Legacy of the Holy Castle Review: Medieval Sensations
By Kei Beneza (dividelife), OnRPG Journalist
Legacy of the Holy Castle is a massively multiplayer online web browser game set on the age of medieval warfare in a fantasy world. First thing you probably noticed would be the game’s awesome interface that kind of looks like tapestry in an old castle (Ye olde web page). One thing about this game that’s rather controversial is the fact that it pays people to make positive reviews (my thanks to a fellow blogger who told me). It looks like the event is over so I guess I can make a rather truthful review.
When I first saw the game’s website, I was in awe due to its Dungeons and Dragons like design. Two knights fighting in the middle of the fire, a cool logo of what’s supposed to look like a Dragon, seriously something that can draw medieval fans in.
Let’s Get Started
After creating my account and picking my server, I was taken into the game’s character selection screen. The first thing that came off as a drag was their six-letter limit for character names. I was hoping to call my character “Testament” but ended up picking a random “6-lettered name” from Google instead. After typing in your name, you’ll be opted to choose between an array of anime portraits which are supposed to resemble your character. Once you pick your anime face, you’ll have to choose what your first 2 skills will be. Since I had no idea what these things meant, so I clicked on the GUIDE button for further information.
*click* What the…?
“You could edit your castle name and login password from Setting. However? you will need Castle Rename Card to edit your castle name—--“
Seriously, what does this mean? I was hoping to learn more about character skills and now they tell me about renaming castles? Since I really had no idea what I was doing, I picked Strength and Rush just to get it over with.
Legacy’s Character Screen with Anime Faces
Whoah! Slow down!
After brushing myself through some excruciating character creation methods, I was taken to the game’s main interface (which looked terrific). I saw a tagboard (chatbox) on the right side of the screen which gave me an assurance that other people were there to teach me the basics. After looking at a bold highlighted text that said BEGINNER’S QUEST, I gave off a sigh of relief thinking I was on my way to some BASIC training.
“Welcome to The Legacy of Holy Castle. You are the lord of a castle here and you are going to build it up. Gold is the most important resource in this game. You’ll need a great deal of it to get your castle running. To get more gold you need to upgrade your Silver Mine. First, check the “Construction” section from the left, find Silver Mine, then click the “Upgrade”. Now you see the timer. You’ll get 500 gold as reward when it finishes.”
Okay! That’s simple enough! I tired browsing around the interface trying to look for anything regarding the Silver mines (insert long ellipsis here), luckily the pizza arrived in the mean time, so I – Oh there! I found it!
Train Your Units (and let them handle the confusion)
After playing the game for countless hours, I managed to reach a point wherein I’m able to train units. Much like any MMO, you need currency to survive. The thing is, this game respects the RTS (real time strategy) form of currency which revolves around Money, wood, food and gems. Combat is as simple as a game of rock, papers, scissors. In my opinion it’s a bit lame but it does make it easier for you to strategize- not to mention less AI required. I think this system has been used for games like Guilty Gear Overture (XBox 360) and Advance Wars (GBA, DS). There’s nothing wrong with this type of gameplay since it reduces unit spamming to a minimum (No Zergling rush here folks!).
Crafting and Combat
In other words, you have to make sure that you make a battle optimized (rock-paper-scissors optimized rather) squad in order to swing the tides of battle to your advantage (unless you want your army of melee characters to get PWNED by 2 ranged units). In my opinion, the system is pretty lame, but hey, it’s a browser game.
Safety Rocks! Nya nya! You can’t catch me!
One important fact to ponder on would be the newbie safety barrier. While on your early stages, you’re safe from any form of invasion. Know that this type of protection won’t last forever, and you’ll have to face enemy troops after learning the ropes.
Graphics
The interface is truly amazing, with awesome popup messages that indicate either your success or failure. The menu looks pretty nifty as it resembles those old school Dungeons and Dragons Manuals. The map interface doesn’t look bad as well as it lets you build defensive towers of some sort to help protect your Heroic Fortress. In fact, the overall visuals are really impressive for a browser game. You can also place your units on the unit location map which consists of trees and plants which are supposed to serve as some form of obstruction. When it comes to visuals, I’d say Legacy of the Holy castle is pretty well done.
Some Trouble
Aside from my little character guide problem, I had some problems with other broken links as well. Initially I thought it was just my connection, but I searched around the web and found other people who encountered the same problem. It turns out that the game had a lot of broken links. I’d get to it right away if I were them, because some players aren’t too forgiving.
The verdict
All in all, I’d say this game is pretty good. I still log in to my account to check for updates regularly. It’s rather funny that you have to send your own hero to do lumber work when you have troops at your disposal. Unfortunately, these guys never played warcraft so I guess they wouldn’t know the idea of hiring peasants LOL.
The interface is pretty neat! Needs a bit more tweaking in terms of visuals but it’ll do for now. The way you position your troops is one thing, but the combat system greatly affects (destroys) this type of system. If you place your ranged unit far from the others, it won’t make any difference as it’s relatively just another game of rock papers scissors. In my opinion, they could’ve just given each unit a higher percentage of victory over the other, not an all out defeat, such as when a knight would always have to bend over when facing a ranger. The broken links are a drag so I hope they fix it soon.
The good:
– Awesome interface
– Planned Skirmish
– Unit Location
– Map system
– Quests
The bad:
– Broken Links
– Repetitive
– Combat System doesn’t feel too immersive (I prefer dice rolls LOL).
