Avalon Legend – An XBOX 360 Indie Game Review

Developer: Kangsanagi/Exyle Studios
Genre: Shooter
Players: 1
Countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
Languages: English
Price: 240 Points

Developer Summary:

“Combine and control two characters simultaneously in a post-apocalyptic abstraction of the King Arthur Legend with a haunting metaphorical overtone.” As Arthur the exiled in a post apocalyptic world, harness the powers of 4 different robotic companions known as the “Knights of the Round” over 2 different modes, in a unique “Single-Player Co-operative” experience.

What We Think:
The concept behind Exyle Studios Avalon Legend is a unique one if nothing else. You play as the legendary King Arthur who has apparently been exiled from his kingdom and is forced into a harsh and unforgiving post-apocalyptic wasteland. Here he is lost to an endless battle of metaphorical beasts such as fear, hatred etc. which gives the whole experience a slightly Freudian overtone, making it seem more like the struggle from within, rather than one of the epic world-spanning quests with which King Arthur is commonly associated.

Endless Knight.
The story is told in a unique “un-lockable” fashion in which Arthur’s journal pages are presented to you by completing certain in-game tasks, So unless you are truly invested in the game, this makes the story seems secondary and though interestingly told, may be overlooked by many who don’t browse through options menus.

The game plays out as an endless top down shooter (think Gauntlet meets Smash t.v but set on a single platform) in which enemies start out in light numbers but slowly begin to grow in waves and before long you are surrounded on all sides forced to use all available means to dispatch a variety of foes. Along the way you receive power-ups and bonuses which when used properly can help get you through the onslaught.

Dark and Stormy
Let’s get this out of the way first: Avalon Legend won’t exactly be winning awards in terms of it’s art- design. It’s by no means an ugly game, but it appears too simplistic to carry out the story that’s contained within.

Upon starting the game you are presented with a menu screen which has a fairly simple-cartoony but charming aesthetic. This is all well and good, it’s the in-game graphics however that fall a little flat. Due to the low-poly nature of the enemies it’s hard to tell exactly what it is you’re fighting. It’s only once I unlocked the special bonus rewards and was able to view the concept art that I could really understand the “nature of the beasts”. I at one point thought that I was fighting blob-monsters and wondering why they were exploding in fiery bursts, only to find out through the concept-art that they were in fact bombs. It may be a personal preference but I would have preferred the enemies to have the hand drawn charm of their conceptual-counterparts. Such is the case with The Arthur Character model and his fellow Knights of the Round, they seem like such creative concepts that are sadly lost in the top –down low-poly presentation. The platform on which you fight as well leaves something to be desired.

On the upside, The models are bright and colourful, there are plenty of well done and well used special effects such as explosions, small blood sprays, and luminous magic shields which at least help to flesh out the epic battle that is raging.

This Knight’s got game

It’s the game play contained within that makes Avalon Legend shine. The “single-player co-operative” experience that the game boasts really does provide an interesting dynamic and a surprisingly fitting motif for a game that has such strong psychological over/undertones.

This experience is found in the “attack mode” setting and it sets the control scheme up so that the left analog stick is used for Arthur and the Right becomes the current Knight of the Round you have chosen to dish out the pain. Upon first use of this mode I felt like I was battling against myself (much like Arthur at this point), and I was left to scurry frantically about the stage trying desperately to dodge, thwart and respond to enemy attacks, it was like trying to decide between left and right brain. However after a few rounds I found myself locked into the flow of battle and was able to move around with a surprising internal choreography, weaving in and out in tandem with my fellow warrior. It was a fairly moderate (though it seemed frustratingly steep at first) learning curve that came with a nice sense of achievement upon mastery.

There’s also a surprising amount of depth to the game-play modes that you are forced to switch between. Almost all of these are found in the “Key Defence” ring which encircles Arthur. On it there are four slots, Each of which contain a different knight of the round which can be summoned with the face buttons (X = Lancelot, B = Guinevere, Y = Merlin and A= Kay). On top of this each mode comes with both a defensive and offensive setting which you must choose between depending on your current situation As well as a magic spell that can be triggered through the use of mana in either defensive or offensive modes. If all of this seems a little confusing or muddled don’t worry, before long you will find a need for almost all of it. At no point did I find myself relying on just one Knight or just one offensive/defensive setting, I needed to use every weapon in my psyches well-stocked arsenal to respond to encroaching dangers.

My only complaint with the games control scheme comes from the weird choice to map Arthur’s melee attack to the left trigger and the games many magic settings to the right trigger. A swap of this control scheme would seem more intuitive as the mana used to unleash magic takes some time to restore and I found myself using the right trigger more often as this is the common attack button in most games. This is a small gripe that can be overcome easily but I did find it to be an annoyance at first.

A Knight to Remember

Despite the games visual flaws and swept-aside story, Avalon Legend maintains a high enough level of creativity (Sir Lancelot is a machinegun!!) and a well balanced, diverse and mostly intuitive control scheme to keep both casual and hard-core gamers coming back to best their previous attempts, and though in the battle with the Arthur’s psyche, you can never really win, this is still a war worth waging.

Rating: