Pocket Legends – MMO hack and slash on iPhone!

Wo! omg it’s MMORPG (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Play Game) on iPhone! With the launch of iPad, means even more gamers or potential gamers would be using this iPhone OS platform, gaming companies finally begin to make some “true” games. Not an old school arcade type of short games, not a lame bluetooth multiplayer game that requires you to sit right next to your component, not a lan only multiplayer game that require everyone to pay $8 before you can have fun, instead, we get a Free MMORPG with purchasable items and contents. Hurray! Short review after the break 😄

While this is actually pretty much similar to other MMORPG games, I will just review some of the interesting aspects of putting it on an iPhone.

Control

Most important of them is of course, Control.

Top left corner we have a character nameplate, which can access to character sheet, skills and shops. Below that there are hp/mp bars of your party members. Top middle we have a chat button. Beside that we can see the chat window with some item log.

At Bottom, we have on-screen D-pad on the left, right side we have a spell book button, 1 big attack button and 4 special ability buttons.

There are some smaller buttons for some “less often used” actions, on the left side, we have a emotion button above d-pad for some non-combat actions like wave or smile, at bottom, we can toggle map, and can access to hp/mp potions.

Furthermore, you can swipe to rotate camera view, and pinch to zoom in and out.

Buttons are very packed so it is pretty easy to press the wrong button when you just started to play this.

Store

For a MMORPG for Free without pop up ads, obviously they will have something to earn your money, and like most iPhone games nowadays, you can have in-game purchases for just a few taps. Free version of the game includes one dungeon of 13 levels, additional dungeon packs can be bought for a few bucks each. Some other things you buy are like extra character slot, more emote actions, and of course some special items. However I do not think you need to buy those extra items, but dungeon packs are worth taking if you want to support their company.

How is it?

So what do I think about it? The idea or showing iPhone’s potential of handling MMORPG is great, and they really have done a great job on making it smooth like you would have on a computer, but the game itself is a bit too simple.

Gameplay is pretty basic, you venture through dungeon, kill enemies for experience, gold and equipments. You literally just kill enough mobs to advance a level. Item drop is really random, named mob (sort of boss) will not give you better loot.

The town basically does nothing but only to show possibility to handle many players on same screen.

And of course, at the end it still drains battery like any other 3D games and you will have to plug a cable if you want to spend some time on it 😄

Overall if you are a really big fan of hack and slash ARPG, you will find it fun. It is also exciting to see the potential of games with longer play time appear on mobile phones.