Definitely recommended! Lots of frantic action, split-second guards, diverse enemies, skills, combos, boosts, cancellations, one-shots, mass wipes, restarts, read again, 'lots of action'.
No direct control over character movement, but full control over attacks and positioning. Little custimization in shape of gems (three at most), and a way to influence heroes' growth. Very indirect and totally obscure but nevertheless quite pleasant.
Hidden skills, New Game+ with Even More Punishment™, S-ranks to obtain, etc, etc.

All with beautiful graphics and nice music score. And there's even a nice dramatic plot (pretty transparent but nice to follow).

And the iconic system of choice with some immediate benefits, and obscure and totally unforeseen consequences.

Fallen Legion+ is another fine example of a proper PC port from its initial console version. Or should I say, versions? The plus symbol indicates that Steam players shall get to play the definitive edition of Fallen Legion. In the summer of 2017, the PS4 and PS Vita saw the release of Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire and Fallen Legion: Flames of Rebellion. These two titles were combined in a single PC version which I shall review today. As the Steam debut of developers YummyYummyTummy and Mintsphere, I consider myself pleased by the end results of their labour.

Coincidently or not, the decision of fusing the series’ two campaigns into a single game, is one of the most inspired choices in its case. Both Sins of an Empire and Flames of Rebellion feature a distinct main character along with different locations and objectives. That last part is a bit confusing since we’re dealing with two pretenders to the imperial throne of a high fantasy realm. Princess Cecille is the rightful heir while Legatus Laendur is a low born usurper and a rabble-rouser. The ultimate prize of the civil war these two are waging? The vast Empire of Fenumia and all its riches and inherent power which is bestowed upon the anointed ruler. A talking grimoire (textbook of magic) serves as kingmaker and keystone to the realm’s stability.

Sins of an Empire shall focus on Cecille’s honorable fight to preserve her late father’s legacy at any and all costs while Flames of Rebellion features the illegitimate claim of a traitorous general which seeks independence and secession from the Empire, if he can’t control Fenumia in its entirety. For me, it was an easy choice in the regard. Even if for the sake of the replayability factor more than curiosity, I may attempt to advance in both storylines. Obviously, the gameplay mechanics remain the same. Fallen Legion+ couldn’t separate the core elements from one narrative thread to another and I consider that an adequate decision.

True, I may seem a bit biased in my description of the “protagonists”. There aren’t any heroes to this story which mixes notions of grey morality in the likes of which I haven’t seen in video games since I first played Dragon Age. Regardless of your affinity towards a protagonist’s legal claim, gender or projected power, this Fenumian Civil War paints both sides as being guilty of atrocities that go beyond the strict confines of a battlefield. Personally, I enjoyed playing with Cecille rather than Laendur, since I would have picked the same side and perspective in Daenerys Targaryen’s struggle for the Iron Throne, even if she’s also hypocritical at times.

Without laws, order and dynastic continuity, the Empire’s very purpose becomes a moot point. Pretenders and secessionists who present themselves as “freedom fighters” and “heroes of the common people” are simply demagogues clinging to utopias first and traitors secondly. Plus, the “good” Legatus (general rank in Latin) has to break several vows in order to embark on his nonsensical crusade. You may choose to start both campaigns and see them through as you wish, since there are two distinct save files for each warring faction. You don’t have to worry about missing anything out by accidently erasing your saved progress by trying a New Game with another combatant.

My first guess for the graphics engine used by Fallen Legion+ would have been custom and unknown. Luckly, a member of the dev team explained that their project is being powered by the Unity Engine. Ambiguity is not part of my style and as far as Unity’s concerned, I had limited complaints in its regard since the vast majority of titles using it, seem to function flawlessly in terms of stability and native resolution scaling. Fallen Legion+ follows this well beaten path and I have no issues to report about it. No glitches or crashes while the frame rate and resolution were within my preferences. Granted that there’s no 3D acceleration yet the art style and sprite animations are more than pleasantly rendered if you’re already acquainted with JRPGs and Anime.

Some of the game’s cutscenes feature voice acting (English dubs were the only ones tested by me) while the majority of NPC encounters are simply text-based and you’ll have quite a lot of dialogue to read and contemplate over your next decisions. At least I didn’t spot any typos. You won’t get lost in translation, of that much I’m certain. And Fallen Legion+ also shines through its combat mode where you’ll be hearing sufficient sound effects and one-liners. The soundtrack while nothing out of the ordinary, was still relaxing enough to amuse me when I had to compare it to grim realities of the seemingly endless conflict that was being portrayed on-screen. I guess that heavy metal was not on the menu and might have been even less suiting to the subtleties of Fallen Legion+.

Here’s the part that really makes Fallen Legion+ stand out from many of its genre counterparts. You see, this is an Anime-style RPG that eschews turn based combat in favor of a real time method that involves “clever button mashing” as I prefer calling it. The heroine and her ethereal party (Exemplars, which are supernatural soldiers) are going to face both boss fights and countless minions by perfectly timing counterattacks. There’s no way around this tactic if you wish to advance in this game. Randombly mashing D, F and S will not get you very far unless you know when to push Space for blocking incoming attacks and taking advantage of brief windows of time during which you may heal your troops. I have to say that this combat formula is new to me and I enjoyed the heightened sense of danger. Not giving players too much time in preparing their next move, is a close simulation of actual combat in more ways than one.

There’s no pause button in real life or the option to wait indefinitely until hitting “end turn”. Apparently few titles use such gameplay methods and digging online, I matched the Valkyrie Profile series as the closest connection to this particular combat found in Fallen Legion+. Again, we’re talking of former PlayStation exclusives that have shifted towards multiplatforms now. Valkyrie Profile can be played on mobile devices, but it’s not like I’m a fan of such ports. In anycase, half of Fallen Legion’s charm comes from its storyline that’s a literal plot twist inside smaller ones. So predictability is out of the equation and I’m glad that very few clichés are present. I have to point out that I was displeased by the on-rails feeling of the entire campaign since unlike more conventional RPGs, you cannot travel where you wish or interact with NPCs and visit stores and other points of interest.

Players just move the avatar/party with the directional arrow keys from one battlefield to another. Role playing elements which shape up the story by player decisions, involve choosing certain cards between battles. These vary both chromatically and though their consequences. Without spoiling much I will try to explain the choices you have to make in Fallen Legion+. Red cards represent the Prime Legion, Blue ones for the Council of Princes and lastly, the Green cards for March Congress. These factions will tip the scales in favor of the future ruler of Fenumia so despite having limited time in picking one choice from another, stick with one faction or morality standard/modus operandi if you wish consistent results. Red is the path of raw power and violence, Blue represents diplomacy and negociation while Green is all about underhanded practices.

It's like a real-time Xenogears/Valkyrie-Profile combat system with a bit of card draw boosts. There's a good sense of sparing like combat in a system of perfect blocks, counter-attacks, and combo-chaining. Each character has an activation key and you can chain them together to form special attacks, combinations, and build up to a finishing blow. If you pick your card boost properly you can pick between quick successive attacks, or build up a long combo for high damage bonuses. It's a great innovation on top of the combo system.

The story line mechanics are also similar to many old school classics, similar to some Suikoden series. The duel story plays out between two main characters. A bit of viewer's knowledge vs character's knowledge plays out nicely when you play a few scene in each campaign and switch off. I haven't finished the game yet, however I'm enjoy it. Looking forward to how it will be woven out as each side progresses.

If you're a fan of classic RPG mechanics that went beyond the Action Menu, this will bring back some great memories and also make new ones. Highly Recommended.

Wow! I didn't think I would end up playing it this long in one continuous session but it was really addicting.
The game itself plays completely different than what it might look like. There is an interesting zen-like rhythm to it that is actually quite relaxing when you get into it. Blocking took me quite a bit to get used to. But it worked out pretty well. The story narrative is interesting, and I enjoy how it doesn't disrupt the game play, and actually alters it. Art style is awesome and the voice acting is great too. It's one of those games you really need to sit down and just invest some time. It grows more complex with the item collection and challenges. One life mode, I haven't dared to play yet and honestly, have no idea how anyone is able to do it. This game is pretty damn challenging.

This is a pretty good fix of VanillaWare-esque Valkyrie Profile. I'm surprised it flew under the radar for quite some time. I was pretty sure people were looking for similar titles for the above mentioned game.

Well, that's out of the way. Let's talk about the game.

Fallen Legion+ is packed with 2 sides of the story. You have the (not)Tactician, (not)Robin of the Rebellion and other side of the (rally)spectrum, There's the princess of a deteriorating empire.

I've only played Flames of Rebellion but I think I've played enough to give a review.

Gameplay wise, it plays almost exactly like Valkyrie profile. Exception being there's no turns so if you're coming from VP, you'll tend to have a habit of going ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ which is bad most of the time since combat is real time. You would want to pay attention to your enemies because guarding is a thing. When you attack, you cannot guard immediately since they are stuck in their attacking animation. So attack sparingly. Plus points if you manage a perfect block which nulls damage, gives an extra AP which is a godsend on slow exemplars AND staggers the enemy that you blocked. You are also rewarding for your hard work with a combo meter which increases your damage the more chains you do. All in all, simple mechanics with high reward if you get good.

Art direction is pleasing to look at, since it's very reminiscent/inspired of Vanilla ware's art style. I can see whoever the art team are that they have good taste. The music is also giving me Valkyrie profile 1 vibes with its wild tracks to it's energetic-mellow tunes. In other words, It's very good. Especially, Golden remains.

My only complaints with the game is that there's this bug where some projectiles are invisible, like spectral gash and the wasted potential of adding other characters. Could've been a nice addition of have side exclusive exemplars like for Flames of Rebellion, Antoinette or Bryn.


TLDR, All in all. It's a very underrated game right now. It does not deserve the mixed status it has right since most of the game breaking bugs from it's rocky launch of been mostly patched. Please consider buying the game. It's slowly becoming one of my favourite games.

minor typo edits.

Dev lies about the promised switch content will be added to Steam version

This game has tons of potential... but its kind of wasted; One of those cases where I wish steam had a neutral recommendation.
Story seems interesting, and the oposing points of view are fun... but translation seems janky (Octavia being called THE octavia constantly for one)

But the thing that most irks me about this game is how its entirelly built around you parrying enemy attacks and avoiding damage... but 90% of the time you cant even see the enemy attacks because of screen effects, unclear animations, or blending into the background.

This wouldn't even be such an issue if timing wasn't extremely tight, no space for you to be even one second early or late... or if enemy spells werent a thing; Spellcasters are often in the back where you cant directly hit them, and sometimes even hitting an enemy will not stop their spellcasting, with some spells just being downright impossible to block.

You also cant hit enemies out of their attacks 90% of the time... but they can hit your characters out of their attacks, the timing issue is made even worse by enemies sometimes attacking in quick sucession, to the point where getting a perfect guard against the first will leave you open to the second enemy anyway, due to a small cooldown period for your guard.

The presentation is also, sadly, really cheap and detracts from the story, everything is presented as your character auto running to the right, never stopping, even villages, with your decisions being very vague cards that are usually one word, with you only finding out what you actually picked later, when it comes back to bite you.

Despite all that, the story seems interesting and gameplay can be fun in the very very rate times it clicks (usually when you're fighting a boss or other such enemies that you can actually learn the patterns off... and dont constantly cast spells you cant stop at your back roll.)

Sadly its too late for me to get a refund now, so I'll likely try to finish it, but yeah, I'd recommend only getting this one if its on a big discount, knowing what you're getting into.

Edit: oh, and be warned that loading screen text just downright has spoilers, it also has overall world lore mixed in... so yeah.

The style of this game is awesome, I love the way this game looks and sounds. Starting out it's a bit strange getting used to how to play, but the playstyle of this game is unique. Getting the timing for blocking and rotating characters is _hard_ but it feels rewarding.

This isn't a AAA title, it definitely shows as being from an indie developer, there are some rough edges. But how many AAA games have I played that shipped nearly completely broken and unfinished? This is certainly above some of those examples.

Overall it's just refreshing to try something new. Getting into the groove of good combat chains just feels so good once you start getting the hang of it.

PROs:
1) Music, though repetitive
2) Good, original story
3) Gameplay surprisingly relaxing once you get a hang of it
4) Has two parallel campaigns

CONs:
1) Difficulty spikes appearing from nowhere, disappearing in same manner you get them
2) For a game with that much decisions, one ending for each campaign sounds pretty, eh, not okay
3) Except those two difficulty spikes, game might as well be too easy

Info:
1) Game doesn't seem to like Dualshock 4, none of additional software will help with that.
2) Keyboard controls are weird at best, no settings to change them. Still playable though.

Positively surprised!

Not much to say here. Who have liked Valkyrie Profile should give this a try.
It as very fun to play. Most stressing handworkout i had the last few months :D

90% Joyfactor here

120% will buy the Sequel of it!!!!! (when it comes to Steam)

Man I hate books. 15/10