Minecraft Legends Review

GamesRadar

GamesRadar's Mahin Kesore chats to Jasmine Gould-Wilson who's played Minecraft Legends.

Transcript

00:00Hello.

00:01We don't have much time, but just enough to show you a thing or two about these tools.

00:16Hello I'm Maheen and I'm here with Jasmine and as you can tell she's played Minecraft

00:21Legends.

00:22Yes I have.

00:23Now Minecraft have their funny little ventures with like Minecraft story mode and Minecraft

00:28dungeons.

00:30What's their new venture like?

00:31What is this?

00:32So basically Minecraft Legends places you into the shoes of someone at the front of

00:37your very own legend.

00:39It's like a piece of mythology taking place in the world of Minecraft a few years before

00:43the main events of the main game.

00:47And yeah it's more of a strategy based tactics game as opposed to being the standard building

00:54and sandboxy vibe of the original, but it does still have those elements but this time

00:59it's presenting it more through this lens of strategic combat.

01:03Okay because I've seen a bunch of trailers and yeah it does look very tactics and strategy

01:07esque but it's not like Final Fantasy tactics or Fire Emblem, it's not like a grid based

01:11thing you're like running around and doing active stuff aren't you?

01:14Yep so basically what you do is, so there are two modes in the game.

01:18You have the campaign and the PVP mode.

01:20In the campaign mode it's just you against enemies in the wild as you experience them

01:26so it's all RNG like in regular Minecraft.

01:29So all of the maps, all the biomes, they're all randomised so everyone will have a very

01:33different looking overworld.

01:35As you go around you basically have to do a mixture of things so you have to gather

01:40materials and also make walls and structures and things and spawn points so that you can

01:47basically protect villages from these things called piglins which are ugly little beasts

01:53from the nether who have come up to the overworld and they basically are just wreaking havoc

01:58and trying to take all of the goodness back down to the nether and it's up to you to sort

02:03of use what you can gather and make in order to protect the villages but also I guess just

02:09to reinstate peace and harmony in your very own legend.

02:13Okay so I'm guessing there's like phases or something like you build your structure first

02:17and then you get waves of enemies attacking.

02:20So yes again so when I played, I played only about 40 minutes of the campaign mode so it

02:25wasn't too much in terms of getting into the stories but I got the basic gist of it

02:31and what you can do is like you said it does come in waves however from my experience they

02:36can be quite short like there's not much time in between being told right okay you need

02:41to set up arrow towers and spawn up some creepers and stuff in order to protect the villagers.

02:48You get maybe like 30 seconds to throw up all of these things so the idea is while you're

02:54exploring you have to passively send these things called alleys which are like sprites

02:59and they go off and they can you know they find stone and wood and those will help you

03:04later on to put up all of these structures really really quickly because if you don't

03:07do that and then you find yourself in a really tough position when you have all the piglins

03:11arriving you know as night falls because there are night cycles and day cycles and night

03:16time does feel distinctly more dangerous than day time.

03:21Yeah so is the camera always third person behind your player character?

03:24Oh okay so it's not like a top down view camera thing.

03:26It's very much yeah third person sort of like there is a kind of character customisation

03:33component to it like I think there were a grid of characters to choose from so you can't

03:38you know alter the hair and the clothes but they all look very very different so you can

03:42choose what your hero looks like.

03:43This is a question just for me, I saw in the trailers you get to ride this like purple

03:49chubby tiger, did you see the purple chubby tiger at all?

03:52Yes I did so that's one of the cool things about it and I actually found this out during

03:57the PVP mode but you can ride on various mounts so in the PVP mode you start off on a horse

04:04but you can swap it for a tiger or like a ladybug, a flying ladybug, there was this

04:09guy on the team opposite mine during the PVP and I was, he was very loudly proclaiming

04:14every cool thing that he found so I was just stealing his information, he managed to find

04:20a ladybug which can fly over walls so like he can just get into your encampment really

04:26and I was like oh my gosh that's genius so then of course I copied him as did everyone

04:31else in my team because we were like we are sitting opposite you even though we're on

04:35opposite teams right?

04:36Right so you were there playing like PVP with other people there so what is that like?

04:42How competitive was it?

04:43Tell me what that experience was like.

04:45PVP to me that's where this game really really shines.

04:48You know like I enjoyed the campaign but again I would have liked to see a bit more of it

04:53but that's okay I'm sure I'll see more of it in a few weeks time but the PVP was so

04:57interesting I did not expect to get as into it as I did honestly as someone who's never

05:02played Minecraft before I never really saw the draw but my goodness this was really cool

05:07so basically with the PVP you can go in two teams of up to four players on each team so

05:13you basically each team has to protect a tower so there is it's a combination of like

05:18a capture the flag tower defense kind of situation where you have to again like send people out

05:24to gather items and build structures and walls and towers and things that you can use to

05:28protect your tower from the enemy all the while they're doing the exact same thing maybe

05:33they're spying on you maybe your tower has the disadvantage of having like water behind

05:39it because people can they can go around the water we made the big mistake of thinking

05:43oh there's an ocean behind us no need to build a wall there the piglins would come around

05:48it was terrible so so like there are loads of things that were like it was far more difficult

05:54than I would have expected with the previous stuff they've done with like dungeons and

05:58story mode it does seem kind of almost like is this the kind of game that's leaning more

06:02towards multiplayer or story so that's exactly one of the questions I asked the developer

06:08Kevin Grace when I spoke with Mojang Studios but the thing is and as he said there is no

06:13main game mode so even though I did feel like we were being presented with the pvp in a

06:19lot more of an obvious way we had about two and a half hours with the pvp and 40 minutes

06:24of campaign so I did feel like that was unequally weighted however he did say that there is

06:29no main mode and they're not trying to push one or the other it's really to give us you

06:33know as much opportunity to play whatever we find the most interesting so if you are

06:39someone that's a big fan of the Minecraft games and you're really interested by the

06:42storyline and how this world kind of builds upon the lore of Minecraft and Minecraft dungeons

06:48then you can always take a lot out of the main campaign but if you're like me and you're

06:53like actually I kind of want to just load in with some friends and you know wreak havoc

06:58and see what happens then the pvp mode I found I found very accessible and it's something

07:04which again like you can just play again and again and again and because there is the RNG

07:09it means that it's always going to be a bit different and you spawn in various places

07:13there's of course like piglins they are still wreaking havoc no matter what so you now have

07:18two enemies of the piglins and the enemy team so while I personally would say that this

07:22is leaning heavily into the multiplayer I do know actually that the campaign mode also

07:28has a multiplayer component to it as well so you can play the campaign with a friend

07:33if you want but I feel like Minecraft has always had this idea of you know the co-op

07:38but I do feel like they've really nailed it like it really does work with strategy so

07:43whilst you were there did you get any handle of the story were you playing any of the story

07:49so the story itself again we have the very bare bones idea so you have to imagine it

07:55as if you are living through a bedtime story being told to a younger villager by an older

08:02villager and the idea is that this again takes place long ago in the world of Minecraft when

08:08the overworld was a very peaceful placid place and because it was so lovely and peaceful

08:14and prosperous the piglins in the nether they got jealous and they wanted to rise up and steal

08:20all of the goodness from the overlands and bring it down to the nether and the idea is that you're

08:25like the chosen one I guess in this case you're selected by the villagers and also there were

08:31like three there were three characters I forget their names they were called like knowledge

08:36ambition something like that and they choose you to basically fight back in in the name of

08:43the overlands so yeah that's that that that's the story that's like the gist of it that's who you

08:49play as so you would say this is like more for the strategy fans or fans of Minecraft or maybe

08:54is it more action like it's hard to get a grips of what exactly they're going for here well yeah

09:00I guess I guess it's kind of a mix of everything really I do feel like to me it felt I would

09:06describe it as like a action strategy game personally because although there are the

09:11building elements and that is a large role I think right now for me that was mainly an important

09:17thing in the pvp where you're like scrambling to build up all these things I do think that

09:22in terms of a specific genre I do think that Minecraft has the benefit of being able to

09:28straddle multiple genres in a very comfortable way because it is a sandbox game and because it

09:34does really sort of want to hone in on the fact that they want us to play however we like it to

09:39be played so I find that really cool I would say again for I would see it as a action strategy game

09:46I personally do feel that the pvp sort of stood out the most to me in my gameplay and I think that

09:52the style that they're going for in this lends itself very well to the multiplayer single player

09:58I did have a bit of a hard time figuring out the controls but again I think that's because I am

10:03so new to it that the idea of like oh I have to build something and then I have to gather these

10:08guys and they come with me that's one cool thing you have like a companion like these little dudes

10:13following you around which is very cute I'm told that's new as well so yeah I mean I'm excited to

10:18see what other people think because we don't know too much right now cool well that's Minecraft

10:23Legends a seemingly more pvp kind of strategy game let us know if you're going to pick up

10:28Minecraft Legends in the comments below until next time see ya

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