A day in The Void just wouldn't be complete without some bandits, skeletons, necromancers and wolves attacking you. Following the first Legend of the Void game without skipping a scene, Legend of the Void 2: The Ancient Tomes by Obelisk Games is an intense, item-heavy browser-based role playing game that takes a very serious approach to the genre, aiming to emulate the experience of a full-fledged console or PC RPG without all the overhead. The result is a great sequel that continues right where the first game left off, dumping you in a world packed with monsters on a quest to, well, just stay alive.
At the beginning of Legend of the Void 2, you find yourself dumped inside The Void with no idea how long you've been here. You do notice, however, your traveling companion Rogan is missing. You discover it's been many days since The Black Gate erupted, and things have gone a bit amiss, what with the monsters everywhere and general terror throughout the villages.
Legend of the Void 2 is a top down experience that can be controlled with the mouse or a combination of the mouse and keyboard. Move through each small area interacting with people, searching paths for loot, and gathering up as much treasure as you can. You'll make frequent stops to re-equip yourself with new items or just manage your inventory. Inevitably you'll encounter enemies, but since a good bulk of Legend of the Void 2 is combat oriented, you can expect a smart, intense sort of ride.
Battles are turn-based and alternate with your party and the enemy swinging at each other with all they've got. Attacks, spells, and other abilities are stashed in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen, simply click on the skill you want to use followed by the enemy you want to attack. Many moves require mana points to use, limiting the frequency in which you can roll them out. All skills need a few turns to recharge, so unleash your strategic hell accordingly and you'll be staring at the victory screen in no time.
Analysis: Legend of the Void 2 doesn't feel like a browser RPG, a statement intended as a compliment in every way possible. From the setting to the story, the lavishly complete equipment and skill screens, and the impossibly long list of items you can find and use, you get the sense there's a big world to be explored. It's a bit overwhelming at first, but after a few minutes you get the hang of item management and skill updates and are ready to take on the world.
Combat is a good chunk of the game. Enemies aren't afraid to hit you with their sharpest swords and most stinging-est spells, so you have to keep on your toes, watch your party's hit points, and use your skills and items accordingly. Special tomes give you abilities once charged, giving you a lift if the battle drags on for more than a handful of turns. And if it's all a bit too much to handle, you can change combat difficulty in the options menu, switching it from "casual" all the way to "legendary". Be careful with that last one!
The only shortcoming with a game this hefty is the inevitable learning curve, but Obelisk Games managed to smooth that out as well as can be expected. Legend of the Void 2 may not grip you right away, but it only takes three or four minutes to start your addiction, an almost imperceptible amount of time when compared to most role playing games. After that, it's all looting, exploration, combat, and even more combat. A superb sequel and a standout RPG in its own right, if you're looking for something a little more serious and a little more challenging than the norm, you've found it!
How/where can you find more than the two members I have.
I seem to ONLY be able to get the starter guy and one other member.
Two of the areas are telling me I need 3 members to my party to attack it reasonably.
Anyone???
There is an updated version of this available that fixes some bugs and clarifies some things in game.
@ Wino:
I don't recall exactly where I got my third member, but I do know that I was quite a ways into the game. I believe that it was
once I went south of Caldera. Be sure you talk to everyone. Be sure you complete all of the quests that you can while staying out of those areas that warn you that you need 3 members. You'll find him. :)
Updated version now online.
So I played quite a bit, saved and shut down, then came back -- and my save wasn't there. I've never had this problem before, and I did "allow" Adobe to save data on my computer, though only 1 MB. Now there's a special message which says to use 10 MB, so perhaps that's the problem. I'm sure it's too late for me, but let this be a warning. Try saving and loading before you get too far, to make sure it's working!
And if anyone does have any miracle suggestions...
Since all games played here on JIG are saved on the same domain, it's best to allow "unlimited" space to be sure there's always room for each new game you play here.
Other than that, the game was just updated today, so perhaps the changes included something such that previous game saves were incompatible. I'm sorry you lost your game save.
It felt like a while to me until the third member of the party showed up.
He didn't appear until after I'd defeated the first boss off to the North-West, got back to the Caldera City, and got the key to chat to the head Seer. There he was, hanging out on the steps just behind the door. Oh hi, Mage. Could have done with you just now.
I'm guessing it'll be some while until any putative further party members show up too and that I'll need to be dealing with another boss first.
The game seems pretty big - there's many hours of gameplay here, especially if you go off and do the side-quests. I've put a good few hours into it so far and don't feel I've done much more than scratch the surface.
This is my one gripe with it in terms of storyline. The country is under imminent attack from immense forces of evil but you seem to end up spending a great deal of time taking your party off to clear out areas full of side-quest baddies instead. I guess this goes with the classic RPG style territory.
theres a hidden shop in the lost gate way ruins
once you get to the lost gate way ruins head soutn then solve the puzzle enter the cave then solve the puzzle again enter the portal to the void youl see a guy seling items
I can't go south of Calderia City portal, I have explored every single place (I believe) north of Calderia, I have 2 other guys in my party
Did anyone have any luck finding the widow's stash? I can't seem to find it anywhere.
Anyone know how to change the active tome?
the secret shop is in the lost gateway ruins
@haile1996
You can change your tome in the skills screen at any time. Just click the skills icon on the left side of the screen, and then in the upper right corner there is an icon for the tomes.
Oh so a slightly obnoxious thing I noticed that the developer might want to change if possible:
You cannot get the "Professional Adventurer" Achievement because it requires you to complete all quests, but the "Eternal Forest" quest is uncompletable. It says so right in the game that it cannot be completed. I have completed every quest except Eternal Forest, including the premium content quest, and did not receive the achievement.
This should probably be fixed.
Very high-quality game, and I am really enjoying it.
I do have what might seem like a very minor improvement to suggest (in hope the developer reads this) that would improve my playing experience dramatically:
Please either a) make it obvious from the tooltips which equipment cannot be used by which classes, or b) use the X'd-out icon for unusable equipment in the shop, for whichever character you are currently comparing to.
I can only assume that my rogue can't use some armour or weapons because it's meant for a warrior - mage equipment is a little more obvious - but twice now I have spent a bunch of money on equipment I cannot use. Luckily both times I was able to refresh the browser and recover my previous auto-save without losing too much, however this is such a small thing and it's causing me a lot of aggravation, so here's hoping for an update. :)
(Not really a spoiler, but that ended up being a lot of text.)
theres also a wolf selling equipment in the sea north of thornwick just bellow the cult emerald
There are a lot of hidden places in ancient tomes
Any chance the spoilery unspoilered comments above could be spoilerfied?
Can anyone help me? I can't get south of Calderia city at all. The city guard says: "only residents of Calderia city may pass". I have virtually visited every place North Of calderia city and finished all quests I got except this quest where I have to deliver a letter to a husband in southern Calderia city
Great review, John! I spent a lot of time working with Blake Kimball on the soundtrack to set the right tone with the game's soundtrack. If you'd like to hear it in all in high quality glory you can stream it here :)
http://dvgmusic.bandcamp.com/album/legend-of-the-void-2-the-ancient-tomes-soundtrack
As always, thank you to Jay and the writing team for your support!
I really enjoy the game and I've played through to the end of the plot, but I'm curious as to what exactly the end conditions for Planck's Constant are. I was pretty sure I'd satisfied them, but I don't seem to be able to complete the task.
Can someone give me an idea what to do to finish the Ice city mission? I have
gone north, entered the cave to the void, and beat the boss/got the second tome. The people still in town still say the same things. Am I missing something?
I'm stuck on the "First Strike" quest.
It says "Find the demonic cave near Rootvale". Is that the one by Sungard? If so, I'm stuck; the Rootvale seers won't see me.
Never mind!
Great game, beatifull.
A friendly suggestion, maybe in the next seuquel, :), you can make stronger and more dificult to beat enemy.
I have enjoyed the game so far and I would like to buy the premium content. My problem is with Armor games. I can't remember my user name from the last time I bought premium content from there and I can't find any way of retrieving that information.
I can get a password reset e-mail, but it won't tell my my user name. If I try to register a new account it tells me that my e-mail is already in use. Do I have to create an all new e-mail account just to create a new armor games account so I can buy this game? That's a real pain.
i need help i have beating the enemy's for the "into the void" quest but i can get in the place to turn it in i think i need to find this old dudes sword but i cant find it he says its east of icecliff in a cave i have been in all the caves i can get to even triple checked the caves i have found the hidden cave but didn't see the name in the dudes weapons bag i have looked for hours haven't found it please help out
Late to the party... this one's smooth. Maybe not like butter, but like level/strength leveling, general motion, and standout art kind of smooth. Turn-based is all about how interesting the journey is, and there's plenty of sight-seeing even within the overdone genre. I love that the narrative is woven right into the environment; devs storyboarded the heck out of this. That photo-realistic CG often comes with lame palettes and lazy movements, and this barely clears that hurdle with a few weird hindlegs. I suggest adding an dust effect to show where feet impact as a finishing touch. (Yes: I like the blood. Mmmm.) Great attention to detail, like naming big bosses. That inventory system is IMPRESSIVE. The interfaces are all intuitive and clean, just needs an Are You Sure? prompt for junking. Junking, man. Brilliant!
And so with a game with tons of detail... to the nitpicking! All up in your kerning.
Those color indicators make me nuts. (Hello, useless to the colorblind.) Totally do not fit with the oil paint paperback cover vibe. Here I am in civilization, in your awesome town... and everybody has a neon sign under their robes. Some moving glitter would be a touch more realistic, so at least I can pretend to have Highlander-sight.
Same deal in the combat screen. It's otherwise unbelievably *smooth*, but if a red border around a red square is hard for me to see, the lack of contrast is going to be impossible for a colorblind person. There's already a ton of blue/lightning effects, just changing it to glowing blue would make it so much more visible. I was also wondering why the tome doesn't get its own numerical countdown, instead of my having to click on the tiny meter to check.
Could we get extra maps of the city centers? (Or is there one?) I keep getting lost in Calderia. And maybe a little portrait face next to quests, so I have a fighting chance of finding that one dude with the thingy and my gold.
Those Times New Roman bits really detract from the beauty of the game. The name of that font has slipped my mind (I want to say Poor Richard but that's not it), but it's perfectly legible in smaller font. The pop-up status message is especially glaring.
Now back to being chaotic neutral.
i get all this awesome armor and weapons, but it is crossed out. I see you have to have required strength, agility, etc. But when i have that required atribute, it still wont let me equip the armor or weapon. What should i do?
ok, so i looked around the forum and found nothing referring to what i'm looking for, so i just wanna ask, what stats should i work on for maximum mana and damage resistance? what i'm going for is a sumon specialty mage that can both take and dish out a lot of damage.
Nice review, thanks. Last night I tested Rise of Champions and I could not say that it was the proverbial good stuff Legend of the Void 2 made me expect, or wish for more of it. LotV beats RoC in my opinion, as it had a mature approach and a real story to unfold. Bye!
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