Minecraft gets a healthy dose of Age of Empires in this new strategy game
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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?
Skip it unless you really love Minecraft or real-time strategy games. Minecraft Legends features a charming story backed by exquisite voice acting, strong visuals, and entertaining core gameplay. While I enjoyed how it explores the world of Minecraft in an exciting new light, I also found myself frustrated by how repetitive and unbalanced the game can feel at times.
TIME PLAYED
I played Minecraft Legends’s campaign for four hours. I didn’t finish the main story, but I managed to beat the first horde base and a second smaller one, each of which took over an hour. I also survived five night raids and spent a lot of time building up defenses for the four different villages I was protecting. Four hours in, I still have five small horde bases and three large ones left to conquer.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Real-time strategy gameplay. As someone who loves Age of Empires, I enjoyed Minecraft Legends’s spin on real-time strategy gameplay. Whether I was attacking an enemy base or defending an allied village, I was pulled in by the challenge of micromanaging over a dozen troops and strategizing attack plans.
• Environmental biomes. It’s no surprise that a Minecraft spin-off would have such lush and diverse environments, but Minecraft Legends still blew away my expectations. The game is filled with so many different environmental biomes, most of which Minecraft fans will recognize from the base game, such as jungles and snowy mountains. That variety of landscapes plays out across a much smaller world than traditional Minecraft, though; I could traverse from one corner of Minecraft Legends’s map to the other in fifteen minutes or less.
• Building and resource collecting. Building is a core part of the appeal of Minecraft, so of course that’s included in Minecraft Legends as well. I had to build my own fort to stage attacks against enemy bases. I was also able to protect neighboring villages using walls and archer towers. The game’s auto-farming mechanic allowed me to send out creatures to chop wood and mine stone, so the resource grind is thankfully not a thing.
• Narrative. Minecraft Legends weaves a traditional but compelling fantasy tale of a heroic adventure to save a realm called the Overworld. It was interesting to see this story explore the piglins as a civilization trying to conquer new lands rather than just a neutral monster mob in Minecraft. I was intrigued to discover that not only villagers and animals aided me in fighting piglins, but monsters like zombies, skeletons, and creepers too. This story adds a lot of life to a world that mostly appeared to be full of mindless creatures previously.
• Voice acting. The narrative wouldn’t be as impactful or enchanting without the voices that bring this story to life. This impact of voice acting on Minecraft Legends is best embodied in the characters of Knowledge and Action. Knowledge carries so much bravado and strength in his voice despite being the smallest character among the three overseers, while Action may be a towering golem, but he speaks softly and quietly. Each character in the game feels similarly distinct and memorable.
WHAT SUCKS
• Animation. Despite broadly looking good, the animation in Minecraft Legends is jittery and slow to the point that it felt unbearable at times. This tarnished the experience, especially when I was settling into the game and first learning about the story. At one point, the voice acting didn’t even match the cutscene’s dialogue and animation, which was especially annoying given how high-quality each individual element was.
• Repetitive quests. Although Minecraft Legends’s general real-time strategy gameplay feels crisp and clean, I disliked how repetitive the missions were. I had to either defend a village or attack a base and that was it. Even though I found it fun to strategize plans and build defenses, I was already getting bored with the same old two objectives after just four hours, and I suspect that could get worse with more playtime. I wish there was more to Minecraft Legends than just attacking and defending against piglins.
• Balance. After defeating the first horde base, Minecraft Legends opened up, allowing me to target any of multiple other bases, alongside other quests that popped up over time. Getting through that first base was challenging, but getting through the second felt near impossible. The enemies became a lot harder to defeat and I spent an hour and a half seizing the second base, which was exhausting.
💬 Are you going to play Minecraft Legends, or will you skip it? Tell me in the comments!
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