Shalnor Legends: Sacred Lands

 Switch
User Score
5.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 6 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 6
  3. Negative: 3 out of 6

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  1. Xam
    Mar 3, 2021
    8
    Shalnor Legends est un petit jeu d'aventures classique et sympa, court et simple mais intéressant, dans la veine d'un Zelda 1 sur NES. Souvent en promo, il vaut une dizaine d'heures de plaisir. À conseiller aux débutants pour se familiariser avec les bon jeux d'aventures. Noté 8/10.
  2. TatorsGames
    May 26, 2019
    0
    When you see a game advertise itself as a "Zelda-like" game, that should set off bells of joy. Unfortunately, Shalnor Legends is anything but.

    The underlying story is maddeningly thin, the mechanics are outrageously skewed in favor of grinding, and the overall design of the game is terribly disappointing. If you're looking for a game that forces you to spend 20 minutes at a time    When you see a game advertise itself as a "Zelda-like" game, that should set off bells of joy. Unfortunately, Shalnor Legends is anything but.

    The underlying story is maddeningly thin, the mechanics are outrageously skewed in favor of grinding, and the overall design of the game is terribly disappointing. If you're looking for a game that forces you to spend 20 minutes at a time grinding for gold in the same spot on the map so you can buy the item that you need to progress, look no further. If you're looking for a game that offers up cheap and cheesy enemies that can kill you in a few quick hits, this is the game for you. If you're looking for a game that plays on your love for nostalgia and pixel-art games only to turn into a plot-thin, nearly story-less mess, this is your title.

    Cheap enemies? Check.
    Cheap bosses? Check
    Grinding for gold? Check.
    Pointless fetch quests? Check.
    Immensely lengthy rooms full of nothing but traps? Check.
    An incredibly cheap change halfway through the game that doubles trap damage "just because you're doing well"? Check.
    Terrible controls and hit detection? Check.
    Terribly unreadable DOS-like text font for nearly everything? Check.

    This game is an absolute joke. Avoid at all costs.    … Expand
  3. rlosey13
    May 5, 2020
    4
    I gave Shalnor Legends a solid 3 hours to impress me. Frankly, it did not. The game was marred with poor controls, wonky hitboxes, and lackluster dungeon design. I paid $1 for it during an eshop sale and I wish I had not. You're better off saving your dollar and time, and playing something else.
  4. BlueReview
    Nov 24, 2019
    5
    There is a good game here at its core but it quickly gets buried by what I think was an attempt to try to 'fix' an issue in the Zelda-like formula but failed to hit its mark. This game feels like someone heard the mentions over the years about how Rupees are never used well enough in Zelda games so they made everything in the game based on spending gold. They went overboard though and itThere is a good game here at its core but it quickly gets buried by what I think was an attempt to try to 'fix' an issue in the Zelda-like formula but failed to hit its mark. This game feels like someone heard the mentions over the years about how Rupees are never used well enough in Zelda games so they made everything in the game based on spending gold. They went overboard though and it is not obvious at the start of the game. When you start, it does take a little effort to figure out where it wants you to go but ultimately its not too much of an issue and the game gets going.

    One of the first things the game introduces is a sleeping system that allows you to switch between day and night, the issue though is that everything important occurs at Night and you almost never have a reason to make it daytime other than morbid curiosity of if anything in the world changed other than essential NPCs not being around.

    Two minor griefs attached to this is that some of the areas are really hard to see in either light setting and in some of the starting areas, there is a lightning effect that flashes the screen and is unnecessarily jarring...its the one thing that I think 'needs' to be removed from the game.

    But of course as mentioned, the main concern with the game is the money, you only ever get 1 money per coin picked up and while sometimes you'll get barrels with 2 coins in them, you will get sometimes 20 coins per entering and reentering a room. The game copies the idea of increasing your wallet size over time but it really just becomes farming over and over and over again because everything costs 200+ coins and after the first area, multiple items will cost your maximum of 500. Each area has a ghost vendor with 5 items costing 250, 300, or 500 as well as 3 areas having stat upgraders that cost 200+ for over 10 upgrades each. This is a LOT of farming even though it doesn't seem like it the first time you encounter a vendor. The farming also comes into effect with materials as well with very strict limits of 10 per material which are used for stats and potions. A brief mention of the potions being that it feels like the bosses and some traps might be balanced around guzzling down potions and this farming for potions inhibits your coin farms.

    As said though, there is a game buried in here, this game could be patched into something really entertaining too. All the farming ruins the pace of the game and if every single thing in the game was cut down 80%, you could still have the player farm a little bit and not distract them from enjoying the actual gameplay. Vendors should be 20, 25, 30, and 50 coins and same with the upgrades and an increase to 20 materials would go so far in making this a really enjoyable experience.

    Right now though the tedium feels insulting especially when you start the game and it says that their is a hard mode that makes money twice as difficult to collect.    … Expand

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  1. NintendoWorldReport
    May 20, 2019
    45
    All told, Shalnor Legends isn’t trying to hide its source material, but this opens it up to serious criticism because it doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself. If you are going to make a Zelda-like, it’s important to either have a compelling hook or be great. Blossom Tales and Reverie are much stronger titles in this genre that found a way to be similar but also different from Nintendo’s legendary franchise in their own ways. Shalnor Legends pales in comparison to any Zelda game. The use of “Legend” in the title is the only real link between these worlds.
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