Legends of Yore an Intricate Retro-RPG for Android
by Jonathan Lonczak
Nov 1, 2011 10:36 AM –
Install
Legends of Yore. Play your hero, fight for your adventure! Legends of Yore, a casual rogue like game designed for mobile platforms. Choose your character and adventure through the dungeons, gaining levels and experience to eventually become a hero.
Price: Free, $2.02
Tested on: Sony Xperia Play, Droid Bionic
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Retro-style Zelda-like RPG for Android!
- Expansive game environments!
- Fog of War in dungeons!
- Three different hero classes!
- Excellent inventory system!
- Saved games move from device to device with a Legends of Yore account!
Cons
- Repetitive soundtrack.
- Combat feels out of the player’s control at times.
- Graphics are going to be too old school for some.
- No intricate storyline to add to game environment.
Features:
Legends of Yore is an extremely intricate retro-RPG for Android. You play a valiant hero who must traverse through dungeons, expansive forests, and creepy graveyards to gain experience, level up, and become a hero! It features 3 different playable classes, a fog of war mechanism for dungeons, expansive environments, interactive NPC’s, upgradeable inventory through item loots, and customizable heroes through spells and skills.
Legends of Yore reminds me a lot of Zelda and the classic Role Playing Games of the late 80′s and early 90′s. The graphics are 8-bit old school and themed to have a retro feel. There is not a lot of story built in to the game. You are a member of a small town who wishes to be a hero and who must complete various quests and tasks in order to become that hero.
As you walk about the town you will interact with various NPC’s who will give you quests, allow you to purchase items, or who may be hostile (like the evil chicken.) As you collect quests you venture out into the world of the game to complete them and encounter various enemies.
The first quest of the game is for you to kill zombie skeletons which are infesting the local graveyard. I played through this and the first dungeon with both the warrior class character and the wizard. There is a total of three characters in the game: the warrior, the archer, and the wizard.
I found the warrior to best fit my play style. The warrior rushes into combat and fights hand to hand with his enemies. He takes the most damage of all of the characters, because he must fight in close quarters. However, he is also the most capable to deal with the high levels of damage he receives from his enemies. The Archer is a mix between the Wizard and the Warrior. He is capable of fighting from long range, but can hold off an enemy at close range for a few minutes if he has to. The Wizard is only really effective from a distance, but has the most powerful spells to destroy enemies. Each character fits a different player’s personality and will allow anyone to enjoy playing this game
The way you engage in combat is either by moving up against the character that you wish to attack in order to engage in melee combat, or to tap on the character from a distance to fire magic or projectiles at them from a distance. The combat log is then scrolled across the top of the screen showing how the computer calculates the damage taken by both parties. I would have preferred a little more refined combat system. I felt like the combat did not allow for a lot of customization by the player. However, this may have resulted from the fact that I had not leveled my character as far as I needed to fully customize him.
As you kill off enemies they will drop loot which will allow you to heal your player, customize his items and player stats, or purchase new armor and weapons from the local shop. When you click on a dead NPC you are able to see all of the items they were carrying and pick up only the items you wish, or to pick up everything they were carrying. I really liked the way inventory was handled in this game and once again it reminded me of the retro RPG’s of Yore.
One of my other favorite aspects of the game was the dungeons. The dungeons were designed to give a kind of spooky eerie feeling to them. There was various altars and basins strewn throughout the dungeons with ominous subtext. When you are in a dungeon there is a fog of war so that the player cannot see the rooms next to him. This means that you never know what you are going to encounter next and adds a lot more suspense to the game. I found that I was constantly close to dying in the dungeon, but I would pick up more health from a dead enemy right as I thought I was finished.
The first boss was challenging and was the first fight where I ended up using health potions. Once you defeated him and all of the other enemies in the dungeon you would receive a key and be able to progress to the next area. My favorite part of the game was definitely exploring the dungeons and defeating the boss. 
The developer did an excellent job creating suspense and drawing you in with the mystery of the dungeon.
Finally, this game allows you to create an account to backup all of your saved games to a remote server. When you sign up for a Legends of Yore account you can go to any of your other Android devices that have the game installed and log in with that same account name and password. Automatically your saved games will be transferred so that you continue playing on any device you please.
Watch on Mobile
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Legends of Yore Graveyard
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Legends of Yore Shrine
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Legends of Yore Dungeon 1
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Legends of Yore Dungeon Complete
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Legends of Yore Gameplay Inside
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Legends of Yore Boss
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Legends of Yore City
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Legends of Yore Old Man
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Legends of Yore Sword
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Legends of Yore Item Box
Fun Factor:
Legends of Yore is an extremely fun RPG to play in your spare time. The developer took a lot of time creating many interesting environments, intricate quest lines, and eerie dungeons. I really enjoyed questing through the dungeons in the game and exploring the world.
The two biggest detractors to this game were the graphics and the combat system. The graphics were a bit older then even I am used to and it took me a little while to become used to this extremely retro-styled game. However, once I was used to it I did find that it did not impair my experience at all.
The combat system felt a bit too uncontrolled. I would like to see more options to fight monsters and instead of walking in to enemies to start melee combat I would like to see the addition of an attack button and/or block button to make the player feel more control over the hero.
Addictive:
Legends of Yore became more and more addictive after you’ve spent a little time in the game. To be honest the first time I played this game about a month and a half ago I stopped playing it after 5 minutes, because I felt the graphics were styled too old and the controls were a bit difficult to get used to.
This time around I dedicated more time to playing the game and gave it a fair shot. The more I played the game, the more I felt that I wanted to play it. Once I had completed the first dungeon I didn’t want to stop playing and could have kept going for another hour. I would recommend to anyone who wants to try this game out to finish the first dungeon before you make any decisions on how you feel about the game.
Graphics:
The graphics to the game are definitely styled to feel retro. If you are the type of person who hates old movies, and video games that aren’t from Playstation or Xbox then this game isn’t going to be for you. However, if you love the feel of old DOS and Atari games; or you miss playing Zelda on the NES then this game was made for you!
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
This game does not make use of either vibration or the device’s accelerometer. Although the accelerometer was not needed in order to add to the experience of this game; vibration could add a little bit to the feel of the combat. I would at least like to see this added as an option for future versions.
As for the soundtrack; the sound effects were good, but the music was repetitive and boring. Throughout the course of the game the same music played. The dungeon, the town, the graveyard, the fields; they all have the same music! After 2 minutes of playing with the music on you will want to turn it off.
The sound effects are a different story. They were old, but varied for each object or combat. I preferred the variety in the game’s sound effects over the boring repetition of the game music.
Tags:
adventure,
Android App,
Android Apps,
Android Game,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
casual game,
Dungeon,
Legends of Yore,
nethack,
Quest,
retro,
Retro Game,
rogue,
roguelike,
roleplay,
RPG,
Zelda
Categorised in: Arcade & Action, Casual
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