A Legionary's Life

If have not been at the edge of my seat in a videogame in a long time hoping I don't die on the next enemy wave.

A very nice text RPG (with turn based combat), rich in flavor and historical details. You train your legionary and participate in text events in quiet months and do battles during active phases of a campaign. I liked the grounded tone and strict adherence to point of view - your superiors make war plans and you as a lowly soldier march around not even understanding the big picture. You can keep your head low and survive or try to get glory and promotions doing risky things (and permadeath makes these situations very tense).

I didn't like the meta progression system. To win the hardest optional fights and get best endings you need to play many times to gain enough meta points to unlock powerful perks. The game is not varied enough for that many playthroughs and clicking through easy battles gets boring fast. Nevertheless, I've spent 10 enjoyable hours with my 3 legionaries, and the last one survived the whole ordeal and even participated in some heroic deeds. Ave!

solo the phalanx

peak

Played this game and lost track of time, had to stop playing it after a few playthroughs since it keeps me from being productive and do what I'm supposed to do irl.

Great game, the permadeath makes it so when you make the choice to extend yourself into a dangerous situation and barely survive it is rewarding, and the meta progression makes it so even in failure you can try again and do better next time.

A very fun little text-based roguelike. The historical aspect and character growth are quite appealing. I completed all achievements and it was a joy. I had to try and get a "perfect run" and that got me a proud score of 12169. I followed that with an enhancement-less run of 8634. Can you beat those?

very good game

This is one of my favorite Rome themed games. It seems simple on the surface, but very few games have really put me into the role of a Roman Legionary like this one. I revisited it recently due to the release of a 'sequel', even though it's not really a sequel, and I accidentally played through the entire Second Punic War in one sitting. Don't let the simple graphics fool you - this is a solid RPG, and a standout among the Rome genre.

A great old school style game

A slow build, you'll have a hard time beating the first couple of enemies (and learning the stance system), that becomes a great "tactical fighter"

Nice concise game

It's ok to play a few hours but the gameplay is rather repetitive and once you have seen the story, it's boring to see the same story again. The inability to save your progress is demotivating and you dont want to do it all over again. I played a few hours but have no incentive to restart.

Update after developers answer: I noticed that you have extra points after the first run to improve your character. This makes the game much more replayable than I thought.

excellent game with a detailed, well-researched setting and quality writing

progresses from rage gambling sim to power fantasy

you might not get good, but after enough runs you'll have enough points to click and win without ever needing to get good

Nice game, but hard at first. Read the short Steam tutorials, they are good enough to make you win. Very replayable

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Smooth and well-made for a mostly text adventure. Gets into the history, good writing, interesting game play. You get a lot of game for what you pay for.

I would highly recommend this game! It is a really unique concept and I'm glad I stumbled across it. Definitely worth the money. Looking forward to its successor being completed so I can finish it!

Actually a decent game, just playing it because includes Rome in it. RNG is really bad, missed 9 torso hits againts a inxeperienced scutarius (i have 72 melee and 61 stregth while i had full stamina) buy this game if you like rome but be expected to dissapoint. I finished 3 aestivum and gained 38 achivements from it. Again a decent game with really bad RNG.
Here is my last campaings picture if you are interested. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3445985930

The game's title sum all experience perfectly - peak Second Punic War Roman legionary's experience; live or die, survive the wars to achieve something in the cursus honorum, or perish at the feets of apparently weaker enemy that have bested you in a battle or in a duel.

An interesting, more linear cross between CYOA and historical RPG game, with elements of a management (castrum Romanum) sim, demanding combat; maybe quite hard for beginners, but very satisfying for those who can understand and overcome its system.

My only real critique of this game would be its lack of mods, to relieve other chapters of the Roman (and maybe not only Roman; Carthaginian campaing from a Punic perspective, anyone?) history in a similar way. I understand the system and story limitations, but my longing for more experiences has already been awakened...

I'd play this game on my death bed

Unclear game with crap mechanics I regret buying this DO NOT BUY

On sale for $5 I'd call it a no brainer. Standard price of $10 is maybe border line, but it's a good game and I had fun with it.

Figuring things out with the new weak characters feels a bit grindy but once you get a good long run it's quite entertaining

It's fun, simple and quite replayable!

Surprisingly fun and immersive game.

I picked this up a few years ago, played a few hours and couldn't quite get into it and so left it alone.

Last week I saw the dev had released a new roman-themed game, so decided to go back and try pick this up again and much to my surprise, I clicked with it right away and it became one of those, "Oh I'll just play for an hour" and before you know it, your day has just vanished into nothing.

I've really enjoyed playing this over the past few days, and it scratches that roman-fanboy itch in me quite well. Audentes fortuna iuvat.

As a proud Mediterranean, I happily recommend this absolute masterwork of history retelling and addictive game play. However, the most important thing everyone should know before getting this game is that it has a somewhat steep learning curve. However, once you master it while knowing which traits matter, and which ones you should consistently upgrade, you will have a great time. Plus, who doesn't like Roman history?

Great mix of a strong narrative and management sim.

Train, fight, die. Train, fight die. Train fight, die again. But always with excellent morale!

Fun game very good

only took me 74.4 hours to get a perfect run lmao

this one is a lot better than never second in rome, would love to see some form of modding support to allow for extended campaigns or even entirely custom ones

In the roleplaying aspect, I believe this is one of the best games ever made. The writing is excellent, and anyone interested in ancient history will enjoy it.

Though we are following real historical battles, your own accomplishments are very impactful in the story, while still keeping everything fully historically accurate. You can die a nobody or become one of the greatest heroes of the time.

I can best illustrate this with one of the most difficult events in the story. If you train your character in the right aspects, and you seize the initiative at the right moment, and then fight many enemies by yourself, you can single-handedly save thousands of people. To be exact, an entire wing of your army.

The following quote only describes your reward for this deed, so it will not spoil the context of it. Some could still prefer this not to be revealed before playing, so consider that first before reading it. Still, this was extremely satisfying, so I wanted to quote it:

"A crown made of grasses and flowers picked from the battlefield is offered to you. When you start to grasp the magnitude of what is happening, you have to fight back the tears. You are the fifth Roman to receive such a high honor. The fifth in the whole history of the Republic."

Powerful stuff. I only wish it was longer, or more dense with story events, at least. Thankfully, as of writing this, the sequel is already out in early access, called Never Second in Rome.

It is a fun game wich lets you expierence the life of a roman soldier on several campaigns. Its good fun and ur ahppy to live through each battle.
The only thing is that the fighitng is a bit repetetive, but still i do like this game alot and am very happy that there is a second game about to be released!
The narrative is great and u acutally learn sth about roman warfare and history as well.

After I saw the announcement of his second game, I decided to leave this review.
The combat system at first might seem hard to learn but you eventually get the hang of it. I love how the difficulty of the game reflects its story, in your first runs, you probably will not be able to go around like a God of War and slaughter everything in your wake, you are just a dude who is in the army, so you play it safe and experience the story that way. After your first run, you get curious and invest the points the game has given you to experience the other parts of the story, and from each run you get stronger and stronger, and do the thing you'd never attempt as a regular legionary.
Aside from the gameplay loop, the best thing about this game is its storytelling, it puts you into an interesting time period with incredible attention to detail, and makes you experience it firsthand as a regular soldier, the game makes you feel like you are just a grunt, a pion involved in things bigger than himself. Even if you go and do some otherwordly stuff in your later runs, realistically, you'd just be a footnote in history. I love it.

This game got me into RPGs. It's great, albeit a grind, but that's the point. There's well enough replayability and it's well worth the price. Looking forward to buying his next game.

Great rogue-lite. A must for any Roman history buff.

Amazing game. Highly recommended!

Solid game would love to see a 2nd that expands into random events and more overall content. but a solid roguelite that I keep coming back to. Well worth the price paid.

The game looks fairly simple but don't let looks deceive you, there is nothing simple about this game. Yes it feels very RNG heavy early but you learn ways to mitigate it and the narrative aspects are top notch. I just made it to the end of a run for the first time and all I want to do is go back and do it again.

A must for any Rome nerds. Very solid writing.

A very fun game once you get the hang of it. I find most people who review this game poorly don't understand the game at its core. The game at the start is hard, it is annoying. If you keep trying to play it and get better it will be a lot more fun. I've 100% the achievements in this game so I've played my fair share. The best part of this game is the story, I believe the combat is fun too. The atmosphere and setting is king though being a Roman soldier during the 2nd Punic War is awesome. I would recommend this game, if you buy it don't give up and keep playing it; trust me it's worth it.

A very simple to play yet complex to master game. Very simple in its design and gameplay yet very addicting. I've survived quite of few playthroughs now, and I eagerly await the next game.

You know, I actually wrote a negative review on this one. It was pretty short and all about how "premise is great, but..." - but there is no character creator to speak of; but RNG is so harsh that average playthrough is way too short to actually immerse yourself; that fighting system is so esoteric that you will not manage to actually understand it until your 128th character, when you would not care about anything anyway...
And then I though, "well, maybe I'll play it one more time, just to make sure it's trash!" SO I played. And then played a day after. And then the day after that.
Because there is something in it, despite all the problems from above - and they are absolutely real, don't get me wrong. There is something deeply believable, deeply true about this game, where important part of your money come from selling captives to slavery, where been given job to "gather supplies for army" means take away bread from starving peasants, and where you can lose respect from your comrades for NOT beating up to near-death some stupid kids who were throwing stones at you. Because this is how Roman world, for all of it's roads, and aqueducts, and baths and theaters, actually worked. I am not in any way an ancient historian, but I have read about Rome to say that yeah, this Roberti guy, unlike many creators nowadays, doesn't just exaggerate bad stuff for shock value; he does know the history of his ancestors, and present's it as it was. And the casual, almost skippable brutality of it scares and captivates more than all the flamboyant violence and cruelty of Hollywood Rome. Even more than that; It, dare I say, teaches to love and cherish this fragile modern world we live in. World, in which such casual brutality, even if not (yet) extinguished permanently, is at least seen with horror and disgust it deserves.

Fun text-based RPG, enjoyed/ still enjoying playing it. A lot of people complaining about rng, but they just have negativity bias so ignore them.

Very nyice

It does not look like it at first but, this is amazing game, like it very much, finished it many times and still playing, can't wait for another similar game, hope never second in rome will be quality product..

Combat is way too random, it's a very fun game if only a 90% chance to hit wouldn't whiff 6 times in a row, that made me stop playing.

I wanted very much to like this game, and the concept is awesome. However, the implementation falls flat. The starting character level is inadequate, your character will simply die no matter what you do. Combat is absurdly difficult and it comes down to random dice rolls.

Great game, very engaging. My only gripe is that it ends. Hope the dev eventually works on a DLC.

PS
If you purchase this game and enjoy it, check out Never Second In Rome.

A lot of the negative reviews in for this game have to do with the RNG, and i get it, but there's a very easy fix for constantly failing skill checks. Personally i sacrifice a goat to RNGesus before every combat encounter.