Sometimes the top-line pitch of a game is better than the actual finished product.the situation is like this minecraft legendthe latest spin-off aimed at offering a different type of gaming experience within the framework of the Legendary Survival series.
While previewing it, Legends really impressed me. After a successful entry into the role-playing game genre with the desirable “my first dungeon crawler” fodder Minecraft Dungeons, this title is again throwing in the same but for strategy titles. I love Minecraft, I love strategy games, and I feel the genre is underserved. Still, I’ve been trying to keep my interest in Minecraft Legends – a lot of it arguably due to simplicity.
As with Dungeons, the goal here is clearly to create content that is accessible and acceptable to the widest possible audience. Minecraft is enjoyed by many young children, so any Minecraft game needs to have a sufficiently low barrier to entry. Legends sets the bar low–but the game’s structure doesn’t offer enough beyond the bar either–making for an experience that feels full of potential but lacks execution.
Minecraft Legends departs from the isometric god game view of many strategy games, instead casting you as a specific hero on top of your trusty steed. You can use the B button to attack, so you can take an active role in combat. However, you’re relatively vulnerable and fragile, so the real goal is to marshal troops and micromanage them in a really strategic way.
The command to do this is relatively crude, but it works pretty well. The comparison won’t be familiar to many, but in a way it reminds me of Brutal Legend, Double Fine’s metal stick hack-and-slash that takes a hard left turn into a full-fat real-time strategy game The game is halfway through.
At its best, Minecraft Legends will see you surrounded by an army – small golems at first, but later more iconic Minecraft creatures and even enemies join your ranks. With just a few button presses, you can have these troops follow you, or order them to attack a point, rally, retreat, work. It’s an extremely simplistic take on the RTS formula, but it works — at least for the first few hours.
However, the more you play, the more cracks start to show. The less patient you are with your babysitter troops, they’re pretty much useless without you. Combat structures primarily require you to destroy buildings, as they spawn waves of enemies within your troops, which begin to grind with repeated firm grips.
This repetition is also real on a macro level, with the persistent Minecraft world in a state of tug-of-war between warring factions. Leave the village for too long and the Piglin baddies could overthrow it, meaning it needs to be liberated again. Likewise, piglins populate the world, building bases and corrupting the land. You have to be proactive – you should never drop the controller to make tea without saving and quitting first, because this is a continuous world with no pauses.
There’s not much Minecraft in these battles – but there’s supply in downtime and battle preparation. You’re helped by critters like drones that tear down the world for you and gift resources–no need to punch trees here–and those resources are then used to build structures and useful items in the world.
All of th is is persistent, and it’s neat – simply put, it feels like Minecraft, even though you can only build predefined structures. It feels good to place a bridge and know it’s going to last forever, or to drop monster spawners at critical points of contention so you can quickly replenish troops.
This is largely where Legends gets its X-factor, which may be appropriate given how it hopes to leverage the Minecraft brand. When you start building siege weapons, it feels like the meta data of the game changes instantly. From here, I started enjoying Legends more – until the frustration set in again, as damage-sponging enemies with massive health bars started to dominate the late game.
I guess it’s a theme. The best Legends are like diamonds in Minecraft – buried deep and take time and effort to reach. When it clicks, it’s really beautiful. So much time is spent commanding imbecile AI troops, or responding to aggressive enemy base expansion, or fiddling with a clunky UI. Frustration runs deep, but it’s almost worth it for those magical moments when the fight clicks.
On its merits as a kid-friendly, entry-level real-time strategy game, it’s a decent try. The controls are cumbersome and the micromanagement frustrating – but those things can be forgiven for how it delivers strategic action in a colorful world that’s sure to appeal to those who love Minecraft but not the genre. In that regard, mission accomplished – but once people walk in the door, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tire out relatively quickly and consider checking out some of the other RTS offerings instead.
Of course, there are other elements designed to keep you entertained for longer. There’s multiplayer, which works well, and is definitely more engaging than the campaign’s attrition. Being Minecraft, there is also a strong emphasis on DLC, cosmetics are already available for purchase. To the credit of Mojang and Xbox Game Studios, Dungeons also got a ton of free add-ons – so I’m hoping to see the same here. The framework provided shows promise, so updates and DLC that illustrate the basic ideas can revolutionize the game for the better.
At the time of writing, though, it’s the publishing experience that matters most. Minecraft Legends is gorgeous and an exciting way to see the world of Minecraft from another perspective. It also provides a solid foundation for an engaging RTS game. However, it wasn’t nearly enough – the end result was a game that struggled to hold my attention. That would be nice Game Pass feed – but I can’t help but feel like this should be more. It certainly won’t be for everyone, but I hope Minecraft-obsessed kids have fun no matter what.
