Shadow of Legend gets an "A" for effort
My first encounter with Shadow of Legend, I was actually having lunch with an avid gamer friend of mine, where we came to talking about MMORPG gaming in the future. How long will it take for MMORPGs to get to the level that will simulate The Matrix? Would it be a good idea for Nintendo to make an MMORPG for the Wii console? What kind of technology will MMORPGs have to cross into to evolve as a genre of gaming? These were the type of questions we were asking ourselves and discussing about. I went back home to do a little research for my own person insights. I stumbled upon Freewareppc.com, and lo and behold, Shadow of Legend was first on the list! Curious as I was, I decided to give it a shot. Why not? I have all the equipment for it anyways. Turns out this bad boy game was quite a handful when it came to installation. After downloading 2GB worth of data, an hour of reading the official website's forums to find out how to install the client, and registering for an account, I was ready to roll.
Now I'm standing on the magical land of Agnes as an elf mage. The first thing that struck me was clarity of the graphics and the scenery, which were very vibrant and colorfully displayed on my pocket pc. The next thing I noticed was that you had to figure out the controls for yourself. Although, there were instructions of the interface on the website, I didn't feel they were sufficient enough, and besides, using it probably took you less time to learn the controls than reading about it. I just wish the game was designed with a beginner's tutorial like most every new game nowadays. Anyways, on to playing!
As I journeyed through Agnes, questing and trying out all the features, I realized that driving force of this game is the desire to continually reach higher levels. You can view the Top 50 ranked players on their website, so if you're on top, then you can have bragging rights and act as if you rule Agnes. The desire to get strong and be on top has you continually seek more experience points, so for the most part, you'll be spending countless hours questing, crafting, and participating in the "Mushroom Cultivating" event in order to gain those experience points.
However, you also realize that while this driving force is the where the strength of the game lies, it is also the game's folly. If you compare Shadow of Legend to such games as Diablo 2 or the MMO, World of Warcraft, you can see that the appeal in those games were a playable storyline, puzzles, interactive maps, and most importantly, the game design facilitated team work and team building. Shadow of Legend attempts to do that, but as you can observe, no one is fighting each other on the battlefields in great numbers. There is no supposed war going on as what their website purports. I don't mind that SOL hasn't implemented those aforementioned features yet, because the game is still in beta, but as the final release comes along, the players will be the ones to judge.
Well, I have to say that Shadow of Legend certainly gets an "A" for effort and for innovation. I like the idea that there will be a graphical MMO for mobile phones. However, the real question is whether the developers are trying to advance that technology or enter the PC videogame industry? I think most of the original beta testers would like see the advancement of mobile technology, and believe that SOL can only survival in that industry, unless the game is stepped up to current MMO standards.
If Shadow of Legend is going to take on the PC videogame industry, then I'd like to see the game take a more direct approach to dealing with the major needs and wants that MMORPG players require out of an MMO, instead of continuing to develop new features that are irrelevant to the existing elements that make successful MMOs successful. Yet, despite SOL's shortcomings, I still feel as though this game has begun a revolution in the mobile device industry. I do recommend giving it a spin.