Re: Legend Review – Harvest Quest

Do you ever feel like wanting to sit back and relax on the coast? Just you and the fishing pole, vibing while your four-legged companion chilled next to you, not really catching much as time passes by fairly quickly?

Well, Re: Legend captures that well. Besides its farming & monster hunting hybrid of a game, it harkens back to the olden days of the PS2 era of Harvest Moon, weird and quirky but very relaxing to play. So let’s dig into the layers of this one.

Presentation

In the looks department, Re: Legend nails the very cutesy artstyle, with the many anthropomorphic animals you are able to walk and talk together alongside the very colorful cast of characters as your player character shipwrecked on an unknown island.

Its premise is rather generic, but it does work well for making players create a strand of connection with this unfamiliar world. A blank slate that makes it approachable and its mysteries ready to be uncovered, if you don’t mind going to look for it.  

The audio side is alright, with the quips noise of the “speaking” cast fitting the game’s overall tone, its background music doesn’t get rather dull after spending good hours into the game. But then again, you can just mute the music on the options if you feel like using your own tunes. 

One thing that I do feel needs a bit of work is the tutorials which unlike its peers (Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, the likes where they will let you learn it at your own pace), the tutorial sometimes breaks the flow of the game and although it switches from controller to keyboard easily (more on this later), it might be overwhelming at times when you trying to grasp between leveling in the RPG mode and Farming mode.

Gameplay

The gameplay is rather interesting due to its weird mixture of both monster hunter and farming elements, which like its peers, brings in a good balance of exploration and resource management that brings a pretty relaxing package, considering the chill nature.

A day-and-night cycle that will lean towards Stardew Valley than AC, this helps breaks up days where you can tend to your crops (and win the big prize at the Island’s Harvest Festivals on certain days) and exploring to uncover more of the island, it’s inhabitants and even get to know more of yourselves along the way.

This brings to their exploration side, which sees you going into caves and beaches to level up yourself and even get items that are perhaps essential to both character and even farm tending.

Along the way, you will face enemies and even boss battles that feel sometimes unbalanced if you don’t bring healing items along the way. It’s this sort of synergy which builds its level-up system quite nicely when both exploring or tending to the gardens will see you gain experience points. 

But combat is quite interesting, to say the least. It has the feeling of a Diablo-lite but doesn’t have the finesse of the latter game, with combat during the early hours feeling rather mashy even with a Magnus friend helping your cause.

Doesn’t help that the controls are also rather quirky, with trying to switch to a healing item needing more button inputs than it needs to be, it makes some battles rather frustrating when stumbling to heal both your and your companions.

Content

For this sort of game, Re: Legend doesn’t really have a set number of hours you could spend exploring Vokka via its quest or just farming around the place, but I reckon it could be 20 to 50 hours depending on how your playstyle suits the very relaxing, slow-paced nature of this indie title.

You can even tame your Draconewt friend (amongst others you can discover) to evolve into something specific like in Monster Rancher so the variation of stuff to do within this game is exponential, both solo and even in Multiplayer.

Personal Enjoyment 

I think Re: Legend has the potential to be something special with how simple and wholesome the world is, but I do feel the handholding, looping soundtrack, and its clunky controls months after launch hamper it quite a bit in my enjoyment of a game that definitely reminds me more of Future Life (that one Harvest Moon spin-off) than any other title.

But, there is some enjoyment to be had if you can get past the many foibles of it and enjoy some nice fishing, ranching, or EXP hunting around the Vokka region.

Verdict

Re: Legend is a pretty cute game that blends together its mechanics super well but falters when the controls, lack of music variety and its pretty simple premise gets repetitive along the way. It is however worth a look for those looking to find enjoyment in having fun at their own pace, perhaps get this one during a sale.

Re:Legend

A pretty cute game that blends together its mechanics super well but falters when the controls, lack of music variety and its pretty simple premise gets repetitive along the way.

• Presentation 7

• Gameplay 6.5

• Content 7

• Personal Enjoyment 7.5