Little Notch, the legendary creator of Minecraft, would imagine how far his creation would go. Since its official launch in 2011, Minecraft has grown into a franchise that could be compared to the biggest in the gaming industry. Minecraft isn’t just its amazing single-player adventure or emergent gameplay, it’s also its own unique art style and setting as recognizable as ‘anime style’ or ‘The Simpsons’.
Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive wanted to explore this framework and the unique natures of Minecraft to take it to a new level. After exploring isometric and dungeon crawling games with Minecraft Dungeons, now comes Minecraft Legends. A real-time strategy game that completely changes the gameplay of Minecraft without losing its characteristic essence.
Piglins, those cursed sons of pigs
It all starts with a situation that seems almost taken from World of Warcraft, approaching the homage to the legendary Blizzard game. In a peaceful and bucolic world of Minecraft, some villagers live peacefully when a portal to another world opens. The Orcs won’t get out, but much worse: the Piglins! The pigs that inhabit the Nether open an obsidian portal and begin to invade the world of villagers who go “uh?” The poor little villagers are not alone in this case, certain benevolent cosmic entities called Action, Clairvoyance and Knowledge will try to help them for their survival.
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It is then that the three friendly beings go to look for the hero who leads the revolution of the villagers. In a playful nod to classic Minecraft, a player digs underground for the precious diamond when asked to join in freeing the villagers. From there our special mentors will give us a horse and some helpers and they will set us off on an adventure.
The game is fully translated and dubbed in Spanish, which is a delight to enjoy its few dialogues and tutorial phases. The story, although not complex at all, is sympathetic and fun, even involving a background that takes us to Pixar or Disney films. The piglins represent industrialization ending the bucolic natural environment of the villagers. We Champions of Peace must drive them out with the help of everyone in the common Minecraft world.
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to me my armies
As we said before, Minecraft Legends is a strategy game. The main objective is to create armies and gather enough troops to take down piglin bases. To do this, we will have mechanics that will take us back to the base game at all times. Don’t think for a second that because this isn’t classic Minecraft, this “farming” thing is over. The main way to gather troops is no more and no less than creating them, and for this we need materials. Armies are made up of very cute creatures called golems which, depending on their composition, will be their abilities.
For example, wood golems fire arrow-type projectiles, while stone golems hit melee. As we progress through the campaign, our knowledge will increase and we will unlock other types of golems that we can create, with different abilities among them. In addition, these small beings have their own defensive characteristics depending on their material, so we advise you not to let your wood golems approach the lava.
The way to manage the armies is very simple, summarized in two actions: “come with me” and “go”. From there, our mission will be to gather the golems by means of a concentric circle around us and have them follow us to the objective. We must emphasize at this point that the AI of our soldiers is very good and they are rarely left behind, despite the great distances that we sometimes have to cover. In addition, when we get used to this mechanism, we will learn to select specific units and send them to perform specific tasks. For example, some golems are more useful than others depending on the structures.
One of the most positive points was the experience with our character. Although we can’t do much more than run and jump with the horse, we also have a diamond sword (which does not wear out). As if we were the Cid Campeador of Minecraft, we can destroy entire lines of pigs with a clean sword. In our experience, we’ve found that dispatching the golems for structure while keeping the piglins at bay with the sword can be a very good strategy.
Resource gathering is always the worst
As we have already told you, in Legends we have some helpers who will help us with farming. But the truth is that Minecraft Legends is so immersive when it comes to battles that you forget to collect materials. We will have to be very attentive to our surroundings and spend some time planning this if we don’t want them to leave us hanging in the middle of an attack.
Picking up stone and wood is the best, they are all over the map and you will always have plenty of them. Problems arise when other materials such as red stone or the elusive hierro they become necessary. Whenever you see a beta version of this stuff, stop along the way, because you’ll enjoy it in the future. Luckily, the game knows we didn’t come here to sting like hell. Thus, the assistance system will allow us to let them do their job while we run with our army of golems on half of the map.
Assault, a world of possibilities
Minecraft has always been characterized by offering its users an infinite number of ways to perform each action. Therefore, the construction mechanics could not be missing. In Minecraft Legends we can build structures thanks to the assistants. These structures range from buildings that help us improve our bases and crafting knowledge, to authentic siege machines that destroy piglin bases. Everyone has their own style when it comes to Fortress Assault, so we’ll have to decide which is ours before we get down to business.
The possibilities of building “raid bases” and siege machines with the troops make one cringe when imagining cooperative play. If you go with a handful of friends who are dedicated to aggression and others to construction, the fun is 100% guaranteed. The bad thing is again the materials, of course. Forget about getting involved in building towers and ramps if you haven’t spent time collecting materials.
Management on consoles and map navigation
We were able to play Minecraft Legends on an Xbox Series S and the experience was outstanding. The game runs perfectly on this console and at no time did we experience any frame rate drops or bugs (except one with the horse jumping which sometimes happens). But although we really enjoyed Minecraft Legends on console, it is clear that handling it with a controller can be complex. All the actions we perform are performed with the trigger set and the crosshead, something that can be difficult, especially at first. We are therefore sure that the experience with the keyboard and mouse will be perfect.
Of course, these inconveniences disappear when moving around the map. Controller movement through Minecraft Legends’ multiple biomes is comfortable and enjoyable. Sometimes the walk will be so nice that you’ll hate having to go save the villagers from the cursed piglins instead of walking around. The soundtrack and the artistic framework help a lot with this, which recreates the best Minecraft we have seen so far.
The game takes place on a closed map full of villages and fortresses, we will have to defend the first ones and attack the second ones. In addition, points of interest will appear on the map that we will have to study to increase our abilities, which gives you a certain point of exploration which, although it is not much, is a pleasant surprise, although it is insufficient given that it is about Minecraft. For those who don’t like wandering around, there are also teleportation points (you can even create some) that speed up your travels on the map. Something very important, especially during piglin attacks.
In short, an entertaining strategy game that will delight those approaching the genre for the first time, although for fans of the genre it may not be very innovative.
