Minecraft Legends’ strength lies in its simplicity. The game is centered around the invasion of the Nether’s Evil Piglins, and your role is to build up your forces to push them back. The gameplay involves exploring a procedurally generated continent for resources, allies, and hidden secrets. You’ll destroy Piglin bases and protect friendly settlements from invasion. Minecraft Legends lacks levels, and its narrative is primarily delivered through cutscenes announcing the arrival of larger Piglin forces. Once all Piglins have been cleared, you can start over with a new procedurally generated map
A strategy game’s essence lies in the player’s decisions regarding units, resource allocation, and tactics. The right choices lead to success, whereas the wrong ones force players to adapt and overcome or face defeat. As I played Minecraft Legends, Mojang, and Blackbird Interactive’s simplified take on an action RTS, I found myself at the crossroads of these decisions. Although it may not fully succeed in making this intimidating genre more accessible, the game’s ability to streamline gameplay without sacrificing crucial tactical moments is what makes it work.
The distinctive and well-known blocky style of Minecraft has been widely recognized across its various adaptations and spin-offs, but its successful implementation is still evident in Minecraft Legends. The world is crafted to appear as if it was plucked directly from the main Minecraft series, with landscapes, Non-Player Characters (NPCs), and blocks of ore that are indistinguishable from their counterparts. The vibrant color palette and superb lighting add to the allure of the game, and as per Minecraft tradition, nighttime brings an extra element of danger from hostile foes. Nevertheless, the awe-inspiring sunsets over picturesque vistas somewhat alleviate the sense of trepidation one may experience.
Contrasting with games like Starcraft or Command and Conquer, where players assume the role of a distant overseer commanding an army of units from above, Legends places players directly onto the battlefield, similar to the Overlord series.
Players assume the role of a warrior who fights alongside a small squad of units that they can summon. These units come in a few distinct varieties, each with a clear role they play in combat. For example, Cobblestone Golems boast high health but are relatively weak in terms of damage output, whereas Plank Golems have a higher attack power but less health. Mossy Golems, on the other hand, possess healing abilities. The simplicity of the game mechanics and unit types makes it easy to jump right into the action without requiring a steep learning curve or a complex manual to master.
Small armies make it manageable.
Commanding soldiers in battle is simple yet enjoyable, as the limited number of troops allows for easy control using either a gamepad or mouse controls. However, this simplicity does come at a cost – tactical options are limited, with pure numbers often winning the day over strategy. Additionally, the inability to create custom unit groups is a missed opportunity for more nuanced tactics. Despite these limitations, participating directly in battles as the hero provides opportunities for clever decision-making, adding to the fun and excitement of the game.
However, the game’s simplicity has some downsides. While certain units are ideal for countering specific foes in theory, such as Skeleton Archers for the heavy flail-wielding Portal Guards from a distance, the plentiful resources and instant spawning of troops make it tempting to just flood the battlefield with sheer numbers, reducing the strategic aspect of some battles.
Unfortunately, the game lacks the option to create custom battle groups consisting of different types of troops. Although you can command all units of a certain type, it would have been thrilling to issue orders to a diverse squad of zombies, healing units, archers, and Plank Golems, each with their unique abilities and roles on the battlefield. It’s a missed opportunity for more strategic gameplay, but understandable given the game’s simplified mechanics.
Direct participation in battles as the hero provides the opportunity to make clever choices and be more powerful than any individual soldier in the army. With a sword that swings in wide arcs, it allows for creating swarms of Cobblestone Golems to invade and focus on destroying buildings while protecting them or sending units to guard one side of a friendly settlement while covering the other, which adds to the mental push-pull that makes strategy games enjoyable.
It's highly enjoyable to strategize and construct the optimal base layout.
Resource gathering and building are integral parts of any Minecraft game, and Minecraft Dungeons: Flames of the Nether is no exception. Allays, small fairy-like creatures, are introduced to assist with these tasks. One type is focused on resource gathering, enabling players to point them at trees or ore deposits and let them collect the resources independently. The other type carries out building instructions, quickly assembling structures like golem spawners or arrow towers, provided the necessary resources are available. The intuitive system allows for quick construction, going from idea to completion with just two button presses or mouse clicks.
The Piglin army launches nightly assaults on settlements, with each new attack highlighted on the world map. However, thanks to the industrious Allays, quickly assembling walls and gates to hold them back is a breeze. Building the best base possible is an enjoyable challenge, with structures like the Architect Hut for repairing buildings or the Masonry for converting wooden defensive structures to stone draining resources but leading to a more fortified town that can better withstand the rampaging armies of the Nether. The choice between foraging for more resources to keep building or hunkering down for the coming battle is a compelling one, and each opportunity to make and execute a plan is relished.
The Allays’ independent actions add an intriguing dimension to the combat strategy. During a Piglin invasion, I found myself simultaneously fighting and commanding the construction of walls. When the wood supplies depleted, I had to leave the battlefield and gather resources while my Allays continued to work.
However, the vulnerability of the Allays made them an easy target for Piglins, requiring me to think twice before leaving them unprotected. The Well of Fates serves as your primary base and respawn point. Destroyed Piglin structures provide Prismarine, used to build upgrade structures that allow you to do things like control more troops or store more resources. With a limited number of places to build these upgrades, I found myself carefully weighing decisions about expanding my army, mining specialty ores or adding more Allays to accelerate resource gathering.
The difficulty of the game has some flaws in its progression. Towards the end of my 16-hour playthrough, I found myself struggling as enemies with massive amounts of health, such as the heavily armored Pigmadillos, entered the fray. While it’s great to encounter enemies with unique designs and attacks, the size of their armies can become tedious.
This problem is exacerbated when attacking an enemy base on a high plateau, where poor pathfinding can cause frustration as half of your attack force falls off a cliff. Unfortunately, these endgame struggles detract from Legends’ potential as an entry point for the strategy genre.
The game provides players with various construction options that can alleviate some of the challenges. The Redstone Launcher, for instance, acts as a long-range cannon fixture that can help clear a landing point, and bridges or stairs can be crafted to cross gaps and ascend hills with ease.
Additionally, the Cure Netherrack ability is a game-changer, slowly transforming the corrupted ground under Piglin bases, allowing players to construct buildings and golem spawners inside enemy territory. These methods are enjoyable ways to shift the balance of power, but it’s a bit overwhelming that utilizing every tool in your arsenal appears to be the only effective approach to conquer the highest level outposts.
Minecraft Legends Multiplayer Mode
Playing Minecraft Legends in multiplayer is where the game truly shines. The entire campaign can be played with up to three other friends, with resources divided but each player has full autonomy to act independently. Splitting tasks such as resource gathering, base building, and combat alleviates many of the frustrations of playing solo, and charging into battle with your allies is an exhilarating experience. It is undoubtedly the best way to play the game, and sharing the joy of victory with friends never gets old.
In PVP, the game has an interesting twist where two teams face off on a randomized map, with each player controlling a hero while sharing resources and golems. Matchmade games are set up for 3v3 or 4v4, but private games can have any mix of up to four players on each team.
Strategies can vary widely – in one game, my team destroyed Piglin bases early on to afford upgrades quickly, while in another, our opponents sneakily built a Redstone Launcher within range of our base, focusing mainly on defending it while it crushed our structures. Facing other human players adds a whole new level of strategic elements that make the gameplay much more interesting than playing against the CPU.
The Verdict
Minecraft Legends is a captivating strategy game that successfully simplifies a typically intricate genre while retaining the vital aspect of decision-making and its consequences. However, certain genre conventions such as custom unit grouping are omitted due to this simplification, limiting tactical alternatives in intense combat situations.
Nevertheless, Legends leverages other recognizable elements, such as its resource-collecting worker units called Allays, to great advantage, and it expertly captures the iconic Minecraft aesthetic with some of the most visually impressive blocks available. Though the steep difficulty curve in later stages may become frustrating, the outstanding co-op and PVP modes make this RTS well worth playing.
One thought on “Exciting Game Minecraft Legends Game Reviews Read Now”