Become a Grand Master of the Knights Templar yourself and fight your way inside a medieval RPG adventure. The eerily beautiful dungeon setting of "Shadow Legend VR You explore at a rather leisurely pace, while letting the dense atmosphere wash over you. Armed with sword, bow and all kinds of magic powers, it's still all about the sausage: namely, saving your kingdom and keeping it from the destruction of the mystical villain Adaroth. So far, so good. "Shadow Legend VR" is, in contrast to "Skyrim VR" developed from scratch for virtual reality. VitruviusVRthe developers from Canada, let us immerse ourselves in the RPG adventure two weeks before its release. Time for a conclusion.
Knight commands with Windows 10
Incidentally, an interesting aspect of the "Shadow Legend VR" game concept is the inclusion of Cortana. The Windows 10 assistant becomes an optional mouthpiece with the microphone of the PC headsets (Rift, Vive and WMR). In our test, this worked both on the Oculus Rift and on the HTC Vive, provided that the Speech recognition language is set to English under the Windows 10 settings. Similar to the PSVR exclusive game "The Impatient" you are sometimes faced with decisions and have to choose a certain answer during the conversation with priests and village members. You have to repeat the biblically long psalm answers or at least the first few words. But if you feel strange, that's no problem: you can simply tap the answers. However, the recognition accuracy was a bit better in "The Impatient".
Take the pious step
Locomotion is either via the usual teleportation or by means of authentic directional control. Depending on whether you are already used to many or rather few VR experiences, the free locomotion (left) with quarter-circle viewing directions (right) can cause a little dizziness depending on your state of mind. However, it never made us feel sick, respectively only occasionally on the Oculus Rift when we wanted to negotiate new weapons and when the tracking with the hands was still a bit jerky at the early test time. The walking speed is pleasant and not dizzying. With both the touch pads of the Oculus Rift and the trackpad of the HTC Vive, you simply press the desired direction to the left.
What we particularly like: Weapons and objects are holographically tangible from different areas of your body. For example, the sword that you pull out of the belt holder. To cock the arrow bow, all you have to do is reach behind your shoulder to clamp the arrow ammunition. Right from the start of the game, a mighty sword and a flare are also part of your obligatory basic arsenal. The main inventory is hidden in a massive protective chest, which also expands when you pull it out. This is where you stash your coins, keys, rubies and important items. What we particularly like about the menu system is that it is not a menu system! No long selection screens, nothing. That's exactly how it has to work in an RPG-based VR adventure!
A moving story about good and evil
The story (freely translated from Steam) takes place thousands of years before our era, when only two beings coexisted with the gods of Anaria: the sinister Lord Adaroth and the lovely Lady Evelyn. Both obviously lived in a world of peace. Evelyn, however, was tired of loneliness and felt trapped in a kind of temporal rigidity, while the bored Adaroth, seeking darkness and chaos, revelled in the peaceful void. It was Evelyn, after all, who brought the light into the dark world, bringing flora and fauna back to life. It was also she who sacrificed all her energy to create the realm of Anaria. Adaroth, on the other hand, took little pleasure in the whole euphoria of creation and was eager to bring more chaos and darkness into the world. This is a little reminiscent of Zelda. You can make up the rest. The deities clashed and could no longer stop each other. Until this one day, when you take on the role of a powerful temple knight, equipped, Evelyn willing, with the strongest weapons in the realm. Evelyn's sacred request is really just to clean up the realm so that peace can return.
Evasion has to be learned
You begin your pious crusade in the time of the Knights Templar - you yourself are a Grand Master of the Order. At the time when the gods are engaged in holy war. The interaction with the multifaceted characters is certainly a first eye-catcher. In the beginning, you talk to different villagers and have to search new rooms for hidden objects, also using your magical weapons. Again and again you will be beset by hostile adversaries. The combat system with the sword consists mainly of striking and blocking in order to wait for the right counterattack. This goes on until you can chop the sinister skeleton knights or half-dead goths into zombie pieces. But be careful: Chopped up is not yet sabred.
Regardless of the loss of limbs, the undead will sometimes cheerfully rush at you again - keyword brutality: Sometimes things get a bit bloody, but not in excess, as the philosopher Plato would welcome, but rather according to Aristotle's explanation of non-violent movement in a vacuum. The AI of the enemies is not particularly demanding. Even superior enemies with a lot of energy and strong defences do not fear the purgatory of your magic dust and only timidly fend off several subsequent sword blows. You will always find a gap in your attack.
Later in the game, bomb-throwing opponents must be skilfully warded off with arrows or their arsenal of bombs targeted for suicidal explosion. A series of powerful weapon upgrades should not be ignored. These include a magic wand with a powerful flare and a mighty sabre axe that returns to you. The medieval setting of huge Gothic castle walls with little edge flicker really puts us in the best Dark Souls mood. It's a pleasure to stop for a moment to admire the beautiful view from a lofty height.
The game concept essentially consists of occasional battles, collecting new items and solving smaller puzzles. A bit like Lara Croft. At one point, for example, you find yourself in a huge outdoor area and have to find two missing wheels for a large cogwheel mechanism, which you can only reach via numerous floating platforms. It is not uncommon to find yourself pondering for a while before you can move on to the next environment, perhaps because you have not yet spotted a certain object that has been lying on the floor for the longest time. Despite everything, there is no lack of variety. You can even interact physically with your hands with stray dogs or with the dear farm horse that is waiting to be stroked. However, the rooms are not procedurally generated: you will always be reborn at the last location and the enemies you have already killed are history. However, there are always new weapons, such as a powerful mage's staff, a fiery sword and a wicked wreck with grenades as thick as your fist. Rune puzzles, where you stand like Gandalf in front of a locked door and have to pronounce a solution word, provide further variety.
Disclaimer:
We have not yet played through Shadow Legends VR, but we have spent a good four hours in the epic. Apart from a few isolated loading errors, which we reported to the developers and which should have been fixed by now, the game is a great masterpiece in terms of content, graphics and mechanics, given the small team of creators. Judging by the many weapons available, a total of four to six hours of play may be the order of the day.
Deutsch 
Français 
English (UK) 
Italiano