Becoming A Legend
When reflecting on what makes a game “hardcore”, a few things come to mind: rigorous gameplay mechanics, difficult battles, and a steep grind to progress. At first glance, Dynasty Legends 2 may be expected to provide a stress relief style of action rather than a hardcore grind. However, upon further inspection, I realized just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Taihe Interactive’s newest free-to-play action brawler Dynasty Legends 2 has you experiencing the epic tale of the Three Kingdoms front and center as you battle your way through hordes of enemies, NPCs and other players alike, in your quest for greatness. The action starts off slowly with the game’s main story leaning in favor of cutscenes rather than battling, serving as a tutorial and unlocking gameplay features as you go along.
I dominated enemies without utilizing the dodge mechanic until the game “upped the ante” near the end of chapter two. At this point, I had to train my team and pay attention to combat mechanics for victory. The first few chapters ease players into the difficulties awaiting and the intricacies that go into optimizing your team. Something that is refreshingly necessary to succeed.
Test Your Mettle
Character progression isn’t only for the story mode and plays a role in your team’s effectiveness in other game modes. There are many ways to increase your BR (battle ranking) such as weapon evolution, gear, mounts, officer assists/bonds, officer evolution, officer advancement, and officer upgrading which, yes, are all different. Each training utilizes different resources to improve your stats in some way. This helps to avoid feeling stagnant in progression. Burnt out on experience orbs needed for officer upgrading? No worries–focus your attention on evolving your team with officer shards.
Game modes reward players with differing forms of currency and are bound to a daily limit. There are a plethora of modes to play from PvE boss battles, PvP arena (solo or 3v3), team dungeon, solo raids, trial mode—the list goes on. Unfortunately, you have to deal with the lackluster story mode to unlock the wide variety of game modes. Not all training mechanics are created equal in terms of the EXP they provide, however. As open-ended as the progression system may be, micromanaging everything can be very tedious.
What It Takes to Be A Legend
Knowing that increasing my BR actually had a significant effect on my gameplay experience felt great. Not every detail of the RPG elements such as officer class/aptitude and item statistics are explained though. Learning requires more than a bit of attentive research on the players’ end to understand everything. Players that lack the patience to digest these crucial details will suffer and find themselves confused.
A clear downside is having to deal with the gacha system to unlock stronger warriors. Officers are not created equal and at higher PvP rankings you can expect to fight the same over-tuned characters. Unfortunately, this clearly emphasizes a pay-to-win format. Overall, Dynasty Legends 2 provides a landscape for the casual breed of gamer yet ultimately yields to the more hardcore, sweaty variety. So why don’t you take up your spear or sword and see which category you fall into by downloading this superb tactical battler.
