Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords

Legionwood: Tale of the Two Swords (or simply Legionwood) is a freeware 2D traditional-style RPG developed by D. Robert Grixti under the pseudonym Dark Gaia Studios for Windows based PCs. The game was created with RPG Maker VX and was first released on February 10, 2008.
Gameplay
Players control a teenaged boy, Lann Northwise, along with his companions, as they travel throughout the world of Legionwood to unseal a legendary sword that is capable of saving humanity from the ancient demon Castoth. Along the way, they encounter both friends and foes and must complete a number of quests to reach their goal.
Legionwood is presented in the typical manner of an early console style RPG reminiscent of games like Final Fantasy. Play is controlled from a tile-based overhead perspective, and the player traverses towns, dungeons and other locations that are accessible from an overland map. When enemies are encountered, combat is resolved via a turn based battle system. Enemies are either randomly encountered whilst exploring or as part of story based scenes.
Characters get stronger by defeating enemies and earning experience points. When enough experience is gained, characters "level up" and are granted a number of Attribute Points (AP) which can be spent on stat increases. There is no class system and the player is free to design their own character builds using this system.
Plotline
Legionwood takes place in the titular fantasy world of Legionwood. Legionwood was once home to a powerful spacefaring society, but this was destroyed thousands of years before the game's events by an astral entity known as Castoth. Before humanity is wiped out entirely, the mortal incarnation of the god Gaia appears and leads mankind in battle against the demon. Castoth is sealed at the cost of Gaia's life using the power of the legendary Sword of Lore, which was used to create Legionwood at the dawn of time.
When Legionwood begins, Lann Northwise and his younger sister, Liara, both citizens of the Charnian city of Upperthorne, decide to attend a festival in the capital city of Charn. Generals from the neighbouring country of Trevelle, with whom the king of Charn is trying to establish ties of peace, are present at the festivities. Lann and Liara arrive too late to be admitted into the palace square, but they, along with a Trevellian general named Ark, are granted entry in exchange for helping a Charnian guard investigate a break in that has occurred in the sewers beneath the city.
They eventually discover an unknown intruder attempting to access the royal palace from the sewer tunnels. The intruder is revealed to be a famed assassin known as Merces Letifer. Merces reveals that he has been given orders to assassinate Legionwood's political leaders and thrust its nations into a chaotic world war. Despite the protagonists' best efforts, he succeeds in assassinating the king of Charn during a public address. The people of Charn immediately blame the Trevellians present in the city for having planned the assassination and the regent of Charn hastily declares war on its neighbour.
Lann, Liara and Ark meet up with a young Trevellian squire named Alexis and then the four of them flee Charn, knowing that they are the only people in the world who saw the true culprit of the assassination and determined to discover his origins and motives so that they may stop him before he is able to carry out the rest of his plans.
After arriving in the distant land of Hawkshire and speaking to a wise man, Martyn, the protagonists learn that Merces is working for an ancient secret society known as The Followers, whose goal it is to find the Sword of Lore and use its power to unseal Castoth so that he can wreak havoc across Legionwood once more. They intend to assume power during the political vacuum that will be caused by Merces' actions and then, with the resources of the entire world under their control, discover the sword's location and unseal it.
The party is joined by Thyrra, a princess and Zanthus, her knight, and the protagonists set out to locate the sword and secure its safety before it can be utilized by the enemy to destroy the world.
Development
Legionwood was developed with the RPG Maker VX engine. According to the author's webpage for the game, it was in development for three years and was first released to the public in an incomplete beta form in February 2008 before being completed in 2010. In the early stages of its development, the game was known as "Tales of Worlds" and was developed in RPG Maker 2003. This early release of the game was included on a cover disc with the December 2008 issue of Australian magazine PC Powerplay along with a brief commentary and an interview with the developer, where the developer stated that he was not completely happy with the game and intended to overhaul it. Following this release, the game was re-titled as Legionwood and restarted in RPG Maker VX.
In July 2012, an enhanced "Final Edition" version of the game was released with additional areas and rewritten cutscenes.
In an interview, the developer stated that his intention was to develop a game reminiscent of his favourite console RPGs, something that the RPG Maker engine is geared towards. He also claimed that he struggled to stay motivated whilst working on the game and that it would be a long time before he made a sequel. However, despite this, a sequel to the game was later announced.
Critical Reception
Digitally Downloaded called it "a creative use of RPG Maker VX" and stated that "it's a solid quest that's not over too soon, and might even be worth playing through twice." This review appeared shortly after the game became available to download at GameZone. Australian magazine PC Powerplay also listed an earlier version of the game in an indie game feature and provided a copy of the game on its cover disc, noting that it faithfully emulated the style of a 16-bit console game.
Sequel
Dark Gaia Studios recently announced a direct sequel, Legionwood 2: Rise of the Eternal's Realm, to be made in the RPG Maker VX Ace engine. The sequel has since been released as an incomplete public beta.

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See Also

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