Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader

aka: Fallout Fantasy, Lionheart Saga: Juujigun no Isan
Moby ID: 8635

Description official descriptions

During the Third Crusade, King Richard the Lionheart ordered the massacre of three thousand prisoners during the Siege of Acre. The spiritual consequences of this act were used by a mysterious person in a ritual that tore the very fabric of reality, opening a dimensional rift that allowed magical energies and demonic creatures to invade our Earth. Four hundred years later, a lowly slave is suspected of possessing magical powers. Through a series of events he discovers that he is a descendant of King Richard, and his unique abilities may be the only key to humanity's battle against the dark forces.

Lionheart is a role-playing game set in an alternate version of the sixteenth century, where magic and monsters exist openly. The game is set in various countries, from the city of Barcelona to locations in the Middle East. Real historical figures such as William Shakespeare, Galileo Galilei and others appear in the game, though often modified according to the game's fantasy setting. The game utilizes the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system of character development taken from Fallout, with the same main attributes and some common skills and perks, with the addition of new ones pertaining to magic. There are also racial differences, with four races to choose for the protagonist: Human Pureblood, Demokin, Feralkin, or Sylvant.

The first half of the game takes place in and around the city of Barcelona and involves questing and free-form character building, with various factions to join and different ways (combat, stealth, diplomacy, etc.) to overcome problems. The game becomes noticeably more combat-oriented in its second half. Combat in the game is action-based and similar to Diablo in execution. Various characters may join the protagonist if certain conditions are met, and aid him in combat. These companions are fully controlled by the AI.

Spellings

  • Львиное Сердце - Russian spelling
  • 狮心王:十字军的遗产 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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197 People (159 developers, 38 thanks) · View all

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 62% (based on 40 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 39 ratings with 4 reviews)

Promises more than it delivers, but can remain enjoyable if you can tolerate some frustration.

The Good
I had this ordered very differently in my mind, but since I'm submitting it here as well, I'll again try to stick to this review format and start with the fact that I did rather enjoy the setting and the alternate history idea, including the use of known characters and events. Sure, it could have been much better, but it was nevertheless done well enough, and the presence of daevas and spirits and the little specific information about them was also just enough to make that aspect interesting as well, albeit mainly early on. While some might consider it an oddity, an annoyance or even a bug, I also found the fact that English soldiers have no spirits, no souls, to be a nice touch, making a certain sense if you think about it.
It is true that most of that atmosphere, most of the enjoyable and perhaps in some cases even memorable elements of that setting, are found in the Barcelona area. Since I mentioned that nice touch, even those few dying soldiers that can provide a little added context if you realize you can click on them are in Barcelona. However, by far the most important areas in terms of gameplay for an ARPG are the dungeons, and from this point of view it was the Montaillou Crypt that stood out for me, seeming more complex and created with more care than the others.

When it comes to good design choices, I must make a special note of the fact that you receive full experience for all kills made in your presence. It's so terribly frustrating when, in other games, it depends on who lands the killing blow, or having companions reduces the amount of experience received, or it even matters how many times a character hits the enemy or how much damage they deal, and kills made by allies that aren't party members or indirectly, for example by using the environment, may well grant no experience at all. However, none of that matters in Lionheart. If there's a kill and you're around, you will receive the experience.
Since I'm on the topic of experience, summoned creatures also grant experience when killed, so keeping enemy summoners around for a while can be desirable. Very importantly, there's no level cap and until the point of no return you can use the ethereal areas to grind if you so desire, turning those times when the teleport crystals malfunction into something potentially positive while also largely putting the player in control of this aspect. There are a few enemies that respawn in the regular areas as well, but that's also kept in check, not becoming a problem or creating that feeling that you're not really doing anything because areas don't remain cleared, and the crystals also malfunction relatively rarely and will in fact gradually become completely safe as you gain levels, so you'll be able to return to earlier areas without risking to waste time while still being able to specifically seek out such fights by using those that may still malfunction.

Otherwise, while there's no container UI, dropped items don't vanish, so if you so desire you can gather everything from an area, dropping items in a pile when you end up carrying too much, and then make multiple trips to sell everything off once you're done or just want a break from the fighting. In addition, inventory management only means caring for the weight, since there's no limit in terms of size, and the fact that stackable items have the same weight regardless of their number, while perhaps strange, helps as well.

Targeting and attack frequency would also be interesting mechanics, but those using fighter characters would be able to say more about that, as in my case it just meant that sometimes I'd select torso and calculated and hope to at least get the odd hit, while selecting hectic helped me cast faster when every little bit helped, which was rare. So I'd file that under positive odds and ends, albeit as something much more notable than the fact that the descriptions for the secret treasures you find struck me as a nice touch. Considering the character development system, I'd also add here the lack of a separate disarm skill, meaning that you can disarm any trap you spot. And, while I'm at both traps and design choices that mitigate problems caused by others, the fact that companions don't trigger traps and don't get affected by them is quite a relief.

The Bad
Also a relief is that I can now finally get to what I meant to start this review with, which is that what I most often read about Lionheart was that it has a pretty good first part, but after a certain point it all falls apart and all that's left is a tedious battle that may feel endless and is an exercise in frustration for anything except pure fighter characters, while for those it's too easy and boring. And there is truth in that, which I'll get to later, yet at the same time it wasn't quite as bad as those comments made me expect, and my Smite / Fortitude mage, Wielder, with 1 strength, 3 endurance and not a single skill point used on any fighting skills over the course of the entire game did quite fine.

I didn't need to get far in the game to bump into the first thing that really bothered me, however. In fact, that came before actually starting, during character generation, when I saw the SPECIAL system, which I'm not fond of at all. That may be in some part because I associate it with Fallout 2, which I couldn't get myself to enjoy at all and eventually abandoned, but I'm definitely bothered by needing to know exactly what skills you want to use from the beginning in order to tag them, stick to them almost exclusively, and being so very limited when it comes to raising attributes. The fact that there are diminishing returns for improving skills to high levels but the costs increase sharply makes it even more frustrating, feeling like a waste and a loss whether you choose to stick to a specialist character or spread the points around a little.
There are also some ways to lose experience and things that the perks that increase experience gain don't seem to apply to. Yes, you can grind until the point of no return, so you can make up for it, but the fact that you may need to remains unpleasant, and this method only works up to that point. Was definitely not keen on the very different rewards for faction quests and the different number of such quests either, and receiving up to 75% of the experience for killing an enemy for sneaking around them seemed like an odd choice, both because that's not exactly what you do in an ARPG and because it still meant you got penalized if you did try that route, since what you receive for sneaking is deducted from what should be granted for the kill, if and when you do kill the enemy. But what bothered me the most from this point of view was that there are pieces of equipment that increase the number of skill points per level, so those skill points are lost until you find and afford such items. Again, the game does allow you to make up for it, lacking a level cap, but it means spending a lot of time making up for what's essentially random chance.
One more thing I'll mention when it comes to character development is the way in which magic skills develop. While somewhat interesting, it means you can't focus on the more powerful spells, or get access to them earlier by sacrificing something else. And, on this topic, I kept wondering why Greater Resistance didn't also protect from cold, making it so there's no way to protect companions from cold. Can't protect them from disease either, but then again, there's also no way whatsoever to cure them of poison or disease, needing to just wait it out all the time and heal the damage as needed.

Speaking of companions, the entire concept seems tacked on and a complete mess. There's no information given about any of them in terms of attributes, you can't give them any commands other than to follow or not, they tend to wander all around a spot you'd expect them to stay in if they're around you, get stuck in tighter places, get in your or each other's way, stop where they are if they fall behind, attack whatever enemy they please, whenever they please, have no skills they can be instructed to use, also have no inventory and are stuck with whatever equipment they have by default, which you again get no actual information about, and if they die that's the end of it, there's no way to resurrect or otherwise get them back. Couple that with the fact that they never improve and you'll be making a lot of effort to just keep them alive, often being more focused on that than on the enemies if you want to keep them around for as long as possible. And the thing is that they're not some random, generic companions, but individuals with stories that you'll learn at least some bits of when they join you, which may make you, or at least made me, care about them to some extent and want to keep them around and alive, but once they join they do become completely generic, just a sum of some attributes you can't even know, not having a single line of dialogue or any use other than to mindlessly hit things.

Combat is also a mess, even without companions, though it of course becomes an even worse one with them. The option to reduce the speed may offer some relief for those who manage to make some good use of it, but the system is not at all suited for real time and it's not real time with pause, since you can't give commands while paused, so you'll often be struggling to click the right enemy, or even an enemy, as they run around at lightning speed, or to move somewhere and maybe avoid picking up an item that will make you encumbered or, more often, a spirit before you need it, leading to excess mana or health that will quickly drop back down to the normal maximum on its own and therefore waste what you could use later. With companions around, you'll also need to do that while hoping to avoid clicking on them, as that will start a dialogue even in the middle of combat, the only options of course being to tell them to keep following or stay behind. And you do need all that clicking, because the character won't even attack automatically, instead just standing there even when attacked in melee, and not doing anything else after casting or after the current enemy is killed. And there are also moments when casting just won't work without moving the mouse to some other spot on the screen that the game for some reason likes better, even if the spell doesn't require a target.
Complicating things further, there are way too few quickslots and for some reason buffs can't be reapplied before they expire. What makes it even worse for mages, however, is that mana regeneration is awfully slow, health regenerating faster even when attributes completely favor magic and early on, and health regeneration improves with levels and there are also feats improving it further, which is not the case for mana. The Magery equipment attribute would greatly help, but it seems among the rarest, so I for one had to make do with Spirit Regeneration, ending up with two items with it and still spending much of the 120 hours the in-game timer said I needed to finish waiting for mana to recover. Admittedly, there are plenty of mana spirits much of the time, but you tend to need to kill something first, and it's still far too easy to run out of mana over the course of a battle, which also encourages leaving mana spirits around in case you'll really need them at a later point and wait for regeneration even when there would otherwise be enough spirits available to allow you to just keep going for the moment.

Mentioned accidentally picking things up above, and that may well happen even outside combat, though at least you can avoid picking up spirits along with items or when you interact with other things if you move far enough for the spirits to no longer be visible. That range can be annoyingly short when you're actually looking for spirits though, as you need to be really close to see them. On the other hand, I have had a few items end up in unreachable places, which can be frustrating, and so is the fact that a small number of otherwise common scenery items can be interacted with, usually to obtain some items, but there's no way to know which those are except to hover the cursor over everything and notice when it starts spinning, which is hardly the most noticeable indicator that an interaction is possible in the first place.

Movement itself, simply going from one place to another, can be rather frustrating as well. The lack of a minimap doesn't help either, and neither does the fact that there are no map markers, not even for exits, or any way to add notes yourself, but what most often annoyed me from this point of view was the short maximum distance between the character and the destination. Click more than a screen or so away, or in a spot you can't actually move to, and the character won't try to get as close as possible or even just continue to the previous destination if already moving, but simply stop, which will also happen if you do anything while moving.

To finally get to those later parts that so many complain about, the game does indeed get worse after the point of no return, which you aren't even warned about, only suddenly finding that everything changed once you get back. Maybe also because of the low expectations created by what I had read, it didn't strike me as being as bad as I had been led to believe, but the design of the locations becomes, for lack of a better term, lazy, even most of the Barcelona area is no longer accessible when you return to it, you pretty much just keep fighting enemy after enemy and the English not leaving spirits does cause problems for magic users, even if that is compensated to a fair extent by more spirits being available from the beginning, and even some other ways to recharge mana.
That's not an issue in the desert, the scorpions leaving powerful spirits, but that desert is by far the best, or in fact worst, example of that lazy design. Yes, it is a desert, but it's a desert in a game and also comes between two so and so dungeons, so it should have been somewhat refreshing, yet instead it's just a large and mostly empty place, filled with swarms of giant scorpions. And the fortress that follows it was underwhelming as well, especially as a final dungeon. Maybe I'm no longer used to how such games were back when Lionheart was released, but while this can be understood and excused as standard practice in the rest of the game, entering that place and having all those assassins just wait calmly, usually in pairs, for you to pick them off at your leisure just seemed wrong.

Even those portals used to travel between locations once you get to the point of no return struck me as lazy design, but I was making a note of that ever since leaving the Barcelona area, the crystals becoming the only way to travel between areas. Admittedly, the large distances involved made simply walking no longer possible, but some other methods could have been used, DaVinci's inventions likely offering possible solutions. After all, he does make use of one himself... Even if that makes him end up being in two places at once from that point forward, which becomes three places since at least for a long time he's not removed from the vicinity of the machine but can be found in the tavern as well.
But these are little things, though probably the smallest one I made a note of was the fact that the icon indicating that you're encumbered vanishes after a while. Also found myself wanting some more detailed information when it came to the effective damage dealt by spells, separated per type, or wondering how come vendors quite frequently had better items in the regular stock than the special one. Something more notable would be that I didn't like the fact that vendor stock scaled with the character's level, and having enchantments make certain equipment types heavier was unpleasant as well. And something that kept being frustrating was the search mode being turned off when attacking or talking and needing to be turned back on manually each time even if there's no penalty for searching and therefore no reason to ever want it off, but forgetting to turn it back on each time meant ending up either running into traps or realizing I had to go back to look for any possible hidden treasures.
On the other hand, making so little use of the character's spirit was a wasted opportunity. It seems like it'd be an important aspect at first, but it pretty much just says a few things early on and warns you before meeting daevas. What bothered me more, however, was this implication that, despite the obvious questions about their methods, the Inquisition was on the good side, while the Druids, and possibly extending to Pagans, were clearly evil. The fact that the Inquisitors would have clearly been the best choice of faction for my character, considering the rewards offered, made it even worse, but I wasn't going to get on that path under any circumstances.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Lionheart is indeed a game of two parts, with a rather interesting setting and atmosphere that devolves into a chain of battles in areas plagued by lazy design after a point of no return that the player isn't even warned about triggering before it's done. It seems to promise more than it ends up delivering, but it can, for the most part, remain enjoyable if you know what to expect and can put up with some frustrating elements, even that second part not being as bad as some would make you believe, while at the same time the first part being equally plagued by the combat system that's unsuited for real time, the downright bad implementation of companions, the fact that magic users are at a disadvantage and various other design issues and quirks, plus that I personally rather dislike the character development system used. Nevertheless, there are some good design choices as well, some of them mitigating some of the flaws to some extent and a few, perhaps most notably the one ensuring that you won't lose experience in combat, even standing out in a good way.

Windows · by Cavalary (11445) · 2020

It is a great shame too see this potential crumble to dust...

The Good
The main idea behind Lionheart is quite good and original. In one of the holy crusades the history of the world changed forever. Magic entered the world and it transformed the world we know today in to something very different.

As you can imagine the game world has a very original and a strong background. The designers used many famous renaissance characters as NPCs. Including Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare and many many others. With the addition of magic you feel yourself at someplace you already know but still interesting and very different. The starting atmosphere is really good indeed.

The graphics are in 2d and out-dated in technology-wise, but they are still good and they add a lot to the atmosphere of the game. However you are stuck at 800*600 resolution for no reason at all.

The musics and environmental sounds in the game are also good. Nothing that could be create a renascence in gaming industry but still they fit the game quite well.

The game uses S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system which is the best cRPG system that has ever been developed.(It was developed for Fallout Series) However the developer is anew company, the publisher Black Isle is the strongest RPG producer around.

To sum up a sound company, a good looking game, very interesting ideas, a superb character system, good graphics,music and atmosphere. Sounds good does it not?

The Bad
The main idea is good but it was not developed enough. You are stuck with the city of Barcelona, the only noticeable town in the game. There are references to some Islamic cities to the south but not to any other European Cities. Well actually there is a few more "cities" you visit which had European names, but there were nearly nothing to do on those so I am not counting them.

All in all you have a big city which is not as big as the city of Baldur's Gate or Amn (BG and BG2 in that order) and about 20 wilderness areas. Don't get me wrong these "Wilderness Areas" are just dungeons with no ceilings, nothing else.

The background of the world is good but it also not worked on. Any DM with some imagination and a few weeks time could have created a much deeper history and background from the magnificent idea. The famous characters are at best underused and at worst they are in the game for no reason at all. The addition of magic could have created many interesting conflicts but it is only used in a church based theme, and even in that it is quite underused. When playing the game I wanted to cry because of those perfect ideas, each one of them turned into total crap.

Well the graphics and sounds are not the most important part of a cRPG but however they fit the game, they could have been much much MUCH better with only a little work.

Well... I really don't want to mention the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system. It is enough to say that without using any character system at all, the game could be much better. For once SPECIAL, which is originally designed for Turn-Based games, needs a lot of work to be transfered to a Real-Time game. Second SPECIAL system lets a player build his character the way he wants it.

The point here is actually you can build 2 different characters in the game. A mage or a fighter. You don't have the chance to build a spokesman/trader simply because for the second part of the game you will only fight and do nothing else. Oh! Even with these to basic "classes" ready to fail soon enough. A mage is quite impossible to play. Because in the second part of the game where there is nearly no way to regain your mana, you spend hours simply waiting in front of your screen for your mana points to refill. It is REALLY boring. And the Fighter is simply unbalanced. There is no creature/encounter in the game that can kill a pure fighter character.

You think these are bad? No we just started yet! The NPCs that join your party are completely and utterly meaningless. They die after the second encounter. They don't have their own personalities, they don't level up, they don't fight good. I really don't know why they are even there...

At last we come to the combat system. This is the worst combat system I have ever seen in my life. It is unbalanced, boring, needless, sometimes too easy and sometimes without any reason it is too hard. There is no enemy AI to speak of they just attack you. There is no action to keep you going, there is no strategy for you to think about. Worse still in the second part of the game you only fight. Fight hundreds of battles. And there is no way around it.

And if you overcome to those endless combats and somehow finish the game don't expect an ending. There is only an in-game gathering of people and a speech. No movies, nothing!

The Bottom Line
Overall in my personal opinion this game was not finished. Most ideas,areas and nearly every aspect of the game shots: INCOMPLETE. If you are looking for a few good ideas for your own campaigns this game could be good for you if you never leave the walls of the games first city Barcelona. But if you are RPG fan go and play something worth while. There are hundreds of games much better than this one.

Windows · by Zolansilverspear (449) · 2006

Nice magic system and backstory, but they botched the conversion to realtime and they botched game balance overall

The Good
The interesting alternate history and the rendering of the culture and characters were very well done. The interesting magic system, firmly rooted in the gameworld, was a welcome change from the two extremes one usually sees in CRPGs: cookie-cutter mix-and-match magic and idiosyncratic and interesting but unbalanced thematic magic. Many of the characters and quests in the first part of the game are interesting and at least a little original, taking advantage of the unique parts of the gameworld.

The Bad
Although a good conversion of the SPECIAL system for real-time combat could undoubtedly be done, this isn't it. Replacing sequence and action points with a small modifier to attack frequency seriously unbalances the basic stats (which were carefully balanced in the Fallouts). Making room for three magic colleges by sweeping all charisma-based skills into one makes it worse. All in all, SPECIAL was carefully crafted by designers who understood rule systems, and Lionheart's modifications don't work.

Worse, they upped the pace of combat to something frenetic enough that I find Diablo II easier to play. And despite the apparent understanding of how SPECIAL and Fallout allowed for diplomatic and sneaky characters as well as charging warriors, they made all of the NPC companions near-useless in combat and made the entire second half of the game require combat as the only solution.

They are very heavy-handed about borrowing historical characters, to the extent of moving famous characters through space and even time: The reason why Shakespeare is in Barcelona is extremely flimsy, and his conversation consists almost entirely of quotes from his plays. Cortez is given a flimsily-excused magical longevity reason to be in the game at all. Machiavelli, who could be a very interesting character and drive a great plot, is severely underused - I can't be more specific without including a spoiler. It's all pretty graceless.

The Bottom Line
If it weren't real-time, or if it weren't claiming a relationship to Fallout, this would be a decent game but not a great one. Certainly, the alternate history idea is so cool and - for such things, at least - believable that I plan to steal it for my high-weirdness FtF roleplaying campaign. But compared to the classics in whose shadow it stands, I'm very disappointed in this game.

Windows · by weregamer (155) · 2003

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Discussion

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How is it? Unicorn Lynx (181788) Sep 2, 2014

Trivia

Fallout

Long before Lionheart's title was even released, it was being referred to as Fallout Fantasy due to its use of the SPECIAL system (originally found in Fallout) in a fantasy setting. Because of the common alternative, this spawned a rather humorous, if short-lived misinformed following of people actually believing the next Fallout game would take place in a fantasy setting.

Title

Black Isle Studios used to code-name its projects after U.S. presidents and vice-presidents, an idea by Josh Sawyer. Since Black Isle was not the main developer for this title, the code-name was Project Quincy, a name never held by a U.S. president.

Awards

  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2004 - #3 Worst Game of the Year 2003

Information also contributed by PCGamer77 and Sciere

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Game added by kbmb.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Kabushi, Trond Berntsen, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 13, 2003. Last modified February 13, 2024.