Minecraft Legends Review - RTS-Lite

Minecraft Legends on PC

The Minecraft IP is so ubiquitous at this level that it virtually feels prefer it’s too huge to fail. Originally billed as a sandbox-model sport with surprisingly in-depth mining and constructing mechanics, Minecraft has since expanded its scope to embody numerous different genres, deepening its maintain on its viewers and the gaming world at giant. Minecraft Legends is the IP’s newest foray into one more new style, an experiment to see the way it fares within the RTS area.

While actual-time technique video games have by no means precisely been in my wheelhouse, Minecraft Legends offered itself as a welcoming, accessible entry level into the style. Framed as a bedtime story about myths and folklore, Minecraft Legends is about in a time earlier than the unique sport, the place the Overworld is way more peaceable than you may bear in mind it. Villagers lived largely in peace, till these lovely little piglet enemies –aptly named Piglins– began displaying up and inflicting all types of hassle.

Minecraft Legends incorporates a story marketing campaign you can get pleasure from solo or in co-op, in addition to a PvP mode the place you possibly can interact in 4v4 battles as you attempt to reinforce your defenses whereas taking down the enemy base. Most of my time was spent within the marketing campaign in the course of the assessment interval, which did an excellent job of getting me acquainted with all of the core mechanics I wanted to be taught to succeed.

Your hero can swing a sword to manually assault enemies, however most of your time might be spent spawning numerous sorts of golems –wooden, stone, moss, simply to call just a few–and directing them to do a lot of the heavy-lifting for you. Wood golems are nice for participating in direct fight with enemies, stone golems excel at destroying constructions, whereas the moss golems help your military by offering therapeutic to maintain everybody alive. You’ll unlock extra golem varieties as the sport progresses and also you achieve entry to much more sources, however for essentially the most half, you’ll at all times be summoning golems and trying to direct them to take down enemies effectively.

minecraft legends spawners — Image Source: Mojang/Blackbird Interactive through Twinfinite

Things get a bit extra advanced when you begin fortifying your personal base defenses as effectively. Whenever the Piglins assault, you’ll want to strengthen villages by constructing constructions like archery towers, partitions, ramps, and different fortifications to maintain the enemies out.

I ought to be aware that Minecraft Legends isn’t precisely a sport that lends itself effectively to solo play; throughout my time with the marketing campaign, I largely performed via it alone and rapidly discovered myself getting overwhelmed by simply how a lot there was to micromanage. You solely have a restricted time to organize earlier than the Piglins arrive, and I at all times discovered myself struggling to get all of the partitions up, arrange towers, get my spawners able to summon my golem military, and get into place in order that I might begin choosing off the Piglins.

Not solely that, however issues begin to get fairly chaotic as soon as the preventing really begins. You’re consistently juggling what your golems are doing and keeping track of your defenses to verify the Piglins don’t get via. Things get additional chaotic when the sport throws in an additional goal or two so that you can accomplish on high of making an attempt to maintain your hero and golems alive. It additionally doesn’t assist that the controls aren’t all that clean even on PC; I’d discovered it to be a little bit of a problem having to micromanage my golems and slowly ship them into totally different instructions to cowl extra floor, whereas additionally guaranteeing that I had the suitable golem varieties for the varied objectives I wished to perform.

All of that is to say, Minecraft Legends is infinitely higher with a pal or two. I’d managed to hop right into a handful of multiplayer classes, and that is the place the sport really shines. Being capable of cut up up the workload between a staff of 4 gamers makes every little thing really feel a lot extra environment friendly, and also you by no means really feel such as you’re overwhelmed with too many issues to care for. The base fortification course of additionally turns into way more intense, as you’ve extra time to correctly plan and set your traps, creating much more fascinating challenges in your opponents to beat.

Minecraft Legends additionally shakes issues up with a day/night time cycle, the place Piglins grow to be even deadlier as soon as the solar goes down. They begin showing in droves, and stronger Piglin varieties additionally begin spawning, forcing you to rethink your technique in case you’re planning on exploring the Overworld at night time. I used to be initially apprehensive in regards to the Piglins being the one enemies you’d combat within the sport, however they’re so assorted in sort, and the range in goals and totally different constructions it’s a must to take down whereas attacking a base make it so that you just’re at all times encountering recent challenges.

I suppose I hoped that the marketing campaign could be higher suited to a solitary expertise, as I’ve usually gravitated in the direction of technique video games the place I used to be solely answerable for how effectively or how poorly I did, primarily based on the choices I used to be making as an alternative of how effectively I navigated the sport controls.

Overall, Minecraft Legends is an easy, but efficient introduction to the RTS style for newcomers like myself. While I don’t essentially see myself sinking a ton of time into the sport going ahead –primarily as a result of RTS video games nonetheless aren’t my factor– I do respect Mojang’s effort in increasing the Minecraft universe and experimenting with totally different genres to see how artistic they’ll get with the IP. Slightly janky controls apart, Minecraft Legends is a strong journey to expertise with mates, and it’ll preserve you occupied for hours on finish. Just don’t go in anticipating a ton of single-participant content material you possibly can get pleasure from by yourself time.