Fallen Legion: Gameplay wanted

A couple of months ago, Limited Run Games released a physical edition of Fallen Legion. I remember pondering a purchase for a while, before ultimately renouncing. I had that unexplicable feeling that purchasing that one game would be a bad idea, even though it seemed to be a match made in heaven on paper; and boy, was my gaming instinct right on the mark, for the millionth time.

Seriously, that game is a complete joke. Even if you can somehow ignore the fact that it was artificially cut in two and initially required two bloody gaming systems to be enjoyed to the fullest (in every darn sense of the word), there is no ignoring the horrendous performances issues that plague its Vita half. Loading times that stretch towards infinity, slowdowns up the wazoo, jaggy animations, you name it — and suffer through it. Should you choose to grind and bear it and soldier on, the gameplay will probably give you the coup de grâce. To call that mess of a game an Action RPG is an resounding insult to the whole genre. Fallen Legion is a pared-down Beat 'em up-meets-ARPG that only lets you do the barest minimum on the battlefield, and sometimes not even that. You cannot jump, move vertically or behind enemies, nor perform a variety of attacks or target body parts like in any good Beat 'em up; and neither can you open menus, evade and retreat to regroup like in any decent ARPG. So the only thing left to do is mindlessly spam attacks until there's nothing left standing, right? NOPE! You can't even indulge in the joy of button-mashing, because the characters have ATB gauges. Are you serious, game? So the little, so very little you let me do has to be precisely timed? Why the heck did the developers choose to sneak in a Turn-based RPG feature in the first place, and one that so completely hampers real-time combat to boot? Were you trolling here, YummyYummyTummy? Gimme a break — and take back your crappy game while you're at it.

I'm pissed off that I purchased such a grossly incompetent game; on the other hand, I'm glad I did so on a PSN sale and gave the Limited Run edition a pass. Needless to say, I didn't finish the thing and gave up after an hour spent gritting my teeth, spitting at my Vita's screen and racking up Game Overs like it was going out of fashion. On a more general note, I have to admit that I'm not quite fond of that current trend of mixing gameplay elements from various genres when it comes to all things fighting. This used to be pretty rare back in the days, with only a precious few daring to cross boundaries; nowadays, it seems that every developer and their brother try their hand at it. But while venerable series such as Tales and Hyperdimension Neptunia managed to pull off the crossover thing in an elegant way, newer developers more often than not fail utterly at it, dumping half-unplayable RPGs on poor unsuspecting players. Dear developers, please don't try to be original just for the sake of it: a solid one-flavour RPG is still a million times better than a weak multi-flavoured one. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!