Legends Of Pegasus Review

Legends of Pegasus is the brand new space based strategy and simulator title developed by Novacore Studios and published by Kalypso Media Digital. Legends of Pegasus aims to mix real time and turn based strategy into one title; with the aims of building a huge civilization while enabling players to “eXplore! eXpand! eXploit! eXterminate!”

Will Legends of Pegasus be a breakthrough for space strategy games or will gamers leave it lost in space? Let’s find out and kick off the HOTs and NOTs.

HOTs

Presentation

From decent textures and an overall impressive visual experience to a sound board which easily helps players immerse themselves into the game, Legends of Pegasus has it a solid presentation package. The three races – Humans, X’or and Arthrox – all have their own unique visual styles making them distinctive, this makes it much easier to locate you ships during battles.

While there is no sound in space thankfully this is overlooked in Legends of Pegasus. The in-game sounds help involve the player in the real time strategy sequences; with Particle Cannon shots are being fired off, crafts exploding across the space battles and ships radioing in updates – about shields, hull points and destroyed enemy crafts – players feel like they are in the middle of the battle.

The level of details of the individual crafts and structures is somewhat impressive due to the scale of the game. When zoomed in and viewing the structures from close range players will see some witness great attention to detail with parts of structures revolving around in space and also the turrets they have added to the crafts via the ship designer.

Customisation

The ability to build a beastly looking space cruiser is nothing to be shunned but the ability to then take that craft and customise it is something that most gamers, with the slightest interest in space based games, could have only dream of: until now. From the distance the ship can attack enemies cruisers from to the rather attention-grabbing weaponry players have the opportunity to build and tweak their own ultimate destructive crafts. The amount players can do in the ship designer is at first limited but it is possible to quickly get used to it and create some great cruisers. The player must balance energy consumption with their ‘need’ for increasing the crafts sensors, extra weaponry and speed.

Linking Storyline

A huge surprise to me was that the storyline is not only useful for introducing the races of the game and acting as more of a tutorial but also a decent linking feature between the levels. Don’t go into Legends of Pegasus expecting anything that isn’t a run of the mill spaced based storyline or a Hollywood blockbuster; nevertheless it is nice to see some thought was put into the storyline to make playing it worthwhile from both an interesting and learning point of view.

NOTs

Icon Based User Interface

The user interface is a lot to get used to. Over time it does become easier to use however it isn’t user friendly. Predominantly the user interface is icons, although without knowing what the icons are it is rather complicated and often I found I had to hover over things multiple times before it brought up the information. These issues make even basic things such as developing planets difficult for early players possibly putting them off the game. The icon system naturally becomes known to the player overtime so finding out what things do and using them does get easier. Alas, I cannot advice trying to jump straight into a skirmish, something which is the first think many would love to do.

Confused Pace

Spaced based strategy games are known for their long lasting games and slow pace and this is for real time strategy titles. Legends of Pegasus slows the pace even further, by making the majority of the game turn based. I say mostly because as soon as there is any combat the game turns into a real time mode but just for the battle. The slow, Civilization styled, pace coupled with the excitement of real time battles was a promising idea however it feels awkward going from one to the other and often left me hoping the game would pick one style and stick to it. The best explanation for the pacing is, as mentioned, a Civilization style pace when capturing planets, developing them and building up a space based empire and a clunky Sins of a Solar Empire speed combat system: they just don’t mix.

Clunky Nature

While I have described the pace of the game to be similar to that of Civilization and Sins of a Solar Empire the different sections themselves cannot be compared to the well developed nature of these games. Due to the user interface problems learning the ropes of the turn based section is overly hard with players wasting turns falling behind their enemies. The real time strategy stage is easier to play than the turn based section as it feels more intuitive on the other hand in comparison to Sins it doesn’t flow as well and the action seems more regimented.

Verdict

While the tagline for Legends of Pegasus is “Forget your sins, become a Legend” gamers shouldn’t forget about other games as they are better at their own individual paces. Legends of Pegasus’ pacing was an interesting concept, though it doesn’t seem to flow seamlessly from one to another. The issues with the UI and the clunky nature are things that could be fixed via patches which does give the game some hope. A few initial problems players many have are explained during the storyline or will be solved by playing for a decent length of time. The biggest issue with this is if the somewhat discontented players decide to stop playing rather than sticking at the game they will miss out rather than potentially enjoying it.