When it comes to side-scrolling beat ’em ups, satisfying gameplay is an absolute must. As important as visuals and audio are at distinguishing the game from others in the genre, it doesn’t mean much if the game isn’t fun. The Legend of Tianding manages to excel in all of these aspects, on top of providing an enjoyable story that mixes the adventurous life of the titular Taiwanese “Robin Hood” folk hero with a healthy heaping of mythology.

In fact, I’d say the story is one of the most important parts of the experience. Whereas most games in the genre have a simple premise (such as saving a loved one) that’s stretched out across a whole campaign to justify your need to beat up every enemy in your way, there’s an ongoing narrative here that’s built with each chapter. While it isn’t a complicated story, it isn’t one you’ll see often in Western media.

The setting is 20th century Taiwan after being ceded from the Qing Dynasty to Japan in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese people in this story are rebuked as terrorizing colonizers from the Taiwanese point of view and any Taiwanese that help them in any way are traitors. Conversely, most Japanese characters look down harshly on the Taiwanese as lesser than and even call them Qing Slaves.

This obvious divide is not presented as a problem that needs to be fixed or solved by the player. It’s simply treated as the way things were. Although it’s not the basis for the main plot and events that Liao Tianding goes through, it is a vital theme for the character and the setting.

This theme, along with the general story beats, is constantly reflected in the gameplay. The townsfolk are distrusting of the Japanese police. Rebels want to show off the strength of the Taiwanese people. All of them love Liao Tianding for being a charming hero that steals from the rich and gives to the poor (something you are encouraged to do and are rewarded for). The Japanese police meanwhile see you as a wanted thief and troublemaker.

Aside from the gameplay, The Legend of Tianding also presents the story through cutscenes and in-between chapter narration. Admittedly, the latter doesn’t seem necessary given the simplicity of the story, but it was always something I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s treated like a radio drama narrator that’s bringing listeners up to speed on what’s happened, complete with “what will the hero do now” hook lines. Even though it doesn’t serve a purpose besides being immersively charming, it really stuck with me. Of course, the comic-book visuals help a ton too.

Plenty of games have been stylized to emulate comics, from the cell-shading in each Borderlands game to the comic book panel cutscenes throughout the Max Payne series. When done right it can give a lot of character to a game and this is certainly one of those cases.

Initially, it’s noticed through the comic-book panel cutscenes that take a heavy influence from traditional Chinese manga. Every single panel is wonderfully drawn and it’s always a treat when they’re on screen, whether it’s to being used during the in-between narrations or popped in during the regular in-engine cutscenes to add just a little bit of flair and focus.

Once you get the chance to start playing the game you’ll notice that the whole game has a comic style to it and it looks fantastic! As interesting as the early 20th century Taipei setting looks, it helps to pop out with the art style. Even outside of the environments and character designs, some actions result in text appearing for sound effects that provide a nice bit of flourish.

Speaking of flourish, something else that brings the game to life and is indicative of the love for Taiwan by the developers is the audio. There’s a lot of traditional instruments used to immerse the player in the setting, from the ambiance of the busy districts you travel between to the action-heavy scenes against bosses. It’s not a sound you hear often in video games, but in my opinion, that’s what makes it all the more powerful and unique to the experience.

Outside of the soundtrack, the rest of the game sounds great too. One of the most immersive aspects is hearing all of the characters voiced in their respective languages of Taiwanese and Japanese. That does mean that you’ll need to be reading lines for all of the dialogue, but I think the comic style in most of the cutscenes makes this enjoyable even for those that don’t like reading subtitles on the screen too much. Every swipe, kick, and explosion in combat is satisfying to hear as well.

This all leads to what is certainly considered the most important part of this genre: the gameplay. Amid the general attack and dodge mechanics, The Legend of Tianding excels when it comes to the stealing technique. Once an enemy is weak enough, you can use your waist sash to bind an enemy and steal their weapon.

There’s nothing that says you can’t just use your knife, but stealing a weapon from an enemy can really change the flow of battle. Stealing an enemy’s weapon with a sash is also one of the most kung-fu movie things ever, and it feels pretty cool to do it.

An important aspect of the stealing mechanic is that after binding them, you can choose a direction to throw them in. Putting that on slight hold for a bit, I do have to mention that you can eventually learn of high-powered kick moves that drain your recharging stamina. These kicks can mostly be chained together and can go straight down, left or right, and at an upward left or right angle.

These kicks, along with the throw from the binding steal, make for a lot of freedom with controlling enemy placement. Sometimes it was as simple as grabbing an enemy in front of me and throwing them closer to some other enemies so I can run up and attack them all at once. Other times I would knock an enemy into the air, grab them, throw them further up, stomp down on a group of enemies below me, take a few shots with a stolen pistol, jump back up and stomp the fallen enemy on their way down. My description doesn’t do it justice on just how cool it all looks.

There is a small bit of customization when it comes to abilities. There is a choice of two shadow techniques available to use, although one is more widely available than the other and therefore was the one I used far more often. Both of them activate when making a perfect dodge right as an enemy attacks.

The bigger mechanic that lets you change how you play is with the talismans. There are plenty of different talismans to find and they all provide interesting buffs such as allowing you to triple jump, increasing your invincibility window after taking damage, or ensuring that stealing always gets you a specific weapon. Their power is equated to their weight, and your talisman pouch can only carry so much at the beginning.

Everything above aside, there are some issues that I personally found with the game. Something that I wasn’t a fan of was the long-length of some stages. The most egregious of this was the initial sewer stage. Of course, it makes sense for the first stage that teaches a lot of players additional mechanics outside of the basics to drag a bit, but I started to feel a little bored. To be fair, I never felt bored any other time, but some moments did feel a little too long.

Even outside of combat, I did feel a bit of a drag with side quests. I honestly didn’t mind any that required me to travel to another district to talk to someone because it is fun to see everyone just love Liao Tianding, but a majority of them were fetch quests for specific treasures in each chapter’s stage. I was able to complete a bunch even without trying because I had already collected the items. This was a little annoying at times because I would sometimes have to leave the area and come back to trigger the dialogue of me giving the NPC the item, but usually, it worked fine.

I wasn’t super keen on replaying the levels to look for treasures though. As fun as the game is, another issue that compounds to make some stages feel too long is that there isn’t much variety in enemies. I don’t mind only fighting against Japanese military/cops or Taiwanese people that have allied with them, but their variety is all down to what kind of weapon they have. It’s hard not to notice when you’ve run out of new enemies to fight.

The only other problem I had is less of a problem and more of a wish. I wanted this game to be longer! I beat it in six hours while completing most side quests. That’s not to say the game is too short because it does feel like a tightly-packed experience. Even if it did drag a little bit at times and I was hoping for different enemies, I didn’t want the game to end when I was just having so much fun playing it.

What excites me is that the game is being received well and there are certainly some plot elements that hint at there being more adventures to play in the future. If this game were to turn into a series that continues to improve gameplay and display the same love for the history and folklore surrounding Liao Tianding and Taiwan, I think it would be a strong series and an absolute standout in the genre. Even if this just remains a one-off game, I’m very interested in the future works of this development team.

A PC review copy of The Legend of Tianding was provided by Neon Doctrine for this review.

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The Legend of Tianding

$19.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Comic-Book Style
• Unique Taiwanese Folk Story
• Kung-Fu Action
• Stealing Is Fun

Cons

• Some Levels Drag On
• Not Enough Enemy Variety
• Fetch Quests