Developer: Gear Games Global
Publisher: Gear Games Global
At first glance, and even upon closer examination of War Legends, anyone familiar with Blizzard strategies will have a fairly stable association with Warcraft. It is obvious that igrodely inspired by the classics of the genre, but by no means copied. War Legends has its own universe, inhabited by fantasy creatures and unique heroes, other laws and mechanics dominate here, and it is also extremely mobile, but at the same time remains a full-fledged and surprisingly convenient RTS.
The beginning of the story campaign, which is necessary to complete in order to unlock the main features of the game and get hold of the first power-ups, will tell about the conflict between Light and Darkness. As often happens, the races united under the dark banners begin an active invasion of the territories of the light ones.
Together with the paladin Gilbert, the players will go through six small missions, which in general terms will introduce them both to the lore of War Legends and the nuances of the gameplay, without knowing which, in general, there is no need to even try to fight against live players.
The first and most important thing is control, because you will not have a keyboard with its capabilities for quickly managing groups of units, or a mouse to instantly select characters and move the camera around the map. This circumstance caused me some concerns, however, towards the end of the first story chapter, they completely disappeared.
The developers very subtly approached the creation of the game interface and competently used the advantages of the touchscreen. So, for example, there is a separate button to instantly select all of your troops. Meanwhile, in the old fashioned way, you can group units with one swipe of your finger.
Further more. A single tap on the screen will send units to the specified point or target a specific enemy, and a double tap will force them to advance in battle, engaging in a fight with any counter opponent. For the selected units, a small window unfolds, where they can also be instructed to defend positions or carry out patrols – everything is located extremely conveniently, and does not clog the screen with an abundance of buttons.
Interfaces for hiring new combat units and building buildings also received their own button. If in the same Warcraft, to hire units, you need to go into a specific building, for example, into the barracks, then in War Legends they appear in one general list. Some are available, others may not be, for lack of a specific building or improvement. Which one, by the way, is indicated in their windows.
There was enough space on the screen for a clear mini-map, a list of tasks, a line with the amount of collected resources, windows of heroes with their active abilities highlighted for instant use on a click, enchantments, which I will talk about below. It is played very comfortably, everything is thought out.
By the way, the game is also pleasing to the eye. Here are charmingly detailed models of buildings and units, atmospheric locations, nice animations. Epic music and sounds of nature play in the background, all the characters speak Russian and are wonderfully voiced. And one more important detail – War Legends is by no means demanding, and runs perfectly even on my hot and not very gaming device. And it does not heat it, by the way.
Let’s go back to the universe, it’s quite curious here. Not so much by the general lore, it is just quite formulaic, but by the specifics of mixing fractions. Humans, dwarves and elves fight on the side of Light, goblins, orcs and undead fight on the side of Darkness. But in order for you to have the opportunity to recruit not only human units, but also, let’s say, enlist the support of sharp-eared archers and healers, you need to build and develop their facilities, and if your army lacks shock gnome technologies, if you please, invest in factories and forges.
Often, building absolutely all the buildings in the game is simply not practical. Especially if you play in a team with other players. A kind of builds come from here, within the framework of which each of the participants in the session can offer their own strategy for fighting the enemy: someone specializes in necromancy and raises the undead, who do not need food and resources for construction, someone wages a guerrilla war with goblin suicide bombers and stealth drilling machines – it all depends on the opponents and situations on the field.
Most of the units in the game have some kind of unique passive properties, or even several. Vile Poisonwings are able to infect enemies without allowing them to recover health, Goblin Rocketmen are able to cover units with a blast wave, Guardsmen specialize in fighting cavalry, while Mounted Knights and Wolf Riders can strike on the move without stopping their advance. Here, too, the principle of “rock-paper-scissors” applies, and it is very important to take into account the characteristics of the armies opposing you when developing defensive and offensive strategies.
At the moment, three heroes are available for each of the factions, representing their races within the framework of Light and Darkness. To hire them, you need an altar and a faction building.
The aforementioned paladin Gilbert fights for people, able to surround nearby units with a protective aura and create a very powerful shield that first deals damage to all enemies around, and then covers the paladin from incoming attacks.
The Dwarfs are led by bombardier Berin, who wields a powerful area-of-effect cannon. Berin is capable of making artillery fire and, like all dwarves, likes to drink: killing the enemy, he skips a mug of ale, after which the rate of his shooting increases for some time.
The elven people are represented by Princess Miriel, who has mastered the art of hitting enemies with a bow on the move, firing a fan of arrows and receiving bonuses to damage from a critical hit on a target.
Orc Warchief Grokk is a very powerful melee unit, capable of automatically attacking enemies with a circular strike if he is surrounded, after which he will receive quite a regeneration. In addition, Grokk is able to emit a ferocious roar that damages enemies and inspires allies.
The goblins are dominated by the Alchemist Jax – a vile type on a charming toothy toad. A specialist in poisons, Jax poisons entire areas of the map’s surface with special flasks and hurls poison darts. Its poison deals damage to enemies, and heals allies.
Finally, Zhrun is a gigantic undead monster with a huge mouth on its belly. Zhrun is able to fly into a rage, scattering small opponents and stunning large ones, as well as devouring small targets that are running out of health, thus restoring his own.
These beauties will have to pay for their labors with food and gold. In this regard, War Legends is also very classic. Slaves and laborers are engaged in the extraction of timber and devastate mines, build buildings and die ingloriously during the offensive of enemy armies.
There are a number of entertaining and non-standard solutions that help speed up gaming sessions and diversify them somewhat. We are talking about chests that sometimes appear on the map somewhere in the middle, between the starting points of opponents. Whoever manages to get to the chest and capture it will receive additional resources, which means they will be able to build everything that needs to be built faster and hire additional troops. It is not uncommon for chests to have the first battles, unless, of course, reconnaissance units collide at observation towers dispelling the fog of war or mana wells scattered across the map.
The latter provide a unique resource necessary for using scrolls with magic that can bring down a meteorite on the enemy, speed up the extraction of resources, impose positive effects on allied units, and negative effects on enemy units. Scrolls are finite, they are consumed after use and can be found in magic chests as rewards. They have a very serious impact on the gameplay, but do not bring confusion to the balance.
It may seem that magic in War Legends is a controversial thing and opponents who own it will easily defeat you. But in order to bring down their strategic supply on your head, they still have to control the wells and build special storage facilities. In addition, special Mana Towers protect against spells, near which magic is generally prohibited – everything will depend on your tactics.
At the moment, players have access to the ability to quickly play against a live opponent and the “training” section, where regulars now gather to create their own lobbies for matches in the 2v2 and 3v3 formats. In addition, the developers have taken care of several story chapters. In addition to the starting one, over 50 missions for Light and Darkness will be available in War Legends, which will help you master the deeper mechanics of the game, increase your rating and get hold of additional rewards.
And just these awards will remind us that we still play mobile RTS. Absolutely all buildings and all units, as well as all scrolls with spells, can be pumped. To do this, we collect the appropriate cards, special books and save up the gold that we get as a result of the fights.
To raise the level of a building or unit, you need to collect a certain number of its cards and upgrade sublevels. Thus, the strength of the fighters and the damage resistance of the buildings increase. To upgrade scrolls, they must be used, accumulating spell experience, and then strengthened for gold and books. The rating of the players is not infinite, as a result, each will reach the peak of his development, which will align him with other top players.
The game has already implemented a battle pass with free and paid rewards, as well as a store where you can buy the missing cards for premium currency or the same in-game gold – offers in the store change daily.
But that’s not all: every fighter in the game, from the worker to the elite fighters of the elven cavalry, has equipment slots. Heroes have four of them, ordinary units have three. Equipment affects combat performance and can also be upgraded with gold. And yet, it often represents some kind of item from the set, and the sets give additional and quite decent bonuses – it is advisable to collect them.
Finally, summoning energy is a resource that slightly limits the player’s maneuvers. It gradually accumulates and is spent to summon heroes to the battlefield. That is, you can play without heroes, the number of sessions is not limited, but it would be better not to risk it.
War Legends surprised me and even conquered me a little. This is really a full-fledged RTS for a mobile game with very flexible monetization, extremely convenient controls, including microcontrol, a nice picture, an excellent set of characters and unhurried classic real-time strategy gameplay.
The average duration of a session, even if it is a 3v3 match, is about 15-20 minutes, sometimes it ends in 10 minutes. It is not demanding on smartphones and your time, which makes War Legends an excellent RTS option for going out.
In the future, the developers will add six additional ground units and five more ships for naval battles for each faction, a survival mode for single and cooperative play, ranked matches, blitz (without building bases) and much more.
By the way, testing of the iOS version of the game started not so long ago. Now the project is available for free trial in all key mobile stores.
Download for iOS Download for Android Download from the official site
