Legion Arena Demo Released!

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:00 pm

duncan wrote:I must say I'm impressed with Slitherine's work, the demo shows great promise:

- Nice music (I couldn't say that for previous slitherine's efforts )
- Nice graphics (well, I like it. I suposse that Quake IV will have better graphics, but they're still good. Some people are moaning about them, but I really like)
- Adiction, I played non stop until I finished it. They're just a bunch of battles, but I really wanted to know how could I improve my soldiers for the next challenge: should I add anti-cavalry knowing that in the next scenario it might be no cavalry at all...or only cavalry?
- Nice intro and nice voices (couldn't say that for blah,blah,blah...)
- Clean and intuitive interface (or that's what I thought, maybe because I played Spartan first...)
- Good performance in my PC: no freezes, no slowdowns...but small battles still: I'll wait for bigger and longer battles.
- Customization: names and colours. And that "rotate to see the unit" feature mlike in Fifa 98 (those were the days). My girlfriend has said she loves purple color for the legionaires. I use colour codes for my units. anti-cavalry purple, anti-infantry red and so on. I can select them in the battlefield faster this way...
- the order points are annoying...and a great idea!!!!!!!

On the downside

- I don't care about tutorials, but when I first started the game, the tutorial popped up but I had to stop playing it (hey, I have to eat). Then I restarted the game and I couldn't find the tutorial.
- The graphics are good buuuuuuut....I usually led the battle from a top perspective. They looked like ants or something. It was possible in fact to have a close look at the battlefield, but only by pressing space bar (pause). Oh, my legionaires look nice, but I don't have the time to look at them, my cavalry is in trouble on the other side of the field. is it possible to save the battles and watch them again, like a replay from Football Manager?? It would be nice.
- The game doesn't have one thing I like the most from Slitherine's games: the empire building section. So i guess it's going to be shortlived (more than Spartan, I still play that game from time to time ). Anyway, 100 scenarios are enough for me...

I think is going to be a major step forward in Slitherine's carrer, because they now have a great battle engine and Legion II will benefit of that. let's see what happens...

You can play through the tutorial by simply beginning a campaign with the tutorial army.

ste · Post by **ste** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:27 pm

Hey Duncan, if you dont like the order points you can toggle them in options, switch on "Arcade Mode"

miki · Post by **miki** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:21 pm

Hi gents,

First of all, I like the demo and I'm sure will enjoy the full game a lot. Thanks for your work.

Second, some questions:

1-Is there a way to slow down the battles. I think they will look more realistic by lasting a bit more.
2-Which is the number of battles in the campaigns? With only 5 battles -in the demo- it ends when it begins to be interesting. You know, when your units have many upgrades and you can test how they actually work on the battlefield.
3-Please, a campaign editor, please?
4-Please, a battle generator (quick battle) for solo play against the AI (not for fighting multiplayer online)?

phred · Post by **phred** » Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:17 pm

Thanks for the demo, it looks good and plays well.

I've pre-ordered and can't wait to get the full game.

sol_invictus · Post by **sol_invictus** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:26 am

Lava, thanks, that sounds good.

Correction, I have no quibbles and absolutely love the demo. Guess I have to buy now. Also, bring on Legion II!

duncan · Post by **duncan** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 5:11 am

ste wrote:Hey Duncan, if you dont like the order points you can toggle them in options, switch on "Arcade Mode"

I didn't say I don't like them as a feature

, I said I hate them when my RTS-minded hand do repeated clicks without success and I say "what the..." and i look at that bar in the right and i tell myself "alright, let's try it again".

I've played normal and hard and some objectives are different (last battle), which is nice

BTW, thank you Pip for the help. Thankfully, the interface is clean, well designed and intuitive and I have had no problems getting used to it.

sol_invictus · Post by **sol_invictus** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 2:20 pm

I would also like to know if the speed of battles can be slowed down like in previous Slitherine games. This is my biggest gripe with the TW engine and I have always sang the praises of Slitherine for providing an easy way to make combat as slow as the player wants. I certainly hope we have not lost this ability.

republican · Post by **republican** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:25 am

Well Done, Slitherine!!

Great job on the demo; aside from the two "issues" I have, they didn't take away at all from me being able to run the demo, and enjoy myself.
It really shows that alot of effort went into this game; nice to see a "smaller" Dev being able to give the "big boys" a run for their money.
I really like the fact that it actually seems to be clear what you want your troops to do.
Alot of other games leave you feeling that you really don't know what to do, and the troops deployment is little but a jumbled mess.
This game is a definate BUY for me; hopefully it will be available at retail soon in Canada.

Thanks again, Slitherine.

pete_da_man · Post by **pete_da_man** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:45 am

Sup, i have to say the demo works fine and im waiting on the full to arrive when its avaliable, cant wait to get some big online battles goin but the campaign map with all the cities in the first legion was the most fun and will legion 2 be an online game or just offline?

jdm · Post by **jdm** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:25 am

republican wrote:Well Done, Slitherine!!

Great job on the demo; aside from the two "issues" I have, they didn't take away at all from me being able to run the demo, and enjoy myself.
It really shows that alot of effort went into this game; nice to see a "smaller" Dev being able to give the "big boys" a run for their money.
I really like the fact that it actually seems to be clear what you want your troops to do.
Alot of other games leave you feeling that you really don't know what to do, and the troops deployment is little but a jumbled mess.
This game is a definate BUY for me; hopefully it will be available at retail soon in Canada.

Thanks again, Slitherine.

Hi Repblican

The quickest way to get your hands on a copy is to buy direct from us

Regards
JDM

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 5:06 pm

Ahh, excellent work by Slitherine, simply excellent.

Finally, the tactical control that Spartan/GoT lacked!

A splendid battle engine, worthy of the best and biggest of the game design houses, and it was done by a small indy house. You gotta just love that part

I will admit I had to laugh out loud at the picture of the "Naked Fanatic" unit, with his little tinky-winky hanging out in front of god and everyone.

jdm · Post by **jdm** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 5:54 pm

Hey I did the motion capture for that guy

JDM

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 6:22 pm

Now I really need to shower...

And gouge out my eyes.

Pip

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:34 am

I played the demo to the end now, and I had to come back and post again.

This is just splendid work. Great artwork, good music, excellent gameplay, and a demo of a generous length, as well.

If you count the two intro battles with the latin league, and then the 5 roman battles, that's 7 battles you get to fight. I felt like it was plenty to get a good feel for the game. Fewer battles wouldn't have let me see the progression of the units as they levelled up, and that's an important part of the game's charm.

Once again, gentlemen, excellent work. I'll definitely be purchasing this one.