
Unlike most RPG systems - Legends of Aethereus doesn't use equipment drops or loot drops particularly often. The majority of your loot will be crafting items. As you progress in skill level – you develop your own crafting talent making better items for yourself. For once, the store is not bereft of useful items – any missing parts for your gear can actually be bought at the store.

The almost grind-like approach to progressing the game could be forgiven if there was some actual draw to the combat. Instead we get a shambling mess of "will it hit?" or odd animation pauses that make the most frequent in-game activity downright frustrating. My first few levels, I focused on making a brute – hits hard and all the subtlety of a rock thrown through a plate glass window. After multiple combat sessions of getting increasingly frustrated (the slow response from my own character; hit or missed attacks that made no sense) I switched gears and instead built a ranger-style character. I figured that the ranged attack system may be better – instead I get a weird animation slowdown after every attack, where the animation for reloading never seems to start correctly.
All in all, Legends of Aethereus was a frustrating game to play; it failed to really innovate anything besides a crafting system – which is like buying a car because the cup holders are really big…. Kind of missing the point.
- Tazman
The Good:
- Extensive crafting system
The Bad:
- Visually a step back from the competition
- Combat system is downright awful
Score: 4.0 / 10