use a random map or one of many different maps and scenarios.

I must say straight out that the campaign is initially difficult to get into. I was looking forward to digging my teeth into the game, to hit the ground running, so to speak, but found the initial campaign tasks to be a bit slow, and they felt quite linear in terms of what I was able to try out and accomplish. The storyline itself is quite convoluted, and was often difficult to follow.

That said, I stuck with the campaign, and I’m glad I did, as things got quite a bit more interesting. In particular, I enjoyed approaching the game via the strategic map, which is a top-down view of Aio, a bit like Risk. You can view your current hero (Giacomo), as well as the enemy heroes. What’s more, you can watch as things develop, both on your side and theirs. I confess I got into this aspect of the game more than the campaign – I found myself looking forward to the end of the next battle so I could allocate more resources to different regions under my control, and to see where that rascal, The Doge, had moved to next. In this aspect alone, the game has allowed for people who enjoy different styles of playing, and for this I tip my hat.

As far as the scores above go, I rated the learning curve as being higher than some other reviewers, as it took me a while to understand some of the requirements for building, and to come up with a strategy for my civilization. In addition, the difficulty of the game can vary hugely, depending on how you play it, whether you are a “gather all units together and attack uniformly” type, or more of a planner. You can also change the difficulty for each battle, just in case you like things quick and clean or nice and messy.

The graphics didn’t overly impress me, though I did enjoy the design and distinct look of each of the races. The clockwork men and spiders of the Vinci nation, in particular, looked really good and supported the unique feel.

All in all, I see it as a very good thing that Rise of Legends has brought me around to its wonderful weirdness. The many elements ensure a good degree of re-playability, the design is easy on the eyes, and hey, name one other game where you can watch da Vinci-esque helicopters and futuristic UFOs duke it out. That alone is worth the price of admission.

 del.icio.us  StumbleUpon  Facebook  Reddit