Legends of Pegasus

Fundy Eylül 25, 2022

Game Category: Strategy - 4X, Science Fiction, Turn Based, Real-Time
Developer / Distributor: Novacore Studios / Kalypso Media
Release Date: 10 Aug 2012
Rating: PEGI 12 (provisional)

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"Kalypso Media, the publisher who brought you critically acclaimed games such as Tropico 4, Sins of a Solar Empire, and Dungeons, will be bringing to you their largest and boldest release to date: Legends of Pegasus - a 4X simulation strategy science fiction game from Novacore Studios. After taking a look at the official videos, we can safely say that this year is going to get very hot for the 4X science fiction genre."

Was I crazy?

But those were the very prophetic words I used when I wrote the preview for the game a few weeks back. And guess what, it's getting very hot... but not in the way you'd think.

The hidden Morse code in the title should have been "S.O.S."

There have been many reports of several raging e-mobs taking on the tanks that have been deployed by Kalypso to shield Novacore Studios - the people responsible for Legends of Pegasus (LoP). And, the comments over at their forums are really heating up as player after player demand for a refund. You see, LoP stands as the game with the rockiest release that I've ever encountered.

I'm not going to bother with a proper breakdown of the game. There are so many problems plaguing LoP that it would be an injustice for me to tell you more about a game that's probably still in its alpha release state. It's a shame that this had to transpire and I feel bad for everyone caught up in the maelstrom.

You actually get real-time space battles in LoP

If you haven't yet bought the game, then please read the pros below followed with a close scrutiny of the cons.

Pros:
Legends of Pegasus looks really nice in some parts of the game, however don't be fooled by the length of this list. This is a game plagued by many problems, so don't forget to read the Cons below - that section happens to be much more interesting than this one.

Ship designs are impressive looking and the concept of modules add a nice touch to customization.
There's actually some nifty looking real-time space battles in Legends of Pegasus.
The cutscene artwork looks really nice.
You get three different user interface designs for each of the alien races in the game.
The game's epic space opera back story that comprise 12 missions (spanning 3 campaigns) is quite an interesting one.

The battleship simply looks incredible!

The voiceover is typically well done. For example, in a zoomed-in view a character's speech sounds normal, however when the same view zooms out to show the same person sitting at the head of a meeting room, you can hear the voice has a mild echo effect added to it.
The main theme sounds really well suited for a 4X game.
The race editor in skirmish mode seems to be quite complete.
The game seems to be quite easy to modify with a text editor; the core data files are in XML format.
There's actually a lot to do and see in the game (if only it was all working properly.)
The best part of the game was trying to complete each mission when presented with the (unfortunate set of technical) challenges placed before you.

If you can get this far, then you're one really patient player

Cons:
Get ready to read a really long list of cons; when a game's review is as long as the cons list, you'd best turn away from it in abject fear. This is one game that doesn't belong in your treasured game collection - not in its current state. For now, the game probably belongs under your favorite coffee cup as a nice shiny coaster (or if you don't have a physical copy, try the Recycle Bin) - and that's me being real nice about the entire debacle.

After installing LoP on day one of its release... I found I couldn't even log into the game.
Legends of Pegasus is still an unstable game that crashes; even though I voluntarily placed myself on a two week sabbatical to give the game a chance to get patched. Looks like that didn't work at all. I guess I shouldn't have given it two weeks, two months perhaps?

You probably won't get this far into LoP without
encountering a couple of its game shattering bugs

Saving your game seems to work, but loading your game - well that's another story altogether.
The AI appears to still be in its infancy.
You have to contend with a convoluted user interface.
The tutorial (if you could call it that) is in my opinion poorly executed.
Good luck trying to figure out how to build your very first ship. I found out, the hard way - through experimentation.
The planet interface screen with it's diamond layout for building structures feels too small and is troublesome to navigate.
Text that appears on the screen is clipped, making you guess what it actually means. It doesn't help when you have to guess your next objective.
User interface text uses the tiniest of fonts ever.

You need to design a ship first before it appears here

There is no research tech tree available for players as a handy reference. You will wind up guessing what you will find next.
The diplomacy interface seems to be a sham. Is it even working as advertised?
The real-time strategy segments offer no fun other than that it's just pure tonnage that wins the battle. What's the point of all that research when you can do nothing spectacular with all that gadgetry?
There's appears to be no way to retreat from a heated RTS space battle. Even when it's down to a swarm of enemy ships against your straggling survivors, you have to wait for your ships to be taken out before you can return to the turn-based aspect of the game. If not, it's time to hit the ALT-F4 button... again.
The game comes with one of the worst fleet management systems ever conceived; fancy dragging and dropping text in a sub-panel till you form several groups in your fleet? I don't think so...

If only the developers had done more research on Research

There is no detailed in-built encyclopedia or handy tool tips system.
Systems have only a few planets that remain static throughout the game.
Don't even think of attempting a planetary invasion; I got a consistent CTD every time.
You only get three races to choose from.
Although you can play against 7 enemies in skirmish mode, you can select only one AI opponent. Now, if only you can find that workaround hiding somewhere in the forums.
There are way too many other minor bugs to mention.
There's even a thread on Kalypso's forum addressing refunds. If you ask me, this probably looks better belonging in the list of pros... at least you get a couple of great Kalypso games for free.

Radar like emanations around habitable planets,
asteroid clusters, jumpgates, that's about it... Bare!

Conclusion

As your writer has a software engineering background, I must profess that if there ever was a post mortem to this game, I'd gladly dissect every word of it. This stands as one of the worst releases ever in a high profile AAA game, and every developer can learn from it.

[Editor: If there ever was a list for top IT gaming disasters like this list, then Legends of Pegasus deserves a place there.]

But, as it stands, this sorry mess should be avoided until Novacore Studios has done enough to redeem themselves; and that's probably after a dozen more patches. In truth, there is a 4X game hiding under the entire mess that is Legends of Pegasus, but I don't recommend you stick around to watch what happens - for at least the next few months.