Minecraft Legends - Review
Knowledge, Action and Foresight are all you need to become a legend in the world of Minecraft. Are you ready to fight back the hordes of Piglin and save the peaceful inhabitants that live within?
Minecraft Legends is an incredibly unique strategy game that incorporates base-building, resource management and real time action strategy alongside exploration, wave defense and a plethora of different intricacies. In a world where villagers, skeletons, zombies and creepers all live peacefully, the dastardly and deplorable armies of the Piglin have taken aim and wish to conquer this paradise. It is up to you, with the help of Knowledge, Action and Foresight, a group of celestial beings who created the world itself, to take command of golems and the inhabitants of the world to fight back the armies.
Minecraft Legends is another foray into expanding the realm of the Minecraft IP, with a real heavy focus on an RTS system. You’ll find yourself commanding groups of up to 25 different units across battlefields, taking bases, destroying Nether portals and defending your villages and homesteads. The fundamental gameplay elements remain constant throughout the game and you’ll have to make use of the units available to combat different encounters in more effective ways. Base attacks are going to be made much easier by using Stone Golems who do more damage to structures, whereas defensive battles where you’ll be fighting off hordes of Piglins, are better faced by the likes of Plank Golems and Skeletons who shoot arrows and do far more damage to enemy units. The simplicity is what makes Minecraft Legends approachable, but the nuance allows for more seasoned and dedicated players to fully take control of all aspects available to them. No strategy is a bad one, and with the game not punishing too heavily for taking risks, you can approach battles how feels more comfortable. The 25 unit limit can be mitigated if you are more confident in sending groups into battles, but it can be a bottleneck in the enjoyment of large scale battles.
Visually, Minecraft Legends is absolutely striking. Reducing the size of the blocks, whilst keeping the well-known Minecraft aesthetic, the game differentiates itself visually from the main title and other spin-offs that have been developed over recent years. The visual elements in the world stick out more, and with a procedurally generated map, you’ll never find yourself looking at the same biomes in the same way. This is particularly relevant with how resources are now visual blocks on the surface and you use collection Allays (that is the name of a creature) to collect your resources for you. The high fidelity lends itself to allow you to quickly scour the areas and get the resources you need to be collecting, without having to tirelessly search or flounder around. The size reduction style also means that the Zombies, Skeletons and particularly the Creepers have a whole new look to them, whilst still being incredibly recognisable for their place in the world. Turning the traditional idea of these night-time creatures being adversaries and making them into controllable units in the world who are fighting alongside you to save their world is also a very nice touch.
This leads into the story. Knowledge, Foresight and Action find you, the unnamed hero, digging away at some Diamond and beg for your help in saving their peaceful world. From there, they teach you the basics of combat, supply you with your flag and lute, and send you into the world to battle back the invading Piglin horde. The story is simple, and a lot of the interesting parts are told through short little cutscenes of the Piglin generals of the different hordes reacting to your actions and destruction of their bases and portals. Whilst light on deep story, the game doesn’t require a hefty and heavy handed narrative. You are here to help save the world, the Piglins are trying to destroy it. That is the long and short of it, and the gameplay works to the advantage of that. Whilst it would be a little bit nicer to get some more focus and streamlining of the more open ended pathing in the campaign, the story doesn’t suffer from its simplicity. More so, the gameplay is amplified because of it.
The base building aspect, however, feels somewhat lacklustre. Keeping with the simplicity factor of the game, the building is contained to arrow towers, gates, ramps, walls and carpenter huts. Most of your villages you will end up putting a wall around with one or two gates, a ridiculous amount of arrow towers and a few carpenter huts to keep everything repaired and automate repairing during defense encounters. The problem here is that the systems don’t work particularly well with each other. Sections of walls cannot have a gate simply installed into them, or a ramp put from the inside of the base to the top of the wall to allow you to stand on top of it with ranged units. There also didn’t seem a feasible way to dismantle your walls to allow you a place to put in a new gate, so if there wasn’t enough damage being done recreating defences could be problematic. Whilst this system definitely takes a backseat to the strategy combat aspect of the game, making the building system slightly more interactive within itself and maybe expanding upon more so would make this system feel far less secondary than it currently does.
The open procedural map is a good design feature too but seems somewhat unnecessary depending on your choice of gameplay style. The game never truly punishes you for rushing through the main encounters and progressing the campaign, but conversely doesn’t punish you for slowing down and exploring. You can lose villages for not properly defending them in your aggressive play, and you can have more smaller bases built if you take too long to confront the main parts of the campaign, but these are very minor gameplay elements that don’t take more than ten seconds of focus to fix. There is a world to explore that rewards you somewhat with more gathering Allays, or harder to come by resources. There is also different mounts that can be encountered, that differ based on your gameplay. There is additional buildings that can be discovered too, but all of these feel more like they were put there as an excuse to explore, rather than something you need to succeed. They are rewards that you could easily never acquire and be just as successful as you are with them. Making the rewards in the world more impactful, and necessary to the progression of the game would go a long way in encouraging deeper exploration of the procedurally generated world.
Minecraft Legends takes a large leap into attempting to blend a myriad of genres of strategy titles, into one amalgamation and does a mostly good job of it. The world encapsulates the simple style of game that is expected of Minecraft, whilst also giving people with the dedication and skill a deeper experience. Plus there is the monthly special battle, as well different hero skins and an in-game store that seems designed to allow for large DLC inclusions. Minecraft Legends may well be the better long-term live service title, comparative to other spin-offs under the banner. It offers up an enjoyable, strong and simple experience, but it could have pushed a little harder on some elements. The end result though is a game with ample replay value in procedurally generated worlds and as a result different base locations and encounter difficulties, Minecraft Legends gives people a very enjoyable spin-off title to sink their teeth in to.
The Score
8.0
Review code provided by Xbox Game Studios
The Pros
+Incredibly striking visual design
+Simple story accentuates the strong gameplay elements
+Cutscenes are humourous and enjoyable to watch
The Cons
-Base building feels under-developed
-World exploration is bland and unnecessary
-Limit of controllable units can be frustrating
