Minecraft Legends brings a rather unique combination of action and strategy to Mojang’s famous cube universe. There, you must defend the Overworld from devastating hordes of interdimensional Piglin invaders. Even short bursts are great fun, but the simplicity and repetition kick in quickly.
Where Legends shines is a nearly 15-hour single-player campaign presentation, almost impenetrable from a plot standpoint, but packed with cutscenes that are incredibly easy on the eye. The world of Minecraft has evolved so much since its inception, and Mojang knows its users well. Young and young at heart will be hooked and have hours of fun playing.
Where it fails (at least for us) is in its simplistic gameplay. Outside of simple melee attacks, avatars cannot directly affect combat. Instead, it guides you through the battlefield, recruiting and commanding your armies. To select a unit, you have to stand directly on top of it, which can get confusing in the heat of battle. There’s also no way to create command groups or quickly select specific troop types. This exacerbates the problem.
Once the dispute is over, minions can be commanded to attack enemy structures or face them in the right direction. Minions fight happily until they succeed or die. Each unit under your command has a special role (such as destroying structures or healing friendly units), and there are about a dozen of them in all.
Once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll have all the tools at your disposal to drive out the invaders and lay siege to a massive piglin fortress in a truly massive assault. It’s fun for a while, but the difficulty is relatively low and the shine wears off quickly. Multiplayer offers more of a challenge for those prone to it, but again, control issues keep this from being anything more than a passing pastime.
Minecraft Legends lacks the strategic depth to attract veterans of the genre, but could be a great place to engage newcomers and younger audiences. It has a lot of heart and can be pretty fun if your expectations are properly calibrated.
