Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown
Silver Lemur Games · 2019 · RPG, Party-Based RPG, Dungeon Crawler, Grid-Based Movement, Turn-Based Combat
PC
Very Positive94% · 282
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About Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown
Inspiration:
Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown is a classic western RPG inspired by the games from the 90s. Basically, it’s the kind of game I personally find missing nowadays. Light, fairy tale, epic, heroic and slightly humorous. One that does not take tons of hours to complete or require endless grind to progress. Something that caters to players like me who don’t have tons of hours to beat one game but still like to play and have a sort of nostalgia for the way games were made in the old days.
It was inspired by Dungeon Master, Eye of The Beholder 2, Might & Magic 3-5, Crystals of Arborea (a not so well known prequel to Ishar series), GoldBox series (Champions of Krynn, Dark Queen of Krynn, etc).
Core Design Choices:
1) Classic, 90 degree rotation, FPP, turn-based, tile movement RPG.
2) Party-based (7 heroes, either predefined or manually assembled upon new game).
3) Open world with a big overworld to explore.
4) Fast paced combat. Quick travel. Easy inventory management. No grind.
5) Light, fairy tale like fantasy, epic story about heroes on a noble quest.
Mechanics:
Mechanically it’s 100% turn based (so you can go and make tea in the middle of a fight) with grid movement and 90 degree rotation. All this is very fast paced, both combat and travel is really fast. The goal was to cut down the boring parts and flesh out the fun parts.
Overall, the mechanics are pretty traditional and straightforward with modern additions like weightless bag combined with equipment encumbrance system.
World and Storyline:
Storyline is a fairy tale, mythical heroic fantasy. You are the good guys on a quest to fight the forces of evil. The world is non linear, with very few locked areas. You basically can go anywhere and do things in different order. In addition you can choose a different set of quests to finish the game (but those are not mutually exclusive, so you can finish all quests if you like). It’s more world driven than story driven. The priority was to make the world feel alive and let you explore it as you wish than follow a linear list of quests.
The game starts when the royal wizard finds out about an old crown that belonged to the royal family for generations. Yet, strangely no one ever heard about the crown and there was just a single mention of it in the royal annals. Upon further study he discovered that there has been cast a powerful spell of forgetfulness of unknown origin which caused everyone in the whole land to forget the crown ever existed. Without knowing who or why someone went to such trouble to conceal the existence of the crown he decided to investigate it. He summoned a party of noble heroes and tasked them with finding whereabouts of the mysterious crown and the origin of the spell.
FAQ:
Q: How long it takes to beat the game?
A: According to Early Access players it can take between 20 and 50 hours to finish the game (I estimate a typical playthrough would be 25-40 hours for most players).
Q: Can I create party members or are they predefined?
A: Yes, you can create all party members upon start if you wish (there is also a quick start option).
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
+Challenging & fun on hard difficulty and above +Decently tactical combat (but not overly deep) +enemy sprites are cool +the right length for this kind of game (10-15 hours depending on your playstyle) +dialogue & characters can be funny +some good music at times (but tracks can be repetitive) +sea exploration +takes inspiration from classic RPGs for some things which can be cool and it does show at times. Might & Magic etc -loot pool is weird -character creation feels a little limited to me, characters dont feel different enough outside of the most basic archetypes. For example Knights & Fighters are extremely similar. -portraits lack variety -can feel quite repetitive combat-wise -lacking itemisation for non-fighter types -really lacking in lore/story -also lacking in some kind of special sauce, like something unique or surprising. its pretty predictable overall in all areas2 found this helpful
Don't play the game on Insane I got to about level 35 before the tedium got to me. Couldn't afford any items, 100% of gold for a mid helm upgrade, etc, obviously was never balance tested. I bet if I played on hard would have been a lot more fun though. Maybe I'll do another play-through later.1 found this helpful
Nice old school dungeon crawler RPG. Decent customization regarding weapons and armor. Pretty good story. Def not a hand holder you will have to pay attention to people and what they say etc. Definitely recommended 8/101 found this helpful
6/10 I grew up with the classic CRPG genre, and every once in a while I get an itch to play something one of these. Legends of Amberland is a relatively straightforward romp that satisfied my desire for an open world on 90-degree rails. LoA lets you spin up a party of 7 characters, choosing from various classes like Warrior, Champion, Ranger, Bard, Cleric, and so on. Class equipment is limited by an Encumbrance score, but your overall "backpack" is infinite in nature, so you never run into the problem of being unable to lug your spoils out of a dungeon. Each class has a special ability that can be used once per rest period, and these were all generally very useful. Monsters move around on the map as you do, and careful movement generally allows you to manage your encounters. As you explore and talk to different NPCs, you receive quests which are tracked in your journal. The ability to fast travel on the world map is also very welcome. I never ran into any bugs or unexpected behaviors, the game seemed to work just fine on Steam Deck and on Zorin OS. Amberland checks the boxes that you'd expect it to check - if you want to play a classic CRPG in the vein of Might & Magic or someth…
Very fun!
If Steam allowed neutral reviews, that's what I'd give this. It's a bland, vanilla dungeon crawler, with nothing to make it stand out. The simplicity of this game makes it appealing to newcomers to the genre, but if this is not your first dungeon crawler, I think you'll find this one disappointing.
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