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Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed - a NZ View - IMAGE HEAVY


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I was sure there was a topic on RRU discussing this game but evidently it just doesn't exist.

 

Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed is a mobile game developed by GameLoft. It was released in early access around August this year in a whole host of strange countries - Denmark, Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand. I think I'm the only active RRUser with access to it. This will be a mess of chronological & overall.

 

I have absolutely no hope of running it on my phone as the game is extremely graphically intensive. However Antithesis on the Discord (don't know your RRU ping, else I'd @ you) suggested running it on the Bluestacks emulator. Huzzah, it works! Me being me, the first thing I do is read over the EULA, T&Cs, and Privacy Policy. Yes, all three. :P There's some interesting bits in there:

  • there is the potential for User Created Content, which, upon doing so, becomes the property of Gameloft
  • if you send them any suggestions they become Gameloft's ideas

but I don't think you came here to read the EULA.

 

By the way, I set up these screenshots with Greenshot. PrntScrn to draw a region, then Shift+PrntScrn to snap that same region. Hit down twice to go to (Save to directory) and ENTER and voila I have saved a screenshot!

 

After a short intro cutscene, the game throws you into it immediately, hopping you straight into a battle.

Spoiler

EmKfbh8.png

 

I'll get into the details of battling a little later, but for now you can see it operates on a turn-based battling system.

 

The game then goes back to the main menu. This is a pretty neat 3D menu. Characters you unlock will occasionally walk around, which is cool. You can't move around in this, but you can pan the camera side to side a bit.

 

Spoiler

rwX4PA0.png

 

As you can see it's asking me to Build this Campaign Board. This is pretty underwhelming: Majisto comes up, swishes his wand, and the bricks fountain into a building. I got a picture of the Guilds house (just offscreen) going swoosh. For something labelled "Build" I expected a little more, although TT's "building" minigames in Lego the Hobbit were an absolute chore and I hope never to see them again. So it's probably better this way.

 

Spoiler

JryOBBX.png

 

Up there on the top left is my profile. Presumably this will be customizable later. However, at the moment the game just rolls you a random three-word name, and you can't select your profile picture. The "12" is my rank. This determines a) progression and also b) the max rank of your heroes. Basically all missions give out XP so leveling up is just a matter of time, nothing difficult.

 

You'll also see standard mobile game fare:

coins (used to occasionally buy things, level up characters, and level up abilities. Super easy to get and I haven't worried about them).

gems (rare, require paid money or given scantily in missions. I haven't spent any of mine because they're super hard to come by. Can be turned into coins, but not vice versa)

energy (otherwise known as stamina in other games. Playing missions costs stamina. It recharges at 1 every 3min which is pretty slow, but you also get it when you level up and from a bundle. So getting more is literally just waiting).

 

The Inbox on the left has a 99% chance of crashing my game, so you will continually see that it complains about unread emails. :P

 

Anyway, let's hop into the main meat of the game, the Campaigns (or the events) - the battling!

 

Spoiler

7awSDN7.png

 

As you can see there are a couple of campaigns available. There are three at the moment - the second unlocked when I completed a good deal of the first. Let's click on one!

 

Spoiler

2wyBOCq.png

 

It's kinda cool that the game's levels are tiles on a clearly Lego board. There's occasionally branching missions but no real diversity which sucks.

 

Here you can see who I'll be fighting, as well as loot I get on first clear, as well as some loot I might get as well. Let's hop in!

 

Spoiler

4BdfQdI.png

 

In here I can select a bunch of things:

- a SET on the left. This is like a 'team bonus' of sorts. They're EXTREMELY hard to get.

- Characters! They're also extremely hard to get, and fortunately this is a battle that accepts any type of character. Other battles are EXPLORER only and I have no team variation there

- Guild Ally! Grab a friend from multiplayer. I used up my 3 slots for the day so we'll just have to pass.

Total power is measured in Awesomeness, which I find pretty cool.

 

Let's go! ... well, first there's a loading screen. These are pretty, contain useful tips about how the game works, and most of all have this memorable line:

 

Spoiler

l66dNhk.png

Ouch.

 

If it's a campaign mission, we'll get some cutscenes. These can be pretty witty. However if you were hoping for a deep plot like the trailer revealed there... isn't one. Yet, anyway. It's still in Early Access.

The lack of a cohesive narrative really sucks. This isn't just in the cutscenes: the enemy parties you'll face just don't make any sense. Castle 2007 king + 2010 Kingdoms princes + Fright Knights Barnabus + 2007 Jester is okay if a mash but why are they fighting alongside skeleton healers and firemen???

Spoiler

2IgvcH1.png

 

Of particular note is that the game really plays up the ex- relationship between Willa and Majisto too much. Random lines like this are quite funny, but every one in three lines just... jars me.

There's no voice acting BTW. Just text and some quite nice animations.

 

The introductory animations - in fatc, all the animations - are really well done. Which I didn't snip. Anyway, here's the start of battle:

Spoiler

n2znNJR.png

 

I have some buffs above my character's head thanks to my Set bonus. Minifigures have a ton of stats one of which is speed. This determines how fast the "Pep Meter" fills, which is the blue circle. As you can see, all of mine are nearly fully charge. This character charged first and gets to move. I have three moves: a single shot, a multi-shot that damages everyone, and a stealth buff. As it's turn based I can take as long as I like here, there's no mass-tapping, which is really nice.

Then time passes and whoever's pep charges up next to full gets to move, and so on and so on and so on and so on. This means that the turn order isn't totally fixed. There are also moves that can reduce Pep on an enemy opponent, although these are rare.

 

By far my favourite animation is the Hiker's healing spell:

Spoiler

SlrKFcC.png

 

Even has its own little jingle he plays ❤️

 

Oh, one more thing about battling.... it's, while not gory...

Spoiler

fYfaoRQ.png

 

... there's definitely more than a smidgeon of guilt when the game is saying "Look at that low health girl displaying her wounded animation! When you click the ATTACK button, since it's the final character, the game will go into slow mo of her exploding into Lego pieces complete with death sound!"

I don't mind bashing skeletons (can do that all day!) or blatant villains  but... that's just... a bit.... much. Or maybe I was brought up to "not hit girls" too much. :P

 

 

The victory animations are also quite good. We then get all sorts of loot from winning!

 

Spoiler

MK9qInw.png

From left to right:

- Gems. Used to buy things. Very rare and to be hoarded.

- Character cards. Use to build and Star Up characters. Getting enough to build is okay but Starring Up is super tedious. Character cards overall are extremely rare.

- Coins. Used for all sorts of things in such low amounts I'm effectively stockpiling. There are ways to burn them but I haven't bothered with that yet. :P

- XP for yourself. Levelling up your level controls the max rank of your heroes & opens up gameplay opportunities (eg Guilds only open at lvl 12)

- XP Scrolls. Used to level up your characters. Haven't ran out of these yet, either.

- Somethingsomething Coins. These are literally Coins Mk II, used for a different type of purchase. More useful overall as you can buy character cards with them, which you can't do with regular coins, but can do with gems.

Missing:

- Any piece of "Gear." This will be covered in a bit.

 

I'll write up more thoughts on the battling in a separate Opinion post down below. Some initial bulletpoints:

- You are either overleveled & it's a sweep or underleveled & it's impossible

- Extreme potential for highly strategic play and absurd syngery

--- This is never executed due to extreme rarity of heroes and sets, as well as even the best strategy can't win if you're underleveled

--- Bonus bonus bonus effects (eg: +5% dmg for every debuff on target)

- Some abilities are useless

- I wish this was a paid PC game, it'd be so much more fun that way

- AI is absolutely awful

 

Bonus abilities include:

- Taunt. Functions utterly unlike Pokemon "Taunt" and much more like "Follow Me." If you use Taunt, until it's that characters' turn again, it will be the only one targetable by the enemy team.

- Stealth. Cannot be targeted unless no other targets are available

- Dodge. Less scummy that Pokemon evasion partly because all moves have an innate (90%?) chance to miss anyway.

- Heal over Time

- Assist.  When attacking, other party can chip in and do bonus damage (the amount of bonus damage is specified & variable)

- Doing bonus damage if the target has Taunt

- Doing bonus damage if hero types are on the field

There is an absolute ton of strategic potential but it's not usable due to the mobile game nature.
 

Also, if you got a Gold trophy on a level - which you get if you lose no teammembers in battle (don't worry, they come back for use in the next battle totally fine), if you want to grab the level's loot, you no longer need to actually battle the level. You can just click the button! This really helps speed things up.

 

Spoiler

3EWzdJ3.png

By the way, the x5 remaining resets every day or so, so you can come back later.

 

 

 

 

So let's try to deck out our team shall we?

 

Well, aside from the fact that - unless you spend insane amounts of gems - character cards are EXTREMELY difficult to come by, the team building is very interesting.

In my early campaigning there was no team building to be done. I couldn't even fill the available 5 slots you can bring to battle, because I didn't have enough characters! This really sucks.

 

There are a lot of characters though, and I'm sure they'll be adding more.

 

Here's a character, the starting one and really quite good:

Spoiler

5piOBOL.png

 

As you can see, there are a lot of really interesting strategic stats that all can be modified during battle, and there are more than just stat changes too. Here's how we can buff him:

1) Star Up. The most expensive way. I need 50 character cards to star him up. These are super rare: battles occasionally give you 2 character cards for winning for the first time. And only SOME battles have a a roughly 50% chance of giving ONE card. And collecting 50 character cards will only grant ONE star. Ugh......

 

2) Level Up. This uses XP Scrolls and Coins. You can only level up characters to your current maximum level.

 

3) Gear Up. See those + signs? Each character has a list of 6 items of equippable gear. They all grant minor stat buffs. Filling all six slots allows the character to Gear Up, which bakes the stat bonuses in and clears all the gear slots. This unlocks certain abilities - for instance, the kicking move unlocks at Gear 2.

 

So here's what a little more filled out character looks like:

 

Spoiler

AvNuXq3.png

 

There's a little more to the character system (Basic Pizza II, crafting gear), but that's mostly irrelevant and just waiting for stuff to drop.

 

 

 

 

Oh, one more thing, the shop. I don't use this much because most of the stuff is in gems and those are hard to come by and paid for by real money. But I did discover what the $NZ 169.99 item was!

 

Spoiler

6htPkr7.png

 

 

Oh yeah, one more thing. It's a pretty useless feature, but when you build a Set (or a character, but the animation is much shorter) you get an animation of the pieces coming together. Neat, but sets are extremely rare, so it doesn't count for much.

 

 

Want to find out more? Just watch this person play the game:

 

No commentary, but you'll get a much better feel for what the game looks like, and he's the one who's played it the most. (There are very, very few people YTing this game, which I find a little weird).

 

 

 

 

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS: More information and a 'review' coming soon, but I wanted to get this out here first

 

- The game is fun and enjoyable. I enjoy playing it at the moment because my mental state is significantly damaged, and I'll likely start playing more strategic games soon. But in this significantly weakened state it's fun to play.

 

- The game has a TON, an absolute TON, of strategic potential with the synergy of abilities and sets and stats and buff moves aand... but you can't get any of this at any short notice.

 

- The game is, in its current state, pleasingly playable free. It's merely just a matter of booting up the game, clicking Loot a bunch of times on a level which might drop character cards, and coming back later.

 

- I very much wish this game was a paid PC game with DLC story expansions as then the mobile grinding aspect would go away entirely and the strategy would be so much more suited.

- I really wish it was a paid PC game

- I really, really, really wish it was a paid PC game. Gameloft, you listening?

- Lego strategy games are almost unheard of (only Lego Battles and that was highly obscure) and that, if nothing else, makes this game special.

- Have I said I wish it was a paid PC game yet?

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed - an NZ Review - Text Heavy

 

The game is through and through a mobile game. Stamina, microtransactions, looting, lootboxes, and a very definite feeling of "why am I playing this?" - yup, all there.

One could argue that fundamentally all gaming is pointless, and perhaps by extension, all life is pointless ? Although that is something I disagree with. Nevertheless, Lego Legacy Heroes Unboxed really brings out the worst in that feeling, which is why I've stopped playing it and don't think I'll pick it up again.

 

 

The game is very fun and charming for about the first five hours. There are characters to explore, a barebones plot to pursue, environments to enter, and fun things to see.

 

However you reach a point (about lvl 20) where there aren't new things to explore. This happens in every game, of course: the feeling of novelty wears off: and with other games, skill, variation, or simply fun fills that hole. And Lego Legacy could fill that box with insane strategizing. This has much more than the +atk, +def, +speed, that one might see in Pokemon: there's Grit to resist debuffs and Skill to apply debuffs, Assists where other characters assist for medium-ish damage, Taunt, Stealth, Heal Over Time, and all sorts of really interesting things that could really make a really interesting game.

 

However being a mobile game with microtransactions....

 

.... it's just not there.

 

I remember the last level of the first mini-campaign. I simply couldn't beat it. Despite my best efforts to work out what was important, focus fire them down, make the maximum usage of the multi-hit moves I had, I just couldn't win. Solution? Grind some other levels and come back.

This, by itself, isn't bad: most RPGs have a levelling feature and it can allow the player to get a sense of progression. However, two things in Lego Legacy make it very terrible:

- Once you've levelled and powered up you don't even need strategy. You can just smash through

- The levelling is simply a matter of menuing and waiting for energy to recharge. You don't even have to play the levels to get XP - you can click the "Loot" button.

 

I remember another level. It was quite cool, a 'boss fight' of sorts - you just fought one minifigure who was way stronger than your team. This was really interesting, but again, I couldn't beat it. I grinded a bit, leveled up, leveled up my characters, and went back, and then was able to beat it. It was fun, interesting, and tough.

However then I came back five levels later. But now my team was too powerful, and the boss, while still a little challenginge, was just a matter of clicking attack and clicking heal, with no strategy involved.

 

This is why I hate a levelling system. It prevents you from winning by clever moves, as any level can just be beaten by overlevelling. Furthermore, it also means past levels and experiences just can't be re-experienced, as you'll absolutely steamroll and it's just not even fun.


 

 

Furthermore, in Lego Legacy needing to power up just becomes the norm. It is a grindy type of game. This isn't actually bad as per se, but it means that my daily playing of Lego Legacy goes something like this:

1) Start game

2) Go to missions I'm trying to get character tiles for. Grind those by clicking the Loot button until out of energy type A.

3) Go to another batch of missions. Grind those, again with the Loot button/

4) Use a Brick Separator, open a Bag, probably just auto an Arena Battle, for the daily quests

5) Shut game

Notice something? No actual gameplay was had. Just menuing. This really feels pointless and I wonder "Why am I playing this?"

 

Furthermore, occasionally events pop up. At the moment I think The Cook is one or something. What happens in these is the following:

1) You roflstomp and one-shot all mobs on the first level. Congrats, you get some character cards.

2) You roflstomp and two-shot all mobs on the next level. Congrats, you get some more character cards.

3) You get roflstomped and one-shotted on the third level. There's absolutely no way for you to beat this without just grinding.

This makes the events extremely unfulfilling to play, as either you're overleveled or you're not. There have been very few levels which have been at my power level and I've felt adaquately challenged: possible, yet I have to be careful and strategic. This is good: there's just not nearly enough of it, and these levels are BY FAR the exception.

 

Occasionally I'll be able to Star Up a character, which is a massive power boost (much more than levelling up or Gearing up), and can probably complete one level. But in this new level it is the same background, the same enemies (they reuse thiungs to the point where it is very boring), and the same strategy.

 

 

Granted, I'm playing this free as it were, as I have no intention of spending on this game. :P That's the game's other issue - paying doesn't actually do anything. It just grants you Gems. But I get Gems anyway from daily quests & my Arena position, so paying doesn't do anything interesting beyond 'speed up the grind.' And the only thing I'm grinding for is to be able to power up so I can grind more faster? Yeah, that seems pointless.

The game is pleasingly playable free, but I suspect that'll change at launch.

 

 

There is one thing that a levelling system does that Lego Legacy does well: it unlocks later abilities. Take a look at this:

Spoiler

JuR6GV8.png

 

The 'shield' icon around the middle top of the screen is an ability I haven't unlocked. If I click on this, I can see its effects (quite cool: it's a Passive. At the start of Hiker's turn, he has a 25% chance to grant the hero with the lowest health Defense Up for 2 turns. The game has ton of neat effects like this). However I also can't use it, as it's locked behind Gear 2.

 

This is actually fine, and I like this system. Getting Gear is more tedious than anything else (like the rest of this game >.> ), and if you don't have a piece of gear, you can use the Brick Finder to find in what levels it might drop, and hit the Loot button until you get it. Collect all bits of gear for that character and you can Gear Up, which unlocks new abilities.....

... well, only sometimes. In this case Hiker gets a cool Passive when he gets to Gear 2, but Gears 3 4 and 5 (current max) don't grant anything interesting beyond a stat buff.

 

This also plagues the level up (you can see he's level 11) and the star (he's at 1 star, and I have 0/20 cards to star him up). Increasing these doesn't unlock any new abilities, any new moves, anything at all. It just increases his stats. This makes starring up a character, even after I've grinding the 20 cards (which is very slow), EXTREMELY unrewarding as all you get is a +stat increase that allows you to move to the next stage. At which point you will beat it, come to the next stage, and find you can't and need to grind another 20 cards - no, wait, it's now 30 because of course everything increases with level. :(

 

But wait, there's one more form of buffing your characters! See those 1 in square boxes next to the abilities? Yep, those can be upgraded using Ability Elixirs! Except by and large a) Ability Elixirs are very easy to get and b) the results aren't very spectacular. About half the time they're a boring "+5% damage" and the other half are more interesting, eg: "-1 cooldown time" , "20% chance to inflict Dodge Down" , "Additional +20% damage against CITY heroes." But they don't really change much and just grant you a little bit more power.

 

 

However, the game is not terrible. I'll list some good things it does... and then some bad things that counteract that as the argument isn't complete without them.

 

- The animations are very well done and each character is charming.

--- It's then a shame that you get so used to the team (did I mention getting new characters is impossible early game (no, not "very difficult," impossible - no early nodes drop character tiles) and you have absolutely no choice about your team till about lvl 20?), that you've seen them all and put the game on 3x speed

--- It's also a shame that the enemies are reused and reused and reused and reused and reused and reused and you've seen everything before 90% of the time.

 

- The game has multiplayer, where you can battle the teams of other players!

--- Except it's not really "PVP" and instead the enemy team is taken over by the AI. This is really disappointing.

--- Also, see the point about new characters above? Yeah, everybody's basically rocking the same team up until about lvl 30. Which makes them very uninteresting to fight.

 

- The game also has Guilds and Shared Heroes

--- Except these suck and do absolutely nothing apart from the above. There isn't even a Kick function for the Guild Owner. Granted,  this will change as the game gets developed, but it still sucks.

 

- Gearing up to unlock new abilities is very rewarding

--- Sometimes the abilities are so bad, especially in the AI hands, that I'd rather not want them

--- Not all gearing up grants a new ability (very few do! see Hiker above)

--- Leveling up doesn't do anything beyond stat changes

 

- Set build animations are very pretty and nice to watch

--- But you see them super rarely (I've only ever built 4 sets and I'm at lvl 29ish)

--- And they don't matter much in the game anyway

 

 

This is why I wish the game was a paid PC game. This would kick it into the 'strategy gaming' market and off the 'mobile grind P2W game' market. The game has a ton of interesting synergistic potential especially with its debuffs. Like:

- There's an ability that if it crits inflicts Stunned, which makes the minifigure skip its turn (very powerful). There's also a hero who has an ability that ensures the next hit will be a crit. Hmmm!

--- except you can't get that second hero for waaaaaay later in the game

- You can upgrade an ability to have a chance to inflict Dodge Down. That same character can be upgraded deals bonus damage to heroes with Dodge Down.

- Inflicting Discouraged, which clears pep (the turn meter) on next hit, and then somebody assisting for exactly that hit, is glorious. Good thing the Pirate Set enables Redbeard to do exactly that.

- Certain characters have a chance to Counter for some damage when hit. This means you want to hit them with as few, high-power, attacks as possible.

- Taunt and Stealth are very interesting and prevent the game from becoming "focus fire down one unit, then go onto the next one"

--- Shame the AI can't use them for peanuts (seriously)

 

Also, given the... uh... controversy... around Pokemon Sword and Shield, a game like this is in a prime position to strike at that turn-based-battling strategic niche with a franchise aimed at small children yet allows older, more strategic and competent players, to also have a blast putting things together. Add in proper multiplayer and you're golden!

 

I could also then see DLC expansions. Instead of the current idea, where the next plot is to go bash person X, it could be a branching series of adventures that, if you wanted the characters for, you'd get that DLC. So off you go to Planet U to fight a whole bunch of Rock Raiders and get Chief.

Currently, the method of getting characters is by very tedious grinding character cards. I could see a system where, when you beat the boss and his entourage, you get that character. Bam, done.

 

I would also abolish the level and star system, but keep the gear and ability up system. This is because if you were to go into a next adventure with your high-leveled characters, you'd totally stomp them: and that's what happens in events now. Preventing absurd powering up like that allows those early missions to still be interesting. But Gear and Abilities ensure that your developed characters do actually have an edge over ones new to your team. This would keep a sense of character power growing without it ever being enough.

 

I could also see a system where you choose 10 heroes but only 5 can be on the field at any given time but you can swap them out, as 5 feels very restrictive quite often, but that's a more radical idea.

 

... But it's currently none of that. It's just an uninteresting Lego grindfest, where the point of grinding isn't even to see new stuff, it's just to be able to grind faster.

 

 

The game has one saving grace: the grind doesn't really start setting in till lvl 15. So if you have a phone that can run it - or just run it on Bluestacks - it's worth picking up and playing it until you start to get bored with it: don't try and think "oh, if I get through this boring bit there'll be more interesting stuff ahead!" because there really isn't at the moment, and due to the nature of the game, I doubt there will ever be.

 

 

 

One final thing: it's likely that more, cool, characters will be added. Possibly even Chief.

I don't care. If it's going to be grindy and unrewarding to unlock them I don't care.

 

 

Appendix:

Spoiler

The game crashes very specifically on Bluestacks (for multiple people) if you open the Shop to the Bundles section, and if the Inbox is on a letter without a reward. The former can be bypassed by clicking on the + next to Gems on the main menu, which takes you to a different section of the shop. The latter is just checking your Inbox every two days to hope that one with a reward lands on top. 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Lego Legacy: Heroes Unboxed and why Warhammer 40,000:Mechanicus is a better game and you should go play that one instead - Image Heavy

 

Lego Legacy Heroes (LLH) is now in global launch (has been for a couple of months) as well as having its first major update, which allow me to see what things will likely be like going forward. I'm actually a moderator on the Discord server (usually a nice thing), because I do fundamentally like a couple of things about the game, as well as the "theorycrafting" being the most entertaining thing about the game - actually excuting the theorycrafting is insanely slow and grindy. There's also a Windows Store version now, which makes playing on PC less of a hassle.

 

 

I don't know where to begin with LLH, so I'll start with the shop.  The game is P2W (pay-to-win). It is oddly playable F2P (free-to-play) by these games' standards, but the release of a new event character, Scarlett, really shows what this game is about.

She's basically locked behind a ~ $150 USD (depending on where you are and what platform you're on) paywall. There's a F2P event that gives you enough tiles to 2 stars, but absolutely no more, and gauging by the other two "Unboxed" events, it'll be absolutely ages before she becomes regularly farmable. Instead the game expects you to buy gems and open these absurdly expensive bags with them. Even my carefully hoarded 6,000+ gems isn't enough to make a meaningful dent on them.

 

Spoiler

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When this brought up in the Discord community, somebody will always say "Actually, that's a pretty good deal when you look at the rest of the genre." This is inexcusably bad. To say something is good merely because the others are outright cash-grabs isn't a reason to call it good. Some people are clearly willing to spend $150 to get a maxed Scarlett.

 

Did I mention bags are pure trash? For instance, this 400 gem bag offers you "10-200" tiles. 200 might as well be a typo for 20: take a look at this chart.

 

Spoiler

large.654744356_2020-04-2112_47_56-Window.png.8c1b3ce5b308a409ac7f0984c7f8a683.pnglarge.bag_tile_drop_rate.png.c46ed217ca7fc9165b30de802e38a7d2.png

 

 

 

Oh, and you can also just buy things flat out with money in the shop as once-off bundles. Some of these are absolutely terrible (the set bundles) while the character bundles, if you actually want to spend something, are probably the best you'll get (Bart + Locust + Valiant are great) - but as per the title up top, go buy Mechanicus instead (see very below)

 

Spoiler

large.265547343_2020-04-2113_33_24-LEGOLegacy_HeroesUnboxed.png.27f1f32f089e21f1693a78e0dfc24ef4.png

 

While I'm on this subject, I'm really disappointed that Lego actually greenlit this game. Other games often compared to LLH are Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, and Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem. Both franchises are known for generally being money-grabbing and so a microtransation-riddled game like this is more or less what one expects from those companies. But to have this be an official Lego game, with the game functioning around buying things for fun, is terribly disappointing, and really feels like a black stain on Lego's otherwise incandescently good name.

 

On a pricing note, why would I spent $15 NZD on a minifigure when I could spend $15 NZD on real Lego and just unlock the minifigure a little slower? I don't get this game at all. Who is it marketed towards? Children with its Lego-y style? Is it then deliberately preying off a child's "Hey mommy, can I have this?" to fund its endless money sink? It's confusing and it being associated with Lego is one thing I really hate.

 

The worst example of this is Willa, who requires $4200 of whaling (to whale = to spend a lot on these types of games) to max. That's just absurd and pointless. Oh, and of course a couple of people have gone and done it, because why wouldn't they?

 

 

To star up a character you need tiles (& gold, but that's very easy to get by comparison). To unlock a character typically you only need 10 tiles, which isn't too hard to obtain. However, the next level is 20 tiles, which is quite annoying. Above that is 35, which is getting grindy - and it doesn't stop, 50, 75, 100, 150 tiles for the next star levels. This is pointlessly grindy and really the summary of the game: things are fun at first, and then to actually get any reasonable level of power it requires grinding.

 

Spoiler

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This is why I'm having quite a fun time sticking my characters at level 40 and only getting them to 5* - it takes off the later grind (Locust is 43 so I can gear him up for his Ultimate). Plus, why even am I grinding for these higher levels? All that enables me is more resources via eg Arena, which I would then spend... on getting more levels. Feels quite pointless - because it is. Yes, a new mode, Brixkpeditions, is coming, and there are other weekly events which require quite high levels (this is not the same as 'are interestingly challenging'), and I haven't even completed the campaigns yet - because they all seem a bit pointless, more resources for the sake of more resources.

 

Speaking of the campaigns. They're very bad.

 

Spoiler

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- Enemy listing makes no sense. Why am I fighting the great master Sensei Wu in a random city? Why are there ten thousand Dr Kelvins?

- Very cheesable with a 7* L50 Guild Ally to roflstomp, megaheal, or just tank your way through tough events

- Plot is barebones, skeletal, and extremely terrible, stated by a couple of intro & outro 'cutscenes' of just text on a screen

- Any node can be beaten by coming back later with a higher leveled team

I can't say anything positive about the campaigns other than they exist.

Piptown United and Glyph Hunt have a story-driven mission but Monolith Waste just.... exists for no reason except to give you a massive haul of resources. It feels terribly unfinished - because it is.

 

Spoiler

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The devs clearly have their sights on the 'long run,' and they're barely advertising the game just because it fundamentally isn't done. Their model clearly seems to be "in a years' time the game will be better fleshed out with more stuff." Which is fundamentally fine - no game can be expected to instantly be complete - but in the interim things feel like a mess that isn't worth playing. Everything. From the bugged in-app purchases (yes, those don't always work), to the few scattered battle bugs (some more broken than others, including a softlock introduced with the latest update) to the memably useless characters, one of which already got a rework, to the sheer variability of sets (would you like a rare chance to apply 1 stack of Damage Over Time, or would you like to clear all buffs from a foe just by doing a regular attack?), to the sniping Arena is - it's just an absolute mess.

 

Progress has been made. For instance, Ninjago got adjusted to a much better position: but the dominant Castle teams received no adjustment. Events have come out, but they're not very entertaining and basically just click-to-win until you lose or finish the event.

 

A great example of this is the Challenges each day offers. Over the course of the week, various ways to obtain various things rotate around - quite nice, free resources. Shown here is Free Training, which has no resources but allows you just to toy with battles for free (as any other battle would use up energy!), Ability Material Challenge, where you can get free ability elixirs to upgrade your heroes - bring anyone - and the dreaded ATTACKER training, in which you can only bring Attackers and it only gives you variants of Apples.

 

Spoiler

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This doesn't sound like a bad idea off the bat - but the fun of this game is being able to put together different heroes to complement each other's weaknesses and work well together. Being forced to just bring 5x glass cannons against an actually vaguely sensible team is just a question of whether you have enough dakka and HP to survive, not of the strategy that this game otherwise does quite well. Plus, the rewards: you definitely need some Apples for gear, around 30 would be handy - but once you've cleared the node you can just loot it each time it pops up, which results in me having (checks) 430 Basic Apple 1 Plans, which is just pointless and makes this feel useless.

 

 

 

That's been a long list of negatives about Lego Legacy Heroes, and the reason why sometimes starting the game up to collect daily shinies is a chore. However, there are some things that make it great.

 

The music and sound design:

The game's battle music is amazing and really fits the environment. The full soundtrack isn't up on Youtube, but you can find some of it here, though it lacks my favourite Space theme.

Sound effects of characters in battle are really well done. Reed's manic screech as he electrocutes an enemy, Locust's evil laughter as he taunts, Burnabus' cheering, Majisto's general magicness, Redbeard's yelling, Gogo's jack-in-the-box

 

... however it also fails utterly. I find the main menu music that consists of licensed songs unbearable in contrast, and frequently mute the game. Ultimate abilities miserably fail on the SFX side and feel like something out of a cheap Unity game:


 

Spoiler

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The background is garish and the only sound here is just a police siren. The game's sound design would otherwise have me expect to hear tire screeches, the sounds of bricks on bricks, the sound of characters on the receiving end all crying in pain... but instead we just have a siren and that's it. They're really underwhelming compared to the rest of the game and absolutely disappointing.

 

 

Animation

This has, hands down, the best animation of characters I've seen in a Lego game. Each character is memorable, unique, and does something entertaining. It's a joy to look at, and by virtue of being a turn-based game, you often have time to just pause and admire the scenery. I really love the Snow environment, but couldn't get a snip of it, so I've got my second-favourite, the Space with Gogo and his box instead:

 

Spoiler

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Character balance and uniqueness

While some things are definitely more powerful than others, and some characters are trash, overall the game does a solid okay job with balance. Currently the meta is Pirate spam or the almost unkillable stall of Gogo + Burnabus + Majisto + Guarded Inn set, but there are a lot of other useful options. In particular, a lot of the whale-only options are not overpowered: I mentioned Willa's $4200 pricetag, and she's not actually that great. If you go heavy on bags you'll also max Kartofski, who's very terrible and in need of a rework. You will get Gorwell though, who is great, but not gamedefining nor gamebreakingly good. This is very pleasing.

It's not perfect - but no game is, and while I have seen games do better, I think this game also does a solid job.

 

Environments

I know others on RRU appreciate the art style of 'you're actually in a house with the Lego on the floor' more than I do, but for me, the battle environments are very good backed up by outstanding music. The menuing just feels like menuing and no more, and lacks the charm that the battles do.

 

 

I think that's about all I wanted to cover / rant about / show off about this game. Ultimately, is it worth your time? I would say yes. The animation and the collectathon feeling really does the world of Lego justice, and the strategizing is quite competent. However the grindy and level-y nature of the game just makes it unpleasing later. I would definitely recommend at least installing this on your PC and playing it for a day. Then probably uninstalling it and forgetting about it. It's definitely not worth any of your money, but it's worth a little of your time.

 

 

 

 

 

Up the top I mentioned Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, which is a little off-topic of me so I'll keep it brief. Basically, everything Lego Legacy Heroes does wrong, that game does right, though it still has flaws of its own (three top of the list: ray weapons are still bugged, exploring tombs feels more like randomness and you run your way to the exit, game is very snowbally - fortunately the latter two can be fixed with the fantastic difficulty settings).

 

Spoiler

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- Classic business model. Buy the game, and if you like, buy the less-impressive DLC. No microtransactions. It really feels a shame to have to compliment a game on having no microtransactions, but, well, welcome to 2020. :(

- Fantastic environment building from top to bottom. From the very main menu to the level select menu to the character screen, you really feel like you're onboard the Caestus Metallican commanding the Tech-Priests of Mars.

- Strategic gameplay done right. Confirmation actions for a lot of things but not too many that it's annoying, very difficult to misclick, information shown when relevant in a nonobstrusive manner. Automatic, quiet, autosaves.

- Lots of interesting options to go down and to equip your Tech-Priests with, without feeling like content bloat

- Plenty of replayability, especially with the amazing slew of Custom Difficulty Settings (change HP, number of and enemies in fights, disable entire game elements)

- Fantastic writing - not what one expects from a strategy game, but that it's there is amazing. The plot pulls you forward to continue. (Unfortunately the effects of the plot in-game are basically zilch, which is one of my gripes with the game.

- One of the most immersive battle systems I've ever been in. Soundtrack, enviroment design, atmosphere, effects, and your UI to control the game all work together in a way they don't in any other game I've experienced. For this alone the game is worth playing.

- Incredibly detailed and plentiful zoomin allows you to enjoy the above at your leisure, especially as it's turn-based.

 

Critiques:

- Story has little effect in-game. Help, the Caestus Metallican is out of fuel, we need to find some more! ... but don't worry, you can ignore that and just go on other missions instead). Amazing voice acting on the bosses. Oh no, the planet's nearly awoken! Don't worry, you can explore without them having even detected you

- Exploring the tombs is a bad idea, just run your way to the exit as fast as possible. Fortunately the Advanced Exploration option and setting Tomb Awakening per area explored to 1 really make exploring a lot valuable

- Not a ton of content - where's my cheap ranged weapon that deals physical damage? Where's my ultratank with no damage output options? Where are melee weapons that aren't just the two axes? That said, the bonus to this is that all content is worth using or at least looking at

- Bosses are underwhelming and generally just get murdered by too much firepower, and there's only so much the difficulty settings can make them challenging (doubling their HP just means it takes three not two turns for you to murder them)

- Massive tendency for the player to snowball - you can adjust this using difficulty settings though, as they can be dynamically adjusted in the middle of your adventure.

 

Spoiler

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So yeah, go play that one instead.

 

 

 

This has been your latest megapost on Lego Legacy Heroes and will probably be the last one for a long while, brought to you by Grammar-Nazis Inc.

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Fiddling around with it and it's pretty standard P2W garbage, but the production value is really, really nice. A good mix of classic and modern figures with excellent high detail models and textures ripe for extraction, which I am currently figuring out. If anyone here is interested I can post them if / when I extract something usable. 

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On 4/23/2020 at 12:42 AM, Pollywanna said:

Fiddling around with it and it's pretty standard P2W garbage, but the production value is really, really nice. A good mix of classic and modern figures with excellent high detail models and textures ripe for extraction, which I am currently figuring out. If anyone here is interested I can post them if / when I extract something usable. 

I would definitely be interested in a ripped texture collection. If I recall correctly there are several textures there not in the LDraw library yet.

 

Oh right, gotta critique Lego Legacy too, to keep my comment relevant to the thread: Not a fan. Real lego minifigs are cheaper and more enjoyable.

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20 hours ago, baraklava said:

Real lego minifigs are cheaper and more enjoyable.

 

Some of the prices are insane. You can easily run into hundreds of dollars for these characters, and I just don't understand the whale mentality at all. None of these figures are particularly rare or expensive, and having them physically is a far more long term investment than having them on the servers of a mobile game that will be shut down sooner or later.

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8 hours ago, Pollywanna said:

 

Some of the prices are insane. You can easily run into hundreds of dollars for these characters, and I just don't understand the whale mentality at all. None of these figures are particularly rare or expensive, and having them physically is a far more long term investment than having them on the servers of a mobile game that will be shut down sooner or later.

 

To put some numbers to this:

Redbeard: takes 147 days of daily quests to max

Gogo: Requires ~200 days of farming to max

Zombie: $80 paywall

Chef: $100 paywall

Spooky Girl: $100 paywall
Scarlett: $150 paywall

Willa: $4200 paywall (... and yet some people buy it ?‍♀️)

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