Black Legend is a turn based strategy title that offers a deep story hook that encourages any adventurer worth their salt to brave onward into the dangers of the city and its cursed fog. Learning how to fight the cult of Mephisto using the weapons, skills, and alchemy at your disposal is pivotal will greatly increase your chances of survival and of saving the free state of Grant. Here’s Ten tips to help get you started.
- Equip First, Equip Always
Menu decisions mean life or death in games of strategy. Open it up before battles to change equipment, confirm which abilities to learn, and always replenish any consumables you favor using in combat.
2. Never Forget to Face
Black Legend uses the facing mechanic heavily to grant more damage from attacking from the sides or rear. Keep your backs against walls and obstacles to prevent damage, and never end a turn without taking your unit’s direction into account. Units carrying shields will also have stronger defense on one of their sides.
3. Move hit move
Combat allows for moves and attacks to be used interchangeably during a single turn. This allows for hit and run style actions where you can deal the most damage to enemies while still having enough movement points left to retreat to a safer position like touch and go guerilla warfare. Use this to get more flank and backstab damage with melee units before retreating to cover.
4. Attack Twice
Units can use an extra ability each turn depending on which color of alchemic damage they apply to. This can be used to apply stacks of humorous damage and apply the catalyzing blow in the same turn, to exchange the catalyzing blow for more stacks of a different color, or attack multiple targets if needed.
5. Divide and conquer
Especially when entering combat from free roaming, try to isolate enemies on their own. Focusing damage stacks and catalyzing blows for quicker kills will keep battles moving in your favor and prevent battles from becoming long and costly.
6. Build around weapon preference, not Jobs
Whether or not you can cross class an ability depends on the kind of weapon it is equipped with. Keep weapon requirements mind when choosing which abilities to learn. It’s more efficient to choose abilities for characters that are usable with the weapons you prefer them to carry into battle. Some jobs can use a variety of weapons while others have more specific requirements.
7. Timing Consumables
There is no bag full of items for you to pull from during combat. Each character starts with two consumable slots that you can prioritize for either offense or recovery, and each slot can only be used once before per battle. You can equip and use items like vitriol and throwing knives generously at first but they can be most effective when used at the last possible moment.
8. Adjacent Colors Compliment
Use the unit icon as a reference to determine whether or not stacks will catalyze together for extra damage. Neighboring colors will compliment each other and colors on opposite sides diagonally will oppose each other.
9. Treasure Hunting
Scouring areas for chests while free roaming will often lead to new options in combat based on what you find. Consumables and trinkets are valuable but weapons like Lances or Blunderbuss will unlock new class options as soon as they are found.
10. Nail a coin to the Tree to rest
The method for recovering your party between excursions into the city is appropriately strange but is not quite covered by the game’s introduction. Examining the Tree in the merchants quarter will allow your party to nail a coin to it, removing stacks of humorous damage and recovering health. Be warned that enemies will respawn before considering backtracking to rest locations.
Black legend will remain a solid experience for fans of deep strategy and turn based combat because of its unique mechanics and use of alchemy in combat. These same tactics are employed by monsters and cultists to stop your party from learning their secrets and freeing the city from the very first encounter. With any luck, mastering these skills early will help you solve the game’s mysteries and reveal the rich lore presented by Black Legend.
Check out our review for Black Legend here!
