Legion: Legend of Excalibur First Impressions

Legion: Legend of Excalibur transports gamers to the medieval era. Based on the King Arthur mythos, Legion: Legend of Excalibur is the first installment in the Legion franchise. Legion: Legend of Excalibur is being described as a 3D strategy RPG game. You play as Arthur Pendragon, high king of England, building and controlling legions of knights to defeat evil forces and claim their kingdom. For example, you can build a party and take them out into battle. You actually have full control of one knight; however, the better you do in battle, the better the rest of your party does behind you, similar to the morale system used in Koei's Dynasty Warriors 2. The party can also be split up into smaller groups to avoid a mass defeat. In addition to single player modes, Legion will also offer multiplayer capabilities.

The game's battle scenes are intense and extremely graphic. Warriors can be impaled by swords and heaved through the air like toys. This is definitely one bloody game. The scenes rendered by the PlayStation 2 heighten the level of reality during battles. Other mythical creatures like dragons fly across the sky majestically and have extremely high polygonal counts. The PlayStation 2 hardware will truly do Legion justice.

The entire Twelve Knights of the Round Table aspect gives Legion a very intricate storyline to start from. Those who are fans of the King Arthur series are going to be in for a treat. Even if you are not a fan or have not read the King Arthur series, Legion will definitely be an extremely enjoyable, if not downright addictive, game.

Legion: Legend of Excalibur is planned for a release in 2001.