![]() The game blends Western action-platforming gameplay with traditional Taiwanese folklore to create something new, vibrant, and filled with adrenaline-pumping combat. It helps out a ton with pacing, even though this same aspect is then hampered by how the story occasionally progresses, with long, boring dialogue sections.The Legend of Tianding is full of great stories that are told through an exquisite, detailed art style. The game doesn’t take a lot of time explaining you its mechanics: it usually announces you have unlocked a new feature, and already throws a barrage of enemies towards you so you can test it out. Even though the game does not allow the usage of the D-pad for its movement (usually a given in a 2D platformer), performing directional combos (not unlike Super Smash Bros) is fast-paced and intuitive. Thanks to some aerial attacks, you can throw enemies on the air and perform juggle combos, not unlike a fighting game.Įverything is backed by some really responsive controls. With that, Tianding can pick up and briefly use bo staffs, rapiers, axes, even pistols. Tianding has some borderline ninja-like abilities, such as using a grappling hook to float around the level like a Taiwanese Spider-Man, tons of different kung fu skills, and a rope mechanics, letting him briefly stun a foe and steal his weapon. Too bad you spend a good chunk of your playtime inside generic levels, such as sewers and interiors.Īt its core, The Legend of Tianding is a 2D platformer, with a big emphasis on fast-paced traversal and solid fighting mechanics. Thankfully, for as generic as its level design can be, The Legend of Tianding is backed by some really solid gameplay. Hell, the first level of the game is set inside a never-ending sewer complex, the single most generic setting you can have in a video game. ![]() You spend a lot of time indoors, in really generic settings, such as the interior of buildings and sewers. It’s a detriment to how great its foundations are. With that being said…įor as much as I loved the art style, I didn’t like the game’s level design. All in all, a great way to present its story. The game presents its cutscenes in a mixture between comic book panels, Chinese voice acting, and the occasional in-engine animated sequence. It’s not exaggerated as moden shonen tend to be. The Legend of Tianding looks like a colorized old-school manga, with a similar character design philosophy as classics like Barefoot Gen and Speed Racer. The setting is downright amazing, and it’s backed by a fantastic art style. It’s part Robin Hood, part classic Kung Fu cinema, and part tales of colonialism. The Legend of Tianding features a gorgeous art style… As previously mentioned, a Taiwanese Robin Hood. In the midst of all of this, there’s a lad called Liao Tianding, a rebellious figure who dedicates his life to ridding Taiwan of corruption, all while stealing from the rich in order to give to the poor. Not exactly the best time and place to enjoy life. Meanwhile, the population is suffering from poverty, starvation, crime, you name it. Police brutality is commonplace, and corrupt individuals use their connections to the colonizers for their own gain. The game takes place in 1909, in a town called Dadaocheng, during the Japanese colonial rule of the island of Taiwan. I don’t know the logistics or reasons behind remaking it eighteen years later as a much meatier, full-fledged game (maybe it was the death of Flash altogether?), but this is how we got The Legend of Tianding. Way back in 2004, when we were enjoying the hell out of Miniclip and Newgrounds, some Taiwanese developers released a surprisingly robust Flash game called Shényǐng Wúzōng Liào Tiāndīng, which became a local cult hit. The first thing to know about The Legend of Tianding is that it’s actually a remake… of a Flash game. ![]() This game might have broken a Guinness World Record on the largest concentration of beggars per megabyte.
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