Have you heard the Legend of the Creeper Wrangler?
If anyone has heard me talk about my love of real-time strategy games on the ZTGD Podcast, then you know that StarCraft is the gold standard. From resource gathering to troop deployment, I love everything about strategy games; so naturally my interest peaked when I heard that the Minecraft universe was going to develop a new game in the genre. In Minecraft Legends players are whisked away to a new land where its protectors explain they need help to stop an invasion from the evil Piglins. Why are these Piglins invading and why are they evil? Well, it doesn’t matter, all that matters is there is a threat to the world and a hero is needed.
Unlike the survival worlds of normal Minecraft in Legends players will control their hero from atop a mount, of which there are a variety to find in the world; each with various abilities like speed or gliding. Minecraft Legends has players needing to collect resources like wood, and redstone and won’t require ‘tree-punching’ instead players get fae like creatures called ‘allays’ who will handle all the gathering and building for the heroes. The entities who brought our heroes to the ‘Overworld’ provided them with a magic lute that players will use to instruct the creatures of the world. Collecting resources is as simple as selecting the type required and the lute will display a large blue square indicating the resource is in the area. Once confirmed the allays are off to gather up the material, this works the same with building structures like arrow towers and the like.
MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99
When it comes to fighting the Piglins, players can build spawning centers for their golems which come in a variety of flavors. There are melee-based ones which are excellent for taking down structures, a wooden one that spits arrows at range and even a mossy one that cries and heals every around them. The flexibility of being able to construct these spawning centers on the flow makes it great to rebuild a fallen army on the go. But of course, what would a Minecraft game be without the ‘Creepers’, ‘Zombies’ and other staples, well it’d be not Minecraft which is why all those guys are in Legends. As players progress the campaign, they will be tasked with saving the villages of the land’s denizens, once liberated players will be able to build spawning centers for each race as well. One of my favorite strategies in the campaign and in multiplayer is to send a group of ‘Creepers’ into an enemy base which usually ends in ‘explosive’ results.
I must say though that control wise I appreciate the simplistic approach that the developers have on display here. It’s on brand for Minecraft and is easy to get into, however the controls are a bit unintuitive which leads to difficulty in carrying out strategies and makes others difficult. As I said units are summoned from spawners, players will need to then go over to them and use the banner to rally the troops (which is just a fancy way of saying they follow you). While it is possible to have various kinds of troops under your command, Minecraft Legends doesn’t allow players to set up battle groups. Meaning players can’t just have a group of ‘Creepers’ and a separate group of Skeleton archers that they can command independently. And once they are given a command to attack or move to an area, players must go back and round them all up by spamming the banner command in order to send them to the next target.
This is an issue for a few reasons, one the pathfinding is questionable and if the terrain is uneven (which it’s Minecraft and everything is made of blocks which means there is a lot of uneven terrain) some golems get stuck on the environment which means they must be hunted down to return to the army. Thankfully players can recall any of their units from the overworld to any golem spawner they are close to but again there is no way to designate individually. So, if players want half their troops fighting here while they pull back others, the game will just teleport everyone to their location which can be frustrating.
While these issues were just annoyances it didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of Minecraft Legends, and while the campaign was just lackluster for me it really was the training for the exceptionally multiplayer mode. This sees players in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 matches against each other where the goal is to destroy the enemy base. The Piglins will be a constant threat to both bases and can provide an advantage to the team who takes them out first by providing the crystals to build better units and defenses. Each multiplayer match takes place in a procedural world which means every map layout will be different. Communication is key in Legends, and the best teams will be able to divide responsibilities to share in the glory of the win. But for some reason the developers didn’t include any in-game chat, I assume it’s because of the young kids that could play but it’s extremely difficult to effectively communicate with my team using emotes.
Despite that, Minecraft Legends is a wonderful collection of genres that makes the usual RTS skill ceiling lower and approachable. Being a Minecraft game, Legends is set up for additional levels and scenarios via the Myths and Legends option at the main menu, which means the developers have plans to have fans continue mopping up Piglins for the foreseeable future. There are some fun and uniquely ‘Minecraft’ strategies to pull off in multiplayer, I just wish the campaign held the same appeal to me; while its not awful it’s just the tutorial for the multiplayer game to me.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
