Developed by YummyYummyTummy, Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire is one part of a two-part story from the Fallen Legion titles.

Story

When first entering the world of Fallen Legion, players will be introduced to Cecile, a princess of her kingdom and a talking grimoire (Magic Book), who are on a quest to save her crumbling kingdom. At the beginning of the game Cecile is fleeing from her enemies, who is led from Legatus Laendur, a general who wants to overthrow the royal family.  I don’t want to go too much into the story, but it will draw players in. Until a certain point, where it becomes somewhat bland and not as engaging.

Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire takes a somewhat minimal approach to telling its tale, but then feels like it peaks just a slight too fast. One aspect that did bug me though, was that there was hardly any voice acting, especially when players are introduced into the cut scences that have some terrific voice overs. Most of the time players will find themself with a small voiced over intro to a cut scene, then nothing but pure dialog and no voice overs. Reading the dialog than felt more like a chore instead captivating, but this is not a reason to overlook this title.

Visuals and Audio

With an art style similar to such titles like Dragons Crown and Odin’s Sphere, Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire looks stunning and amazing. From the cut scene art, menus, backgrounds and battles, Fallen Legion will have players immersed in its world’s visuals.  The hand drawn sprites for the character and bosses in the game is most notably impressive, especially with all the details will have you in awe. On top of that the background are will have you amazed and just look fantastic all around. The art style also fits perfect with the game’s soundtrack.

Fallen Legion’s soundtrack is actually one of my favorite feature when I was playing. The soundtrack instantly drew me into its world, and pumped me up for the battles. When it comes to music in RPG’s, I always feel like it needs to help the player engage in the world of the title, and Fallen Legion hits the nail on the head perfectly.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire mainly focuses on combat, rather than story and characters. The title takes mechanics from older RPG’s combat system such as Valkyrie Profiles, and meshes it into its own unique gameplay style, which I might say is extremely fun!

Players will find themselves learning the fast combat system battles and some what button mashing until they finally figure out everything works, and how to execute unique moves. The battle system consist of Cecille and her Exemplars. Cecile is tied to the triangle button, and is able to unleash a magical attack and able to heal the party or revive the Exemplars when they fall in battle. Exemplars are tied to the X, Square and O buttons on your controller and are primarily your attackers and defenders. So when in battle, your goal is to use the Exemplars together to link attacks and getting high combo chains to do a death-blow attack, as well as keeping them alive with Cecile. The only thing is that you can’t just button mash, and cannot be hit by the enemies otherwise it will stop your combo. Each character has AP that needs to recharge after attacking, and players will also have a defense button, which can parry attacks if executed on time as well help with combos. So the trick to this is pure timing. This is where players will be the most engaged in Fallen Legion, because it takes time to perfect, and feels satisfying when done right, especially during boss fights, which is the most intense battles you will have in Fallen Legion. 

The most unusual part about the game is during battles players will be given moral choices which will decide the stories out come and will also give players special items or buffs during combat. Often they will just be buffs that feel needed for upcoming boss battles but they can be tied to a bad decision that can shift the narrative in a different direction. I found this to never be annoying, or a burden at all during gameplay, but rather a fun and unique touch for the game. Having to make a choice quick in battle just make the title more of its own identity and not a game that felt like a clone of any other game titles.

Verdict

Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire is not an average RPG title, and that is fantastic. It falls flat on the story, but makes up for it in the battle system, visuals, ad soundtrack. I actually really enjoyed playing Fallen Legion, mainly because it didn’t feel like any other title I played before, and would recommend new RPG fans and veteran players to pick this title up. It has 90 percent of what makes a title great and I can see all players enjoying Fallen Legion: Sins of an Empire for Playstation 4.