Review: Legacy
Score:
82%
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After beating Gameloft's Might & Magic and being startled that it was not at all a Might & Magic game I was left longing for something in the style of old. I was needing a fix to quench my first person RPG thirst that nowadays is a little hard to come by. Then like a gift from above I bumped into Redshift and their new series 60 port of Legacy.
For those who may be unfamiliar, Legacy is one of the best titles on the Tapwave Zodiac (and the Palm OS for that matter) in the RPG genre. It debuted a year or so back and quickly spread to Pocket PC, the UIQ Symbian smartphones, and now series 60 (and thus, the N-Gage. Woohoo!). It is an RPG like the greats of old that both pays homage to classics like Wizardry and Might & Magic and also succeeds at being it's own modern RPG experience.
At the beginning of a new game you are handed a random character and dropped into the middle of the forests outside of the first town. After you run from wolves and spiders to get to the safety of Decrantes you are able to stop at the local inn and build your party. Once that is complete, it's time to waltz around town helping the unfortunate and trouncing evil in a few fun side quests to help up your levels before marching onward in your quest to put an end to the tyranny of your homeland. What can you say but that this is classic stuff.
The engine that's powering this experience is also solid. While not 3D in the sense of the recent Elder Scrolls Shadowkey N-Gage release, it is a 3D perspective and the graphics are not bad at all. I found them full of life and character like only sprite art can be these days. In addition the game never sees any slowdown regardless of what you do which sadly can't be said of Shadowkey. On top of the crisp visuals and smooth running engine there is also a nice array of top-notch sound effects that really add to the immersion and feeling that "this is a quality title". In fact, "quality" is the perfect word to describe this title. From the real-time/turn-based fusion for the combat system to the appearance change of your characters for each equipped item to the uber addictive card game playable at all the game's inns Redshift through and through delivered quality up, down and sideways.
The only complaints I can really muster are that the game lacks the open world feeling of many of the games in it's genre like Daggerfall or Shadowkey and thus feels less immersive and, sadly, the game feels a little short. Mind you neither of these are serious and when you consider little touches like the implemented auto-save and auto-load features to allow you a very quick in and out and that there are several expansion packs available for a paltry 10 USD each, the game just seems like a worthwhile investment of entertainment dollars. I had a great time with Legacy and score it an 82%. If you have a series 60 phone and are looking for adventure I don't imagine you could do much better than this. Download it and give it a spin. I'm sure you'll be glad you did.
Reviewed by Chris Rydberg at