By Banshee on 03/30/01

A mighty collision in space, and a world is changed: the giant robot Lergan hurtles toward a faraway planet, crashing into pieces upon impact. Pieces that are scattered across a new land, broken and disrupted by his fall. Exisle, split. Exisle, torn asunder, and divisions are formed. Races form clans, establish territories . . . and rivalries. The battle for dominance goes on.

The Founders

It's not that Maximum Charisma co-founders Sean Kennedy and Steve Escalante were just daydreaming about giant robots one day. But they did have a dream.

The two longtime friends were sitting around one night, swapping general frustration about the fact that they just weren't seeing the kind of games they wanted to play. Oh, there were games they enjoyed, but there just wasn't anything that was quite the right combination of what they were looking for.

A common enough conversation between gamers. However, Kennedy and Escalante did the uncommon: they did something about it.

It's now been over two years since that conversation, and today they're entrepreneurs. They have titles, like CEO and President Sean Kennedy and Vice President of Sales and Marketing Steve Escalante. They have a team of programmers, graphic artists, and engineers, and work with energetic people like Dale Lullo, Director of Business Development. They have an office, in Arvada, Colorado. They also have the one thing they've carried with them from the very beginning: a bright enthusiasm and clear belief in their product that shines through in every conversation, a passion that they've communicated to their team. A vibe that is so powerfully infectious, one of the staffers had one of the game's characters tattooed on his legs. They have a company, Maximum Charisma Studios, which is behind this vision, this world of Exisle.

And they have a game: Fighting Legends.

The Game

Imagine a brightly-colored world, filled with strange creatures. Such a description covers many titles out there: Shiny's Sacrifice immediately comes to mind as an example. However, Fighting Legends is not quite like any other game out there. It is honestly fresh, clearly different, and a bit unusual in the fact that it is intended for both serious and casual gamers.

How different is it? To begin with, it's enormous: the game world has 128 known zones (not including the hidden zones thrown in as surprises), and is four or five times larger than EverQuest. If a player decided to walk in a straight line through the many gates from east to west, it would take four hours, and that's just for one of the three cores (similar to shards): the Sky Realm, the Surface Realm, and the Underplane. Then it's another four hours from north to south for the dedicated explorer traversing the realms, perhaps through snow and rain, through night and day, through battles with other players, and maybe, just maybe, through encounters with Exisle's natural custodians and defenders, The Horde. WomenGamers.com is pleased to have the Horde debut on our site: check out the exclusive screenshots on the left.

Size is not the only trait that will distinguish Fighting Legends from other massively multiplayer, online-only games. True, the team is projecting that the fee to play will be the standard $9.95 a month, but most of the similarity to previous offerings ends there.

It's not a strategy game. It's not a role-playing game. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the marriage of both of those elements has formed a new hybrid, a genre they have dubbed RPS, for role-playing strategy. There will be quests, there will be action, and there will be spells, but all of it is accented by a vivid style that is reminiscent of Japanese anime. Indeed, the combat itself will have an Eastern, kung fu feel from what I observed (although I wasn't able to actually test this in the very early build I saw).

One of the most intriguing aspects is the game play. Players may control up to 16 units, much like an RTS, but those units are not necessarily of their own creation. Instead, users may trade units, indeed, will have to collaborate if they are to complete certain quests for the game. Ideally, this will foster friendships and strategic alliances, as reciprocity benefits both parties in the transaction. Each player can clearly see on the screen what units are being transferred, and the exchange is not complete until both sides have fulfilled their part of the agreed-upon bargain. Additionally, such trades will force players to communicate with one another, and will help the commerce aspect present in the game world: players can swap tips, units, relics, and world resources like wind crystals, shadow magma and power ore. In other words, help your friends with mutually beneficial swaps, and they might help you face off as a team against a player who is being obnoxious. While player slaying is nothing new in online games, Fighting Legends varies considerably from the typical solo avatar scenario by providing the aforementioned numerous units for a competitive face-off, complete with individual animations. However, in a game world populated with characters as goofy as the Hurler (a Wee clan member that tosses tiny, wriggling dwarves as projectiles), it's hard to think of a serious confrontation as much more than an intensely-tinted parody of an Old West showdown.

As for the "RP" in "RPS," there are plenty of quests. Big ones, like the nine "uberquests," each of which ends with a boss and is clan-specific in its ultimate reward. Little ones, like those that involve the retrieval of items that could be utilized by any player. All will help advance the characters in one way or another. For example, they might obtain a relic to support their tribe as a reward, or leave a mark on the world by completing a quest that honors the player's success with a lingering monument to commemorate the event. It seems that the only potential drawback for some players might be a quest for system upgrades spurred by the game's requirements. As of this writing (though the team does plan to have software emulation in Fighting Legends), hardware T&L is suggested, along with a minimum system specification of a Pentium II 700 (or equivalent) processor with at least 64 MB of RAM. The machine must also have 250 MB available on the hard drive, as well as a 56.6 K modem, the aforementioned 3D card, and the usual mouse, keyboard and CD-ROM drive. System software should be Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows 2000, and a valid e-mail address will be needed for notification of game updates, registration and the like.

The Clans

The clans that inhabit the world of Exisle cover a broad spectrum of tastes and types. Each contains nine units, for a total of 81 possible avatars. You might choose one of the elegant, lithe Rin, while another player might be enchanted by the amusing blue Wee, one of which is the game's mascot, Meditatmo. Many people were never exactly taken with the sickeningly-sweet Smurfs, but it's just possible that some of them might be won over by this little blue guy. If you loved Gizmo from Gremlins and happen to be a sucker for small things with cute voices, you'll probably be completely charmed by tiny Meditatmo.

The game has a light, fun tone overall, but this didn't prevent Maximum Charisma from taking female gamers seriously, as highlighted in their FAQ: "Female heroes are an important part of Fighting Legends. Almost every clan has female characters in its make up, [that are] equally, if not more, powerful than their male counterparts. I say almost every clan because there are some units without gender (like the BearKats, Biomechs, and M-Clan)." They cared enough to put them in the game, and they considered it important enough to put in their FAQ. A good outreach effort, and one that may prove to be a wise business decision.

However, internal clan diversity is not enough to triumph in Fighting Legends: no clan can stand alone for planetary dominance. Each one has a background and a story, each has intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. One clan might have improved skills in melee, while another might show a talent for ranged weapons. Some might be better with magic (known as M-Power in the game), or with Tecniq (a magical form of hand-to-hand combat with healing attributes). Some might be swift and dexterous, others might be slow but strong. As stated earlier, players must trade units if they are to round out the strengths and weaknesses of their group, for players can only build units of their clan type at the base, an ingeniously-portable entity that seemingly disappears into nothingness for easy transport. Each clan's base has an appearance appropriate to the clan's personality.

No matter the clan chosen, each one has two counterpoints: a clan they have advantages against, and a clan with advantage over them. No matter the clan, every player is sometimes the predator, sometimes the prey, sometimes just another explorer in the world, expanding the avatar's personal growth and the skills and actions of the clan as a whole.

From reading the descriptions above, one might think that Clan M has a monopoly on spells in Fighting Legends, but that isn't the case at all. Every clan has access to spells; all magic is fueled by a unit's Mpower cell, which is analogous to life force or spirit. Some of the spells are Mentem Psychotem, Goo Tangler, Wall of Snow, and Smothering Mass. All are as simple to manage and utilize as other aspects of the game, and really, how can you go wrong with a game that has a spell named Goo Tangler?

Choosing an avatar is almost as important as selecting which clan to play. The avatar is the player's most powerful unit, and gains a bonus on all statistics. Although up to three other units (not including your avatar) may be promoted later in the game to the rank of hero, the avatar remains the primary leader. As such, that character has certain advantages, such as permanent resurrection (although heroes also gain this benefit). I say resurrection, rather than immortality, because a unique aspect of Fighting Legends is that the player's avatar will eventually die of old age. Other than the aforementioned four, no other units may be resurrected, so the game mechanics provide additional protective tools to reduce the risk of losing an experienced unit. For example, it is possible to set the aggression level of each unit so they do not flee during combat.

If such longevity becomes burdensome, in other words, if the player gets tired of the chosen avatar or hero, it's relatively simple, if a bit callous, to ditch them by not resurrecting them after death. On the bright side, for committing such cruelty the player gets the opportunity to choose another unit to be avatar, even if that unit is from a different clan. Although it is still only possible to build units from the clan the player started with, this ability to switch provides additional play value for those who may decide mid-game that another clan's abilities are particularly fun or enjoyable. Not that the twisted humorists from Maximum Charisma are encouraging cruelty, ohh, nooo. Particularly not with the poor little dwarves the Hurler uses as missiles. No, not at all.

The Audience

As indicated, the company believes the game will appeal to both the hardcore and the casual gamer. To make things more comfortable, especially for the latter, they are implementing features that they hope will prevent cheating. For example,characters will be kept on the game servers, not on the player's machine, so cheaters cannot "twink" or alter them. To make the world more approachable as a whole, new players will start in "friendly" areas where players cannot attack each other: in the beginning zone for their specific clan. These parts of the core provide learning spaces where beginners can familiarize themselves with the interface and the skills and abilities of the characters they control. More senior players can move into riskier territory further out, but can return to the safe areas to recover after a difficult battle or add to their ranks. Most players will want to expand their journeys to more dangerous zones because of higher rewards in terms of experience and items.

Even though more experienced players can return to the safe zones, this doesn't mean that they can abuse their power by lording it over new folks. The Unk meter, which is equivalent to a morale factor, will see to that. If a predatory player makes a habit of crushing opponents four levels beneath his or her rank, the Unk bar will reflect such behavior and compensate by reducing that player's units' dexterity and damage. Furthermore, they can't just call all their friends into the game and give them all the bonuses and goodies they've gathered over time, at least, not right off the bat. Their friends can come in and play, of course, but as level one characters they cannot receive items or troops that are significantly advanced beyond the units they themselves can create.

Just because players won't have offline access to their characters doesn't mean they'll lack access to customization features. On the contrary, players will be able to create their own zones. Maximum Charisma has considered usability, and intends for the zone creation program to be very simple to use, and straightforward enough for almost any user to enjoy.

Overall Impression

I was impressed with the early build of Fighting Legends I saw. That being said, I was also impressed with the people behind the game, and how deeply they care about this cyberworld their imaginations will deliver to the masses. They are striving for a "Nu Skool" way of making old-fashioned, streamlined fun: a game that is less complicated than the abstruse RTS games that have populated the gaming landscape in recent years. They also have a tremendous asset in their willingness to reach out directly to fans and just connect with them, or do, ah, very direct sales, as in this playful example:

From the Fighting Legends forums on February 21, 2001:
qwoozy: "Heh, I've just been suckered in to paying for a game."
Ponch: "Suckered is such an awful word. Try: 'I am completely convinced that Fighting Legends is going to be worth every penny.' " :)

Their commitment is so strong that as of this writing they have not missed a single development milestone, which is especially remarkable considering this is their debut product. Assuming they stay on track, the game is due out in the fourth quarter of 2001.

Links of Interest

Sign up for the Fighting Legends beta test

Visit the official Fighting Legends forum

Download a video featuring Meditatmo

Enter their sweepstakes to win an an all-expense paid trip for two for 3 days and 2 nights to Breckenridge, Colorado. Contest ends July 1, 2001.