Arslan: The Warriors of Legend is a tactical action title based
on the novel and manga series The Heroic Legend of Arslan. The story centres
around Pars Arslan when his father, King Arslan has been stabbed in the back
and defeated and subsequently all his land gets conquered so Pars and friends build
an army to take back the land that his father once ruled so he can sit rightfully
on the throne and liberate the kingdom from darkness. To be honest I try and stay informed about as much animé and
manga as possible but as there is so much out there and never enough time in the
day I've personally never heard of this series so please try not to get upset with
any possible ignorance in this review. When I loaded this game
up I was really impressed with the storytelling, dropping you quickly into who
and what has happened if you’ve never heard of this series, perfect for someone
like me, when you finish a mission and whilst the game is loading either the
next cinematic or next large scale assault upon the enemy it will feed you
story while you wait, often what has happened between characters after the last
battle and the reasons for the next battle which really give more meaning to what
you are asked to during the battles, these were the main reasons for not being
able to put this game down to start. The way the battles pan out differ depending on the level
but the battles feel exciting at first with large waves of AI's to take on, it
feels like you have no chance in winning when you look at it from the outset
but the more you play the more you realise the AI is dumb, making battles that
seem completely unfair ending up being waves of helpless wandering punchbags,
but what do you expect from a game that has a strong base from games like Ninety-Nine
Nights or the various Warriors titles? Personally they always excite me then bore me after a short period
for it end up collecting dust on my shelf, it’s a shame as I was loving the
story of the game but not enough to have to deal with countless insignificant
drones that can sometimes just re-spawn on top of where you are standing which
is infuriating over and over again. Giving the game some dues though it is a very simplistic to
pick up like so many titles similar to itself, you could easily put it down for
a long period of time only to come back to it in months and still remember how
to play it well.
All the characters are different in the way they attack which gives the game a slight amount of variety but after a period of time you will get a little bit fed up with doing same sort of moves to take down waves of stupid AI's or occasional larger slightly more intelligent bosses, to top it off you’re timed during each stage and ranked for your accomplishments from damage taken to enemies defeated but from what I can tell it doesn't really affect the game in the slightest so just seems insignificant and a bit of a pointless thing to add unless you’re planning to try and beat friends high scores. The art design is one of the real standout things in Arslan:
TWOL, anime and manga-style cell shading which in this generation of consoles
has come into its own, glorious 3D visuals that breathe life into characters you’ve
only ever seen on in a 2D medium, soft smooth colours and thick outlines give a
great comic effect and stunningly realised environments give a vast deep world
to the game. As I said earlier the game is easy to pick up for anyone and
if you’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game before it wouldn't be long before you
knew the controls, they are simple to get started but as you play you’ll pick
up the different combos and sequences to launch larger attacks on the hordes
you face. One thing I found most annoying was the camera, it can
really slow you down at times when you are having to keep adjusting it to find an
individual target amongst hundreds you have to take out it’s a shame there wasn’t
a lock on ability (that I could find) to be able to tag the bigger enemies, nothing
worse than launching a massive attack or combo and finding out that the bosses were
behind you. Overall I enjoyed the story and found it fun for
a short period of time before I starting to get fed up of doing the same things
to the same enemies just in a slightly different environment, if you enjoy Koei
Tecmo’s Warriors titles you will most likely enjoy it, though personally I'm
more interested in the upcoming Attack on Titan: Wings of freedom as I can’t
explain how much I love the anime and manga but I guess it would be the same if
you’d heard of/read/watched The Heroic Legend of Arslan unlike myself.
Arslan: The Warriors of Legend is out now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, & Microsoft Windows