[iPhone] Review - Pocket Legends MMORPG

(Stay tuned for my review of "Order & Chaos" which I'm trying to resist buying ... It's $9 damnit.)

I never played WoW, but I was pretty big on Everquest back in the day, and then EverQuest 2 for a while. So about a year ago, I spent 3 months playing Pocket Legends on my iPod. I thought I'd revisit this game since the iPhone 4 runs everything so silky-smooth. It's pretty cool to be honest. After nearly a year, my character's were still patiently waiting for me to come back online!

You can spin and zoom your viewpoint any time.

I was pleased to learn that SpaceTime Studios have been steadily adding features, areas and items to the game. It's now quite large and very polished, with nearly 200 quests.

Anyway the basic idea is you select one of 3 races (Bear which is basically a Warrior, Avian which is an Archer, or Elf which is a Mage) and build them up through questing and killing monsters. You can build your stats any way you like, and it actually provides variety and distinction between characters. There are always loads of other people running around -- in fact, towns are "instanced" when they reach the max of 20 players, and you'll always find loads of people around to chat to. You have a friends list and can invite friends to join your instance of a dungeon, or just join another random player's game. Fighting alone is tricky so you generally fight in groups of 5.

Plenty of places to fight. Each location shown here generally has more than 5 actual dungeons within it.

The World - You can pick where you want to go straight from the World Map shown above, or you can manually walk around the world which is quite interesting. Locations are connected by portals or short pathways, so you never have to cross the wilderness or anything. Everywhere looks nice, from the dark green forests to the icy caves; from the stone dungeons to the blazing deserts.

Graphics - Pretty impressive, although I must admit the new game "Order & Chaos" (which is a fully 3D World of Warcraft clone). But Pocket Legends looks cool enough. You have lots of flashes, crackles, swooshes and such with all the spells and abilities people set off during combat. Towns are nicely detailed, although small. Characters look different depending on what gear they have equipped, so you won't see loads of the same character walking around.

My level 33 Warrior, chilling in a town with his music headphones on ;-)

Sound - Good sound. Nice quality of music and "ambient" sounds throughout the various locations.

Gameplay - Well as you reach the higher 30+ levels, it starts to slow down a lot and you'll find that you have to run through a complete set of dungeons several times to gain levels. At least I do. So it starts to grind. But remember I put a good 3 months or so into this game which is outstanding for an iDevice game, at least in my experience. You really get your money's worth here.

It's Auto-Attack which means once you engage with a monster, you can mentally step back and watch the fight unfold. But you'll have plenty to do engaging other spells and abilities manually. They got the balance just right. You're never bored when you're in a hostile area, and often you won't have time to chat or reply to people until you clear the area of monsters.

Items are a big part of this game, and it has a huge variety. I don't know the numbers, but certainly hundreds and hundreds of different items to find, buy, sell, auction or trade. There is in-game trading by simply touching another character on the screen. And I believe there is an Auction House now, but I haven't tried that yet.

Of course there is in-game chat, including private messaging (tells) and a full profanity filter which "mutes" people who use naughty language, and a full emote system so you can make your character burp or lol or ... whatever.

My Mage in combat. Skills down the right side, other stuff around the edges.

Value - Well it's hard to complain when the game is free! You will have to spend a few dollars along the way to unlock "map packs" which let your character grow even further. But you can download Pocket Legends for free and try it up to level 10 or so. See if you like it.

There are plenty of "hard core" players who have multiple capped characters, and who spend extra money for in-game "platinum" so that they can buy various novelty items and stat-boosting potions (but spending this money is certainly not necessary). It depends how much you want to get into it, but there is a big, active forum and a general sense of community which surprised me, given that this is a handheld game.

Go here (official web site) to learn more, or just download it on the App Store for free. It also works on Android devices now.

Pocket Legends MMO - 4 out of 5 (or 5 out of 5 if played on the iPad)
Not everybody's cup of tea, but as "an MMO on iPhone", it's very hard to fault. Slightly too much for the iPhone's small screen, but still very playable. If you have an iPad, it would be awesome.

-Gray

My Elf get's "jiggy with it" in the Graveyard. She's loving life, and loving it hard.