To do so, you need to employ a great deal of strategy while protecting your own orb carrier from your opponent. The goal of the game is simple: find the carrier of the orb and kill him.
Dark Legions gave its older brothers (and even Archon Ultra, released around the same time) a swift kick up the ass and got away with it.īut let's talk about the game itself: Dark Legions is a mix of combat and clever strategy dressed in gorgeous VGA graphics. You're no longer stuck with the same board layout, you're no longer stuck with the same pieces, you're no longer stuck with dodgy graphics, etc. Maybe that's why the genre is dead: Dark Legions really pushed it to its boundaries. Not content to simply copy its brethren, it took the genre and shifted it around, perfecting it. One of the last games in this genre was Dark Legions. An interesting idea, and games like Archon and Battle Chess sold like hot cakes for years which shows the public thought so as well. This genre was said to be inspired by a scene in Star Wars, which saw Chewbacca play a game of holo-chess involving pawns fighting for a square on the board. One of these was the table-top combat game. Some of these old classics are left to gather dust, however, because they were part of a fad: a niche genre which never survived the 90's. Take a look at today's releases and you can almost always smack on a 90's title that inspired them. Genres were created and matured, colorful universes were invented and many of our games today are heavily influenced by the classics from that era. While Dark Legions won acclaim and awards it was the more frantic and continuous “real time” with the ability of gamers to build mass armies as the game progressed coupled with Warcraft’s stronger retail presence that that won the sales in the mid 90s and no sequel was ever released.The 90's (especially the first half) were a very interesting time for gamers.
In the beginning of the game you will buy your forces with a predefined number of credits, and be able to purchase any of the 16 characters along with various kinds of traps and even rings to upgrade your creatures with rings and items of power.ĭark Legions was released at almost the same time as the original Warcraft and was in direct competition with this game with a much weaker publisher. Examples include: Wizards with ranged attack to freeze enemy units on the strategic map wraiths that can teleport across the strategic map and have multiple (weak) live leaching attacks in melee Specters that are invisible to your opponent in melee yet move/attack slowly Vampires that can paralyze opponents in melee, fly and leach hit points, can raise zombies, yet they are easy to damage and grow weaker each turn Ogres that move very slowly yet have a strong attack, strong defense and a special ability that allows them to turn into a “rock” on the strategic map Spell casters that "scrabble" the controls of their opponent in melee etc. Each figure type has unique abilities and at least two attack types. When one player moves a piece into the same square as an opponent the action is instantly transferred to another board map that represents the terrain upon which the two pieces occupy and each player starts with their single piece on this “melee map” and must duel it out using their figures. Dark Legions is an action based strategy game where you battle your computer or human foe in a strategic game board.