The Legend of Tianding

[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote] When it comes to games with Eastern origin, games from places like China or Taiwan are not usually seen in a good light. Those games are infamous for usually having questionable qualities, dabbling in unethical practices or having no support post-launch. However, we have seen more and more games lately that have tried to prove the world otherwise. The Legend of Tianding (TLoT for short) is one such game. It has a lot of qualities especially in the audiovisual department, but the rest of it fails to maintain the same level of quality. [h2]I preferred to see actual vigilante work rather than... whatever this is...[/h2] The game's story happens in Taiwan, in a time period when it was under Japanese rule. You appear in the shoes of a man called Liao Tian-Ding, a Taiwanese Robin Hood who fights against tyrants and oppressors in order to help the poor and the weak. But contrary to what you might think, the story is not a major driving force in the game... or, at least it wasn't to me. For starters, the story plot is not interesting. It made me expect the story of a vigilante getting entangled in a serious conspiracy, just to completely lose me after revealing we're actually [spoiler]hunting down a legendary pirate's treasure[/spoiler]. As for the main characters, none of them have qualities or unique personality traits that makes them more than just archetypes. None of them have a proper backstory, some of them get added to the plot out of nowhere, and the game even does the opposite of "show, don't tell" rule, bombarding you with a lot of text and exposition-filled dialogues to explain everything. The other thing that I did not like about the story, was how immersion-breaking some of the references were. The game does references from time to time, such as an NPC suddenly making a [spoiler]Joey Wheeler[/spoiler] face, but there are some that do not fit in. Like, there's a guy called A-Niu that drops era/location-irrelevant references, such as talking about Laurel and Hardy. I do love references, but I don't want them to look out of place. And I don't know if that's the devs themselves who did this, or the localization team having a little too much fun. [h2]Why are you denying the historical roots of the game?[/h2] The final problem that I have with the game's story, is the weird dismissal of its inspiration source. When you start the game, you will see a disclaimer that states the story and all of its characters are a work of fiction, and any references to real life is coincidental... but that's a lie. Liao Tianding was a real Taiwanese Robin Hood, the game is filled with historical collectibles from the era of Taiwan when it [b][i]did[/i][/b] go under Japanese rule, and some of the levels are based on real life events. Did I also mention that the store page literally says "Based on real events, real people and real situations"? So, allow me to call BS on that disclaimer and ask... why are you afraid of saying the game is based on real events when it is, and its devs have stated their intention with it was to introduce Liao Tianding to the world? You clearly know how to properly say that in English on the store page, so why not in the actual game? [h2]The Legend of [strike]Juan[/strike] Tian Ding[/h2] When it comes to the gameplay, TLoT is just Guacamelee with a Taiwanese skin... and metroidvania elements trimmed out. The devs may have named other games like Shank as inspirations, but a majority of this game feels like a 1:1 recreation of Guacamelee, only with some changes. Now this might make the readers of this review hyped as those games were fun. But unfortunately, the gameplay in TLoT is not fun, with the reason being those aforementioned changes and some shortcomings. First, the progression in TLoT is either painful or does not work to its benefit. The main missions consist of tedious fetch quests and pointless backtracking through functionally empty hub areas. The game has a habit of suddenly locking a door behind you, forcing you to replay levels in order to find items you accidentally missed. You learn a majority of special moves in the first 30 minutes of the game, there's no shop, and there's no satisfying upgrade system in place either. The game gives you health/stamina upgrades whenever it wants to, and expects you to earn stat boosts by finding those historical collectibles through side quests, finding secret locations that barely challenge your skills, or the mindnumbing process of finding beggars and tipping them obnoxious amounts of money. And the side quests? They are all fetch quests that ask for specific items that can only be found in secret areas; And to make things worse, they don't even check for item possession! In other games, the MCs will notice if they already have the item of interest and cause the side quest to be completed shortly after you accept it. But TLoT does not do that and lets you go on your merry way, requiring you to re-approach the quest giver to finish the side quest. If you don't notice this by accident, you might replay a previous mission and waste some of your time trying to find something that you already have. [h2]I love losing over and over to a boss who is a literal tank...[/h2] Now, I would've tried (emphasis on "tried") to ignore those if the combat was fun... and it isn't. A part of why I say this is because of how the combat system is designed. TLoT goes for a basic implementation of Guacamelee's combat, removing the combo system and changing the behavior of the grab move so it does not violently slam enemies around and instead, disarms them while gently throwing them in a direction. This means you no longer need to be experimental and daring with your combat style as there's no benefit to it. It's much more beneficial to just hit one enemy and disarm them to use their weapon against everyone else, or to just try and cheese the bosses by finding their patterns and exploiting them. And this is further encouraged with the way the difficulty and the health system are handled. TLoT has two difficulty settings, with one of them being incredibly easy and the other one turning enemies & bosses into tanks that deal and absorb a lot of damage, leading to frustrating fights where just taking a few hits is guaranteed to kill the MC. Now the game does give you some health items so you can have a chance against them, but considering how much they heal you, how you can't increase the number of them until the game decides to, and how much damage the enemies deal, it's not much worth it. [h2]Sewer Count: 311[/h2] Credit where credit is due: The game looks and sounds fantastic. The artstyle is great, the comic-inspired artworks are beautiful, the animations are smooth, and the music is pleasant to listen to. The devs have done a great job in this department, but they have done an awful job when it comes to showing it off in the levels you see in the first couple hours. The game had a golden opportunity to showcase Taiwan's beauty, art and culture through itself, and yet the devs have decided that going through hours of sewers and industrial factories in the beginning of the game, a crucial time period when a player decides whether or not to continue a game, is much more worth it. When you have such a good visual presentation, you shouldn't fumble like this... get the players to be invested in the world instead. [h2]TL;DR[/h2] The game looks and sounds great, but there's no fun to be had when it forces you to do a lot of tedious backtracking and fetch quests, the combat is not engaging, and the story fails to pull you in.