Do you have a burning desire to upgrade stuff — upgrade stuff some more — shove upgrades inside those already-existing upgrades, and afterwards possibly cram even more upgrades into your already glowingly radioactive gear?! Well — ignoring the fact you might have some issues — you’d likely be an ideal candidate for Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings (out now, free), an app striving to be a fully 3d mobile-based MMORPG! Sidestepping the fact that GTArcade recently ran some rather misleading ads for Legacy of Discord, the actual product contained within is far better than you’d initially expect of such a game.
The app begins with you picking from one of three classes (although it’s hinted there will be more later on): Berserker (a beefy armor-plated man, wielding fire); Blade Dancer (a less beefy guy, wielding lightning); or Sorceress (a half-clothed woman, wielding ice). After which you’ll be thrown into a plot regarding humanity’s last bastion, the Celestial City, defended by stalwart Guardians — powerful humans wielding elemental powers — in a war against an oncoming demonic onslaught. The end result initially — for a number of reasons — may seem a lot like Bleach: Brave Souls (our review), but truly deserves to be called an MMORPG for reasons I hope to make clear before this review is over.
Anyways — getting back to business — you may move your chosen hero around the angled top-down battlefield by using the screen’s left-hand side like an analog joystick, whereas the right-hand side contains buttons for your various actions. Although you’ll initially only begin with a simple attack command, you quickly grab a cadre of three special moves — specific to your chosen hero — that may be used whenever they’re cooled down. While those three aforementioned moves will additionally require MP (in ordered to be activated), you’ll eventually obtain a fourth special attack — which never uses any MP — that may only be used after filling your rage gauge (which I’ll cover more later on).
Admittedly at this point — especially when you’re just starting — Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings is going to look at a lot like Bleach: Brave Souls, you even have an option to let the game’s AI play stages for you (here’s a hint: this is sometimes a very bad idea). Part of this is because, early on, you have little more to do than run your elementally powered Guardian through rather simple story stages (many of which I think are probably survivable with your eyes closed). The game’s true differences will start to arrive as your character begins leveling up, as each level begins unlocking more-and-more different game modes for you to engage with (far more than we can fully cover).
Of course — as you traverse this story — you’ll quickly find yourself pit against ever harder foes, meaning that finding ways to empower your Guardian will quickly become a top priority (especially since leveling up only helps so much). Ergo you’ll gain access to — as I previously mentioned — a slowly increasing array of methods for enhancing your gear, so as to help you keep up with the eternal treadmill of protecting Celestial City. Even better is that — unlike most other mobile games — all of these upgrades will carry over to your next piece of gear (all of which furthermore change your appearance when equipped), and absolutely none of them are exclusively reserved for paying customers.
Now admittedly this plot — wherein you defend Celestial City — isn’t necessarily anything to write home about, but it’s at least plausibly translated (which sadly isn’t something I can universally declare for all parts of Legacy of Discord). Yet it’s the game’s other mission types, some of which admittedly exist just to permit one to farm various upgrade enabling items, wherein the true heart of Harmony of Discord begins to shine. Because — and I’ll be honest — Bleach: Brave Souls would be an infinitely superior product, or rather it would be if Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings was trying to sell itself exclusively on the campaign-mode’s — predominantly single player — merits.
Chief amongst these other game modes are Plunder and Icefire Field (as previously mentioned: many others alternate modes exist as well, but they begin to extend well beyond the limitations of a single review). Players just beginning to explore Legacy of Discord will likely become bored with the Arena, wherein players engage in AI-driven matches to determine who’s stronger (with the results often being a foregone conclusion). Plunder and Icefire Field — however — provide the multiplayer competitiveness that truly separates Legacy of Discord from Bleach: Brave Souls (especially for players on lower-end devices, as Legacy of Discord runs super stably on even the iPod Touch 5).
Plunder — to start with — serves as an open multiplayer arena for most of the day, and is furthermore one wherein players are specifically forbidden to use the game’s automated AI function. What truly makes players come rushing to Plunder — however — is that three times a day the arena will be chock-full of Treasure Chests, and the contents of these chests may be shared equally with your guild members (should they also be present). You’ll certainly want someone watching your back — no less — as these chests all take some time to open (during which any attack will fully reset that progress), and the better chests naturally take longer to open than the lesser ones.
Things in Plunder heat up further ten minutes after the chests appear, as that’s when a group of three rampaging bosses — of varying difficulties — appear for the competing guilds to tackle. Ownership of victory during these bosses doesn’t necessarily go directly to the strongest guild, as possession of a slain boss — and the associated rewards — instead go towards whoever scores the final hit. Even with the best coordination possible, guilds must always be wary of other teams attempting to charge in when their target — whom they’ve been collectively whittling away — is finally nearing death.
Icefire Field — however — is a different beast altogether, allowing five-player teams — whose members often won’t be from the same guild — engage in what could practically be called a MOBA unto itself (then again, this game is from League of Angel’s creator). Teams “Mystic Ice” and “Conflagration” will vie to destroy each other’s Divine Crystal, with the battlefield balancing caveat being that these Crystals will generally fry any opposed heroes whom get too close. As such it’ll usually be up to the two sides to find less direct methods for assaulting their opponent’s base, most of which involve summoning monsters to do their dirty work for them (and all of which must be earned).
Seeing as how it can be hard for players to keep track of Legacy of Discord’s various arenas, gold rushes, city defenses, MOBA-esque modes, fishing trips, and everything else possible, helpful arrows will point towards options players haven’t yet fully tapped. Each of these various game modes may either be played for a limited daily amount, or — failing that — will only reward players with progress enhancing items up to a certain point (no matter how many times they’re played afterwards). Fully availing oneself of all possible upgrade opportunities each day is certain to keep most players busy for around two hours (once they unlock everything), and amazingly you can’t even pay to skip this.
At this point — since I’ve already mentioned there’re no perks exclusive to paying customers — you’re likely wondering how Legacy of Discord’s monetization works, and I will say that it definitely doesn’t involve watching ads. Beyond paying to unlock in-game Pets and Wrathwings more expediently, the biggest use for Diamonds is actually to give yourself additional turns at the game’s various daily mission types. You actually can earn a hefty supply of Diamonds just by doing your daily missions, the catch is that many potential uses for those Diamonds only become available based on your VIP level.
This VIP Level — which causes various opportunity expanding options to unlock — is a permanent reflection of however many Diamonds you’ve directly purchased, rather than found via daily missions. Ergo it’s only through buying Diamonds that you become capable of paying for certain things with Diamonds, although there’s certainly plenty of things to use Diamonds on otherwise (even at VIP Level 0). Honestly, although a Diamond infusion could give someone a temporary burst forward (assuming they then played the extra mission runs), I can personally confirm this really isn’t necessary.
Speaking of those Wrathwings I recently mentioned, it just about high time I finally got around to explaining the Rage Gauge I mentioned much earlier (especially since they’re the “Furious Wings” mentioned in this game’s title). Celestial City’s mighty Guardians are said to be capable of transcending human limitations by equipping an all-powerful Wrathwing, which are legendary artifacts built for the purpose of fighting demons. Although players don’t initially begin already owning one, earning one of these treasures is a right-of-passage for young Guardians (odds are players will have one of their own — of which many are available — within less than a week, all without ever paying money).
Anyways — getting back to point — a player’s ultimate special technique may only be executed after their Rage Gauge is completely full, which itself is slowly filled by performing any of your other attacks (including even the basic attack). By itself this is generally just another special attack — albeit one with massive range, and incredible damage potential — but this quickly changes after equipping your first Wrathwing. Afterwards each invocation of your ultimate attack will cause your Wrathwing to temporarily sprout colossal angelic wings, which in turn leads to your Guardian’s stats becoming massively boosted for the next fifteen seconds.
Although Wrathwings can certainly help with your damage potential, as well as your character’s appearance, what they sadly won’t enable one to do is fly (despite the promises otherwise put forward in recent ads). Admittedly this lack of flight didn’t hamper my enjoyment of Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings, but I can — all-the-same — understand why many others were quite disappointed to not find this promised feature. It’s still fully possible a true flight mode might be coming in the future — however — seeing as Legacy of Discord is still receiving active updates (yet thankfully not as often as Bleach: Brave Souls, which often had massive-updates two-to-three times per week).
By the way — much the same as armor upgrades — you’ll never regret improving a lesser Wrathwing when a better one finally rolls-around, for even your unequipped Wrathwings all help add to your vital Battle Ranking (a number estimating your Guardian’s power). This really can’t be overstated, but literally every piece of outdated equipment — including older sets of armor — still serves a means of vitally aiding you in Legacy of Discord (and I’m not talking about junk vendoring). While a player could certainly make choices that might not make for the most expedient path towards greater power, there are very few ways in Legacy of Discord to ever fully waste your daily resources.
If I had one complaint — other than the fact that, as an MMORPG, you must always be online — for Legacy of Discord, then I’d likely have to reiterate that one can easily spend upwards of two hours pursuing all daily opportunities (or even more, if you pay). Being a royal grind isn’t exactly an uncommon thing for most MMORPGs, yet most mobile games don’t usually ask for this much regular play time (but you’ll need to, should you want to keep pace). At the very least I can confirm that most of Legacy of Discord’s daily activities are, if taken one at a time, each capable of fitting within a single lunch break (although massive battles in Plunder can sometimes go overboard).
My second complaint — although admittedly lesser — is that the competent translation quality seen in the game’s story campaign doesn’t carry over to all system messages, leading to your inbox sometimes being filled with hilariously incomprehensible notices. While not necessarily the developer’s fault, another area where Legacy of Discord can be hard to understand is when you run into foreign players, although the game attempts to make up for this via an in-game translation tool. While turning this function on can certainly help to mitigate the confusion, the offered translations — as you can likely already imagine — will sometimes feature practically magical levels of utter nonsense.
Still, if you can overlook these matters — and are willing to grind — then Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings is a free app that can easily keep you busy for months to come (even if you’re somehow still operating on an older iDevice, such as the iPod Touch 5).
Verdict
Legacy of Discord: Furious Wings is a free-to-play fully-3D MMORPG built for mobile devices by GTArcade (the same people whom developed the mobile-based MOBA: League of Angels), which furthermore runs stably even on an iPod Touch 5. While the game may initially seem superficially similar to Bleach: Brave Souls, the Action-RPG contains many features — and multiplayer game modes — that all genuinely make the MMORPG label something actually deserved. The game sadly sometimes suffers from poor translation issues for parts outside the main campaign, and — while not exactly pay-to-win — the daily grind-to-win missions can be rather time consuming.
