Legendary Tales Review: Solid ARPG in VR (PCVR)

Legendary Tales is a great action RPG that offers an incredibly deep skill tree and weapon system. For fans of melee combat in VR, as well as RPG/Table top fans, Legendary Tales is a must buy, even if the game also suffers from repetitive gameplay and visual design.

Legendary Tales Review: Solid ARPG in VR (PCVR)

Legendary Tales is an ambitious, multiplayer action RPG modeled after the likes of Blade and Sorcery, Diablo, and Hell Split: Arena. Crawl through procedurally generated labyrinths with up to a team of four players. Legendary Tales has an incredibly solid base on which to build more content in the future. The game offers some compelling gameplay for fans of dungeon crawlers and sword fighters in VR, but suffers from repetitive enemy design and set pieces. However, a massive update in the form of a “New World” is promised later this year.

Legendary Tales was reviewed on PCVR, and is currently $34.99 on Steam. Also, you can read more of our VR reviews here at KeenGamer.

Story – Nonexistent

The start of Legendary Tales will have players wake up with amnesia in a dungeon. Here, they will learn the controls and mechanics of the game. Skeletons, goblins, and bat-like creatures have infested the world around you. Your goal, as a delver, is to clear them out, and their boss variants, while completing the level.

You can invite additional players, friends or randoms, to join you and venture out from the hub world together into the game’s dungeons.

Story is clearly still under development for the title, but still possesses a strong atmosphere. It is clear that the developer has put all of their effort into forming a solid gameplay loop for the time being.

On the horizon, Legendary Tales will host a “New World” update by the end of 2023, which greatly opens up the content beyond the dungeon crawler loop that is currently present. Based on trailer footage, New World seems to offer a new Story as well. However, most of the context for what you’re doing will come from clues that you can figure out in the environment.

Campfire

Campfire

Gameplay – Excellent and Deep

Legendary Tales is a four person, co-op Action RPG that can also be played by a solo delver. The game relies on procedurally generated levels and a scaling level difficulty to keep the game fresh, so its most obvious shortcoming is a sense of repetition in combat and deja vu.

Tutorial – Shorter, Yet Comprehensive

The tutorial is long and can be seen as a pre-built level to get used to all the mechanics Legendary Tales has to offer. Players can find tutorial hints by gazing into mirrors scattered throughout the level. You will also be presented with a gladius and dagger to vanquish your foes, along with an introduction to the spell casting system in the form of a weak fireball. The tutorial, although shortened from the initial three hour long affair that was available upon release, does a great job of explaining and giving players time to practice the mechanics.

At the end of the tutorial, you will be presented with the home portal spell, which whisks you away to the hub world and the main game.

Hub World/Castle

After clearing the tutorial and teleporting back to town, players will be presented with a hub world that has three NPC shops and a variety of set pieces to practice melee and ranged combat. There is also a spot to trade items between players, and an unused space that gives a preview of the world outside of the castle. On the far end of the Castle are two massive doors that lead to the levels, next to portals that come into use when a player casts the home teleport within a dungeon.

Blacksmith Shop

Blacksmith Shop

NPC Shops

There are three major NPC shops in the current version of the game. First is the blacksmith, which is well implemented for a VR RPG – there is a forge in which you toss weapons for more gold, and you can pick up weapons to buy them. Weapon level scales with the current level of dungeon players have unlocked so far. There are a large variety of melee weapons in the game, more than any other VR title. However, melee weapons from the shop are limited to blue rarity, which is the second lowest rarity in the game. For better rarity weapons, you’ll have to loot those from dungeon enemies and chests.

The other shops include a magic and potion shop, which previously sold spells – but now only sells potions to use in the dungeon; as well as a crystal shop, where you have a chance to pull a random weapon, similar to loot boxes in other titles. Legendary Tales decided to change the spell acquisition system to skill unlocks from the previous purchasing spells.

RPG System

One of the highlights of the RPG system in Legendary Tales is a comprehensive skill unlock system. Players will acquire points after leveling up, which can be spent on many different skill trees, encouraging a wide diversity of playing. From bow and arrow, to spell caster, to a fist-fighting monk or a dual wielding Barbarian, and a hybrid combination of those styles, players will not have a shortage of gameplay options at their disposal. There are also weapons that emphasize different stats – strength based weapons, dexterity based weapons, etc. There are also smaller sub-trees for different weapon types of the same category, such as axes versus swords.

Players will have an easier time with the game if they focus on a particular playstyle, as there eventually is a level cap at fifty. If you spread your points too wide, you will be lacking in the proper damage to deal with end-game enemies. However, this also encourages the creation of multiple characters and extends replayability.

Players will also have base stats that affect their gameplay significantly. Strength, Dexterity, Luck, Intelligence, and Wisdom make a return here, very similar to stat sheets found in tabletop RPGs. Players will have different, attribute points to assign when gaining levels. These tie back into the perks from the skill tree to have compound effects. For example, there is an endgame perk that boosts axe damage per strength level gained.

Legendary Weapon

Legendary Weapon

Equipment

Equipment can be acquired in one of two ways, either from the shops in the hub world or as drops in the dungeon. Items are initially in the form of crystals, which must be physically broken to open. Equipment spans a wide variety of melee weapons, more than any other current title, and comes in five rarities: white – common, blue – rare, yellow – very rare, purple – ultra rare, and orange – legendary. The legendary weapons all have unique properties and models, as well as special abilities. For example, the legendary axe has a special ability that allows it to act like a delayed boomerang, causing damage on the way back after being thrown.

Physics-Based Combat

Legendary Tale’s solid base is composed of satisfying, physics based combat that works well in a multiplayer setting. Players will also need to swing to defend themselves against attacks. This causes parries to be more purposeful and add weight and difficulty to the combat.

However, enemy types are limited, and have predictable weapon patterns as a result. There are only three base enemy types in the game – ranged skeletons, melee skeletons, goblins, and bats – and they share animations, which allows the veteran player to defend easily.

Regardless, taking damage can be quite punishing, especially if a player hasn’t spent enough attributes into Vitality.

Bosses

There are also boss enemies, which come in two varieties at time of writing this review. There are skeleton bosses and goblin bosses. These come with larger health pool and more damage, but are really just scaled up versions of the normal enemies. Bosses also have a chance to have a random modifier that adds some complexity to their fights. For example, some bosses might have a shared health pool with minions, forcing players to defeat the smaller enemies first.

Challenges and Arena Mode

While clearing dungeons, one might run into a challenge in the form of a yellow portal. This will lead to a separate area. Here, players will complete a more difficult combat scenario in order to get an increased reward. Here, death is not punished, but you only get one shot at victory.

Challenges include battling a wave of monsters one on one while others watch, defending a specific area for a certain amount of time, and finding all the switches in a large room before being overrun. These challenges add much need variety to the gameplay loop.

Additionally, there is a separate arena mode. The character created will do its best to survive a series of enemies. This mode is recommended for a max level, 50 character, as it’s quite challenging.

Dungeon Complete

Dungeon Complete

Graphics and Sound – Polished Yet Limited

Legendary Tales successfully accomplishes a unified aesthetic, which very much feels like Diablo I in VR. Weapons are gorgeous to look at and the limited character models look great. The textures present fit the atmosphere of the world. On the downside is the lack of range available in the current content. After a few hours of playing Legendary Tales, an issue presents itself. One can grow weary of the dreary dark brown brick and night palette. Enemies aren’t surprising, and one basically knows what to expect in encounters.

Additionally, the few soundtracks present in the game sound great as well. However, these suffer from the same issues as the visuals: Namely, there is not enough variety.

Effects are satisfying and make sense. There is good feedback when hitting enemies and parrying blows, as well as appropriate magic sounds for when casting spells. Enemies however, are silent and can sneak up on you when you are not aware of them. Hopefully in the future, Legendary Tales will build upon these shortcomings.

Legendary Tales was reviewed on PCVR.

Summary
Legendary Tales is a multiplayer VR ARPG that has an incredibly promising base. For fans of dungeon crawlers, Diablo, and first person melee combat games, Legendary Tales is a must-buy for Steam VR. Unfortunately, one can not look past the shortcomings as well -- Legendary Tales suffers from lack of variety in enemies and design. Hopefully the promised updates will rectify these issues.
Good
  • Great Physics Based Combat
  • Large Weapon Variety
  • Diverse Skill Tree System
Bad
  • Repitive Gameplay
  • Limited Enemy Types
  • No Story
7.5
Good

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