Lionheart Review
Chris 'limesix' Rediske, 2003-09-12

First off, we should be clear about one thing - Black Isle Studios is responsible for some of the most revered RPG's of all time. Between Fallout and Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, and the Baldurs Gate series, they've either developed or published at least one game that would find its way to most serious gamer's personal top ten. However, Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader, developed by Reflexive Entertainment, probably won't be making any of those lists. Although the game has an intriguing premise and reams of back-story, its numerous missteps and badly designed features and interface make it unlikely to completely satisfy either hard-core RPG fans or the more casual Diablo-type players. It's a shame, but Black Isle has published their first true clunker.

The Disjunction

The concept is great. Basically, the game takes place in an alternate history of earth, created back in 1192 when a calamity known as the Disjunction introduced magic to the world and forever altered the path of history. King Richard the Lionhearted, since he was pretty much responsible for it, took it upon himself to end the Disjunction shortly after it began, but the magical spirits that had entered the world were in, and nothing could chase them back out. Over the next 400 years or so, they tainted the bloodlines of formerly "pure" humans, creating three additional races - Demokins, who are adept as fighters and mages, Feralkins, brutish combat suited creatures, and Sylvants, who are born mages. Except for the Demokins, the tainted races are recognizable by their features, and being that magic and spirits are feared and hunted in this alternate timeline, you'll be pretty much reviled if you play one of them. As far as your character, you play a distant relation of Richard, charged to… well, save the world. Of course.

Hope…

So at least in the early part of the game, the setting is great. You start out in Barcelona, and though it may be a bit contrived to have so many historical figures in the same city, you'll meet up with Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and others. Many of them will have quests for you just like a regular NPC, which is a little jarring, as far as the historical part of it is concerned, but it's still fun, and the voice-overs are professional and well-done. The Inquisition is hanging around, making life hard for the magically inclined types, and there are several other factions, like the Knights Templar, and the Wielders - a secret society of mages. Barcelona is beautiful, and shows off one of the nice features of Lionheart - big maps. The areas in the game are quite large, and there's lots of detail in the hand painted backgrounds, although they are largely static. So as you adventure in Barcelona, Lionheart plays much like a classic Black Isle RPG - you take quests, you fight monsters, you have choices, you join a faction, and you enjoy the game.

…but it all falls apart.

Even in this early game, however, the problems pop up - so lets take a look at them. First up is the ridiculously difficult combat. Combat takes place in real-time, and, for lack of a better analogy, plays like Diablo. You left click to attack, right click to use magic, and use the number keys as hotkeys for spells and items. The system is quick and visceral, but highlights one of Lionheart's biggest problems - it's just not that fun. In Diablo, the fun of combat (if you like that sort of thing) is that you're insanely powerful - the game throws myriad enemies at you, and you mow them down. You may come up against something powerful enough to kill you, or even just enough enemies at a time that you need to use strategy to defeat them, but you can handle pretty much whatever the game throws your way. In Lionheart, you're frighteningly underpowered for pretty much the whole game, and constantly watching your experience for the next chance to level up. In combat areas (which, after you leave Barcelona, is pretty much everywhere), you have to creep forward, luring one or two enemies out at a time, and even then you'll be reloading more than you would have thought humanly possible.

In addition, there aren't enough quick slots (which seems like an arbitrary interface choice, i.e. they gave you seven slots assigned to number keys just because that was all that would fit in the space provided in the window), and you can't target when paused, although you can quaff limitless potions. You can't rest (?), so if you want to get health or mana back, you'll need to just wait or use a potion, and speaking of potions, they're badly underpowered, and a far too precious commodity in the game. Most vendors will only have one or two to sell, so you'll need to hang on to them for only the most important fights. The other way to get back health or mana is through absorbing spirits that hang around the many dead bodies in the game, and while this is an interesting system, it's hindered by the fact that there are many more mana spirits than health.

Not quite Fallout

Lionheart touts a link back to Black Isle's classic Fallout as one of its main features - the SPECIAL character system, so named for its approach to attributes - strength, perception, etc. And while the system is one of the most flexible character development systems out there, and is well implemented into this gameworld, it only serves to highlight the main flaw of the game… at least for the hard-core Black Isle RPG'r - that you only really have one set of choices, significantly decreasing the option for actual role-playing. Choose fighting skills, or you're screwed. If you happen to play the game without having read this or one of the other lukewarm reviews of the game, you'll likely have to start over at least once when you figure out that combat is one of the main components of the game, and is unavoidable, even for the most diplomatic minded character. Once you've left the main area of Barcelona, it's pretty much fighting the whole way, and there's plenty of fighting in Barcelona as well. What the combat focus and the insane difficulty also mean is that there are really no side-quests - you'll need every bit of experience you can muster to power up your character to have a chance of surviving, so you'd better run every errand that's handed to you, and kill every monster you can. So if it's not deep or open-ended enough for hard-core RPGr's, and the combat isn't satisfying enough for your blood-thirsty Diablo player, who will enjoy Lionheart?

Big Trouble…

Well, no one - at least not whole-heartedly. In addition to the larger problems with the game, there are a handful of issues related to either development time or shortsightedness, or both. The interface is huge, and the only options are to have it on or off. The graphics are sub par, especially the player and NPC models, and they actually seem to turn on an eight-point axis with minimal animations. To exacerbate that problem, everyone moves at super speed, making the blurry sprites look even more unrealistic. You can't overwrite save games, which is a real annoyance, considering you're going to have to save a lot. There are numerous desktop crashing bugs, and more importantly, several bugs that will corrupt a save file when you're with a companion, causing you to be stuck in an area, and needing to reload. And speaking of companions, I'm actually a big fan of the "follower" system vs. a party member where you control every action, I think it adds to the role-playing considerably if you're only controlling one character - however, in Lionheart, the companions are so underpowered and stupid that it's nearly impossible to travel with one and keep them alive long enough to help them with their quest. Also, the auto map is absolutely atrocious - you can't annotate it, and it doesn't self annotate. It's just a small version of the large map, so until you memorize the locations in a large area, it's needlessly difficult to find your way around. Finally, the magic system is shallow, and you'll find that specializing in just one branch of magic will leave you with a very limited variety of spells that aren't adequate for all situations.

…And a bit of good.

With all that said, what's left? Well, an OK game. The backgrounds are generally gorgeous, and the early game in Barcelona is entertaining enough, if not particularly convincing or immersive. The factions are well-defined and offer the only possible reason to replay the game, as your quests in Barcelona are limited by which one you join - and you can only belong to one. The combat can be fun in small amounts, it's just that nearly every area forces you to creep forward and fight for every meter you advance, and when you've just fought the 100th goblin, or skeleton, or whatever, you just want someone to talk to, if only to break up the monotony. The game fiction is well thought out, and traveling an alternate Europe offers some entertaining situations.

So, what have we got?

In the end, Lionheart proves to be a heart-breaking disappointment from a company that, until now, has always seemed to hit RPG gold. Black Isle is working on several unannounced projects right now, so we can only hope that they offer a return to the aesthetics and gameplay that they have become known for. As for Reflexive, they may have a future as a RPG developer, but there will be a lot of lessons to learn from Lionheart, and one hopes that they're listening.