Lionheart:Legacy of the Crusader - Review @ Gamebanshee

magerette

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Gamebanshee posts a retrospective review of the 2003 alternate history RPG from Black Isle and Reflexive Entertainment, Lionheart:Legacy of the Crusader, scoring it 7.4/10:
Despite the limitless nature of imagination, many RPGs are based on a cliché high fantasy setting, usually based on medieval Europe. Of those that aren't, most still find their inspiration in an equally familiar science fiction environment. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, released back in 2003 by Interplay, is one of the few titles that try something different - it is based on an alternate history version of Renaissance Europe...
...Played from an isometric perspective, gameplay is perhaps most reminiscent of Diablo. Yes, unfortunately, Lionheart is at its core a hack and slash game. While Barcelona is filled with interesting quests, and important choices are ruthlessly thrown on you (something lacking in many RPGs), most other areas have nothing but enemies. The wilderness around Barcelona maintains some semblance of design, but as soon as you pass the first town in France, it's predominately monsters.
Conclusion:
Lionheart is a flawed game, for the most part. It is unsure of its focus, and because of that it fails both as a hack and slash title, and a more traditional RPG. However, the unique setting and compelling design of Barcelona make at least the first several hours worthy of play.
More information.
 
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got this from GOG, haven't had a chance to play it though.
 
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I finised Lionheart. The game looks like a blend between Baldur's Gate style questing & graphics and diablo style realtime combat. While it's not a real classic, it sure stands up against current RPG's.
 
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I remember thinking it was awful. I'd really been looking forward to it too, sounded like a great setting, but ultimately it was just an action rpg without enjoyable action.
 
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I hated it. Loved Barcelona. Hated the rest--because I died constantly, I think. I'm very fond of hack and slash, but this was more like punishment than combat. But I may have to retry it one of these days and see if it's improved.
 
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It's based on the Infinity Engine correct? If so, I'm surprised with the amount of love people have for that engine that there aren't fan mods to improve the game.
 
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I hated it. Loved Barcelona. Hated the rest--because I died constantly, I think. I'm very fond of hack and slash, but this was more like punishment than combat. But I may have to retry it one of these days and see if it's improved.

No desire to try it out again here, painful combat and nowhere near enough plot to keep me going in spite of it. Such a disappointment, I hope nobody considers its failure to be down to poor choice of setting rather than poor implementation.
 
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I finised Lionheart. The game looks like a blend between Baldur's Gate style questing & graphics and diablo style realtime combat. While it's not a real classic, it sure stands up against current RPG's.

Yes, your mage FAQ was a big help! ;)

It's based on the Infinity Engine correct? If so, I'm surprised with the amount of love people have for that engine that there aren't fan mods to improve the game.

It's not Infinity Engine.

Anyway, I stand by the conclusion (I wrote the review) - you can hate it as much as you want, but the Barcelona part is still too interesting to miss.
 
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It was a fair review, VPeric. A lot of people liked the game more than I did. And I liked the first part very much. At the prices it's going for now, there's no reason not to give it a spin. I paid fifty bucks for it, which is probably where my angst originates. :)
 
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According to wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=2880210

the engine used is the Velocity Engine.

It is made by Reflexive Entertainment, most famous for arcade type games. This clearly shows, imo, especially in the combat design. Hack & slash it is. And a very difficult one, too, I might add. I tried the demo first. Then some years later bought the game in a bargain bin for about 19,95 US dollars. When I played it (again), there wasn't a difficulty slider. (if there is, I've missed it).

The gameplay is similar to the Fallout, the game uses the SPECIAL system and the conversation system used in the Infinity Engine. You can't pause the game in combat, when your fighting, only to drink healing potions. That would be ok, if it weren't for (as I remember it) the monsters still attack you. The character animation is lacking greatly; the building architecture and level design is generally rather good.

And why, oh why, is there so many annoying wasps around ? and ewhy are the nearly impossible to kill??
 
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^You must've done something bad with your character, as the wasps aren't particulary difficult to kill (unless you get swarmed, but that shouldn't happen). Pouring points into one-handed weapon and evasion skills is what you should be doing, with maybe a few points into some misc skills (lockpicking, find hidden, divine:fortitude for healing). Picking the right racial trait helps a lot - there's a vampiric one and "skin of thorns", both of which are very useful. As mentioned, a mage and to a lesser extent a ranged character are too difficult to play.

Pausing is possible whenever (which I failed to mention), and you can quaff as many potions as you want while paused. You might be confusing it with another game. :)
 
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I think the trooubles came from the fact that I at first only had the demo character to work with. And that was a fixed character. I might be giving it a run later after your help. So thank you very much for this, VPeric. It has really been helpful :)
 
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This is one of those games that could have been great had there been the resources to finish it properly. It reminds of Gothic 3 in this way.

The shame of it was the character development made the combat system a lot of fun in Barcelona, where it was interspersed with many quests and interesting NPCs. It was like the icing on the cake that highlighted the interesting parts of the racial differences, SPECIAL, and perks. You just can't enjoy eating icing by itself for too long though. The combat was great for taking up 30-40% of the game, just not 95% as it was after Barcelona.
 
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I liked the setting and the idea of the character development. The real failing in this game IMO was the game balance, or utter lack thereof. With every character I played the game quickly became way too easy making character development hollow and the story wasn't enough on its own to get me over that.

No chance difficulty was patched or changed on the version they got on GOG, is there?
 
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I thoroughly enjoyed the first ~20 hours I played ... after that I lost interest at some point and never finished.

It is interesting, after getting it at GoG a few weeks back I was considering doing a retrospective on it ...

When I originally bought it, it was a eBay 'bundle' in '04 where I grabbed Arcanum, Pool of Radiance: Myth Drannor and Lionheart for a total of $11. PoR was a POS, but Lionheart was easily worth the money for the experience, and Arcanum is one of my favorite games.

I have started again, still as a mage ... and am enjoying it quite a bit. I know the 'flavor' won't last ... but it is fun for a while.
 
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I felt that Lionheart started ok, but went downhill after that. The companions are really badly coded. Once you recruit them they are little more than AI scripted bonusweapons that you have very little control of and add nothing to the story. Also the final bits of the game and the end have more in common with diablo than baldurs gate.

Like pointed out, Lionheart is really the only game beyond Gothic that I wrote a short guide for.
 
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When I originally bought it, it was a eBay 'bundle' in '04 where I grabbed Arcanum, Pool of Radiance: Myth Drannor and Lionheart for a total of $11. PoR was a POS, but Lionheart was easily worth the money for the experience, and Arcanum is one of my favorite games.


Hell of a deal there, Arcanum by itself is definitely worth many times that amount.
 
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My opinion:
The first part (Barcelona) is great. The rest is rubbish. Seems they ran out of money/time when making the rest of the game.
 
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