Platform: PC (Requires an HTC Vive to play)

Developer: Legend Studio

Publisher: Legend Studio

Release Date: April 5th, 2016

Genre: Action-Adventure, Indie

Nerd Rating: 8 out of 10

Hey guys! Ever wanted to actually be the hero in a dungeon crawler? Well look no further than A Legend of Luca! Available on the Steam Powered HTC Vive, A Legend of Luca puts you in the dungeon. You can shoot enemies with magic weapons, navigate the dungeons, collect money, fight the oversized bosses, and even teleport (if you choose standing room, rather than room scale in setup)!

“Luca! Luca, awaken!” – Mysterious voice (assumed princess or something…) 

You are Luca, whoever the hell that is. You have been told that you must escape this horrible dungeon-y place using, what are called, the “Weapons of Virtue.” Honestly, I have run into my first problem with this game already. No, it’s not the story that’s wrong. It was the fact that I could not hear the mysterious voice very well at all. Only in certain parts of her dialogue, did I actually hear her. I had to look up what she was basically saying. Every time the voice spoke, I had this problem. Turns out, the mysterious voice belonged to the Goddess of the Hunt, Diana. You, being Luca, is chosen to reclaim the weapons and “be a slave no more.”

Another thing I didn’t care for very much is how short the game was! It’s only five levels! I beat the game in about an hour, and that was me taking my sweet time, too. I love the game, don’t get me wrong. I was just disappointed that the game ended so unexpectedly.

Ha ha! Dragon’s gonna be squished.

Sorry to sound all Negative Nancy there. Let me talk about some of the positive features of the game. First, the game is set up similar to that of The Binding of Isaac, how you have to clear out all the enemies in the room in order to advance. This is also a nod to an even older game, The Legend of Zelda, which is built in the same, but simpler, fashion. For some reason, no one can say that that style can ever gets old. The music for this game is absolutely kickin’ too!

Secondly, the game is in Virtual-freaking-Reality! You can NOT beat that! You are not just sitting in a chair, using the keyboard and mouse to navigate the dungeon, like Legend of Grimrock or something. No, you are standing on your real feet, turning corners, swinging a sword, firing a bow, shooting magic balls out of a staff – actually battling enemies! Not to mention, teleporting from place to place (Author’s note post-game; I just realized I can not teleport in real life *sad face*). I recorded my gameplay (available here), to see what I mean.

See that? Dual wielding!

Like every totally amazing virtual reality game that involves the Vive, you can see your controllers if it is not wielding a weapon. It’s very cool to see your controller in the game. even though it seems a little immersion breaking, it’s still kind of neat to see. Though it’s arguable to say that seeing your controller in the game makes for better immersion. It depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I personally like how they appear to be floating on the screen until you grab a weapon, then you can see your tiny hand wielding a weapon.

That’s a boss. That’s pretty freaking tall, right??

There are bosses on every floor as well. Before you can advance to the next level, you must first defeat the boss. These suckers are at least three times your height. With a health bar that isn’t determined by hearts, like your heath is, and you have this tiny space to run/teleport in to dodge attacks and kill them.

Every floor of this game give you the opportunity of collecting gold, and spending what you have earned in a sort of shop. Each floor has the chance to collect keys, which can be used to open doors and chests, which has a probability to give you good loot, or rain misfortune upon you. Each floor has the possibility for you to find bombs, in which you can use to defeat enemies, find secret rooms, and the like. Notice what I have been saying here… words that are synonymous with chance. What I mean by that is that every floor is randomly generated, no two playthroughs are alike. It’s always different people! That’s the beauty of replayability.

QUICK! DUCK!

All in all, I like this game. I like it a lot. Music’s great, enemies are plentiful, in VR (literally ducking is a valid dodge strategy!), replay chances are high, and you got a variety of weapons to collect. For the kind of game that it is, it is most certainly worth the $19.99 I paid for it.