Re:Legend is an upcoming RPG from Malaysia’s Magnus Games Studios published by 505 Games. It’s both a life-sim RPG where you farm, fish and sell goods and also an RPG where you tame and train monsters, craft gear and get stronger.
The game, currently in Steam Early Access, has an interesting blend of two different kinds of RPGs, and from what we’ve tried of the early hours of gameplay, looks to be juggling both aspects with the charm you expected from JRPGs of the mid-2000s.
In Re:Legend, your created character woke up one day on Vokka Island with a lost memory. After getting your bearings straight, you are offered a home and farm to live in, and start helping out the townies and also face a looming threat.
If it sounds very typical of a JRPG, you’d be right. Re:Legend is inspired by the likes of Pokemon, Digimon and Harvest Moon in more ways than one.
The presentation is spot-on. The cute chibi characters, the subtle animations (seeing your guy wobble their head a lot while riding on a Magnus is charmingly goofy) and its bright colour palate should be welcoming to everyone. And the soundtrack nails the saccharine, chirpy adventure mood it’s going for. Even the font selections for the texts are playful and jovial in nature.
If you love anime and games of the 2000s, you’ll be right at home.
What surprises me on Re:Legend is it’s a bona-fide RPG with combat and all. Your character has four different weapon types (Greatsword, Dual Swords, Staff, Bow) to use, eight slots of gear to equip and can have skills.
A tamed Magnus is both a pet and a party member that will help you in your dungeon crawls. There are story bits and quests where you need to engage in combat, which plays out very simple- it’s no Diablo, but it kind of has that same loop of move, click, loot, repeat.
There’s also the life simulation bit where you get to do the mundane (but actually fun if you’re into it) stuff. You have a large empty-ish land to do your farming. You can chop trees and mine rocks for ores.
And of course, there’s a fishing mini-game. It cannot not have one, and I’m glad to report it’s here. More than that, you can place your captured fish in its own pond and make a fish farm, feeding them to increase their stats for… fishing racing.
There’s no animal herding, you’ll be collecting and taking care of the many Magnuses (Magnusi?) instead.
There’s a timer for each day, a weather system and a calendar of events that take place throughout the years of your stay. You can do whatever you want for each day, as long as you have enough stamina.
Farming, chopping wood, mining, fishing and even fighting in the dungeons will consume stamina. There are ways to raise it should you want to not end the day early like eating food, but you will always be limited in how many things you can do in a day.
What doesn’t use stamina is building relationships with the townies. From the tsundere town nurse to the soft but hunky armour seller, there’s a cast of folks you can befriend and help out with quests and requests.
You’ll also get to do crafting. There’s a lot of crafting, from cooking buff-inducing meals to making stronger hoes and bows for faster kills.
Your character and whatever the plural form for Magnus is will gain levels, where you can spend skill points. It’s nice to know that your stats improve how well you do in combat and in life skills.
There is one worrisome point, and that is in the UI. It’s clearly designed for PC use first. The inventory lets you drag and drop items in specific boxes. And the menu tabs are laid from top to bottom rather than side-to-side where it’s more intuitive to switch tabs using the bumpers on the controller. Plus you have a hot bar to assign your tools rather than a tool wheel.
The PC preview build we have access to is playable with a controller, but there’s no native controller support yet. I hope the console editions (and the launch build for PC) of the game will have this sorted out.
If the goal was to recreate the Harvest Moons of the past (or the Story Of Seasons of the present), then Re:Legend understands its source of inspiration. It’s a nice homage to the classic life sim series, but it’s not exactly trying to be one exact recreation thanks to the combat aspects. Plus, the addition of four-player multiplayer should be something interesting, not many games of this niche have that to offer.
Re:Legend will be out this November for the PS4, PC (Steam), Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.