I need to train more troops for battle and conquest. I need to develop a solid economy to make my realm powerful. I need to decide where to invest in future character development points and what weapons to focus on. Unfortunately, Legends of Ellaria is making it hard for players to focus on its interesting ideas because of its poor mechanical execution.
The game aims to mix classic role-playing, real-time strategy, group combat, and management. Larkon Studio is handling both development and publishing duties for the title, which is available on the PC via Steam. The story is based around a new world, accessible via a magic portal, that the player character will escape to during the tutorial. The writing is functional and nothing more, the quest design is quite classic, and the characters fail to impress.
Most of the time players will be in a third-person perspective, guiding their created character around locations. He will seek advisers and other characters to talk and interact with. But most of the time combat is the main way to interact with the world. Players get a variety of options, from classic swords and shields to magic fireballs, and they can also lead groups of recruited followers. Players can zoom out even more to enter a real-time strategy mode, allowing them to lead more troops, although the tactical options do not increase significantly.
M brings players to an overland map that shows settlements, points of interest, and armies that can challenge gamers. It first seems that it aims to be a modern take on the classic Heroes of Might & Magic overland map, complete with building, recruitment, and travel time. Gamers can put up outposts as they gain territory, choose how much to tax their citizens and how many of them to turn into soldiers.
But most of the hard work is done by the main character himself. With a little preparation he can take down a bandit camp by himself (magic is your friend). But combat never feels good or interesting, more like a chore required to make progress. The story is not interesting enough to put up with the problems the game has. The mechanics have bright ideas but fail to make them shine. The characters never feel like actual humans. No element of the experience is interesting enough to justify spending time in this world.
Worse, Legends of Ellaria has a problem with optimization. It takes a lot of time to move from one layer of the game to another or to load locations. I became quite comfortable with alt-tabbing for a few minutes. Given the complexity of the game, this might be expected but it is not acceptable.
Players are also talking about a range of tech issues, ranging from crashes after character creation to impossible to finish quests, for Legends of Ellaria. The development team is promising that patching will eliminate them and improve gameplay and user interface. It’s probably a good idea to wait before buying.
Legends of Ellaria is a very mediocre game when it comes to its presentation. The world and strategic map are well designed and even have fleeting moments of beauty. But the characters, regardless of rank and importance, are not only ugly but look more like puppets with textures on. There’s a lot of detail in the buildings but the universe has no identity beyond semi-medieval. The voice work feels entirely unnecessary, especially given the gibberish used instead of real words. The music is tranquil and airy, unsuited to the setting and the themes of expansion and exploration.
The Good
- Extensive gameplay concepts
- Variety of combat mechanics
- Deep character development
The Bad
- Poor execution
- Problems with presentation
- Excessive loading times
Conclusion
The combat system has too many ideas and it is also relatively easy to abuse. The game needed a harsh editor to pare it down to some core, cool ideas. It is telling that, at the time of writing, only a little more than 2% of players have completed the tutorial.
The developers clearly have good ideas and the willingness to put in the work to make them a reality. But they clearly need to focus on a smaller set of mechanics and concepts if they want to deliver an experience that fans can actually enjoy.
Given that it is very hard to eliminate features from a released game I hope that Larkon has learned a valuable lesson and will deliver a better game using similar core ideas in the future. A new take on the strategic elements of Might & Magic with some innovations for the combat could reach a large number of players.