MU Legend is one of a slew of imported Action MMORPGs making their way west. Our thoughts on MU Legend Closed Beta 2 are summed up pretty quickly: it’s an OK time. MU Legend is neither immediately off-putting nor is it very unique or original. We’ve only leveled up to around 13 with a couple classes, but what we’ve seen so far is promising a decent online ARPG experience.
You may remember that ol’ Bill here was really hoping for Devilian to be great back when it launched. Sadly, after dropping my own money into it, Trion and Bluehole Ginno’s MMOARPG ended up “just OK”. That’s kind of my fear about MU Legend, and really I’m getting tired of our MMOs being “Just OK” every time a new one comes out. But that’s neither here nor there.
THE GOOD
MU Legend gets combat down well in this closed beta. With my Warmage and my Blader, I felt equally powerful. The Warmage is more of a glass cannon, while the Blader is a really tough melee DPS. I will say though that I think Webzen could tune combat better in the early levels. Not only is it incredibly easy, but it’s also slow. When I think ARPG, I think tons of mobs going down quickly.
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Why on earth can’t I play a dwarf?!
There are some fights where you feel swarmed and can put out good AOE DPS to drop them in a hurry, and in these moments MU Legend shines. But then there are times in the early levels when you’re just holding down left click waiting for a mob to die. That’s boring. Someone can comment if it changes further in, as my Warmage dealt with things much quicker around level 12 or 13 when he had more skills. But any MMO these days needs combat to hook you immediately, and the slow build to quick kills is worrisome.
I also like that Soul Level (think Diablo 3’s Paragon system) is something you have for each character, and it’s unlocked right from the start. The level cap in MU Legend is 65, but when you hit that, your Soul Level can keep going up and up, as you add more stats like Crit Damage, Movement Speed, Money Gain, Melee Power, Magic Power, Defense, and so forth to your character.
Mind the black border, here’s 30 minutes of gameplay.
The UI is clean, concise, and well thought out too. I’m curious to see what will be in the store, but right now it’s looking like it’ll mostly be mounts and cosmetics judging from a few vendors around the main town.
THE BAD
The localization, while it’s actually mostly complete, is still pretty generic. Quests aren’t very exciting to read, and even the devs get this as they let you skip it entirely and just get on with the quests. I do appreciate your character’s in-game running monologue that highlights plot points, but the game’s leveling and story is so linear that you’re going to be sick of it after one or two playthroughs. And the voice acting? Yeah, it’s not so hot either. They should include an option to keep the Korean VO in game.
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Come on, give me a dwarf.
Movement around the game maps feels rather slow too, and since the Soul Levels take a long time before they start to make a real difference, again I’d like to see a mount offered sooner or at least the basic movement speed increased a good clip. I always felt like my character was sort of slowly jogging even when running for his life.
The framerate, for a game that’s not exactly The Witcher 3, dips far too much in towns even on my beefed up desktop. It’s clearly not optimized very well, and could use some tweaking.
OVERALL THOUGHTS ON MU LEGEND CLOSED BETA 2
Honestly, there’s not a lot “bad” about MU Legend, just as there’s not a lot “Great”. It’s an OK game so far that will likely please people who want a more polished Action MMORPG. It’s a darn site better than other recent releases, and it may indeed be more fun than Devilian in the long run. We can sit on our hands and wait and hope for Lost Ark or some magical Diablo MMORPG, but in the meantime, keep an eye on MU Legend. It just might be worth a look come Open Beta.
