Sunday 10 January 2016

Player Preview - Chronicles: Runescape Legends




Title: Chronicle: Runescape Legends
Developer: Jagex
Status: Closed Beta

Official Site: http://bit.ly/1Yucb3F


Hey what’s up, Serpentine here taking a look at the collectible card game, Chronicles: Runescape Legends, developed by Jagex, the same guys behind the MMO. Chronicles mixes a little bit of the board game Dominion with a little bit hearthstone and some dungeon building elements thrown in there too. 


You won’t be facing your opponent directly, instead the game has you setting up your own enemies to face, spells to use and items to buy all of which will give you some kind of reward for defeating or purchasing. You still face off against an enemy player as you progress through the 5 different locations, just not really able to take them on face to face until the very end. Instead you will build up your character with items and stats while chipping away at your opponent’s health with various card effects, preparing for that final showdown, going into the fight with the best advantage you can. For every location that you arrive at, you will be able place 4 cards into play that you will encounter 1 after another until moving onto the next location, drawing 3 new cards and then place another 4 encounters and so on.


As you travel across these locations there are 3 main resources that you’ll want to be collecting throughout including damage to deal with some of the tougher monsters and your opponent, gold to purchase spells and equipment and finally armour to help soak up some of that damage that will be coming your way. The only way you can obtain these resources is by receiving them as rewards from cards, the reward type and amount indicated at the bottom of the card. There are other types of rewards that you can obtain too including weapons with added damage and durability to give you that extra punch as well as healing cards to help keep you alive. Apart from rewards, cards can also have additional effects that activate once the card is defeated like drawing additional cards or dealing damage to your opponent. When up against a monster card combat will be turn based with you, the player always going first. If you manage to defeat the monster card in one hit, the monster won’t be able to retaliate unless otherwise noted on its additional abilities. If you don’t manage to defeat it though, it will get a chance to attack you, dealing its damage indicated at the top left of the card to you. While it may seem silly to take damage from a monster or even a spell card, sometimes the reward from doing so is worth the risk. For example this card that deals 8 damage to you but rewards you with 7 armour and 1 gold can actually be quite effective when combo’d with “this” card that gives you health equal to your currently equipped armour. It has you coming out the other side with basically 7 free armour and possibly even more health if you already had armour beforehand.


The collectible card side of the game has the usual class based system with chronicles currently featuring 4 different classes including the armour based gladiator, Spell based Mage, Gold based Thief and finally a weapon based Blacksmith. They each have their own set of unique cards tailored to their play style with some unlocking by simply playing as that class and levelling them up or by opening card booster packs. Constructing your own deck will require a minimum of 30 cards to draw from, allowing for a maximum of 35 cards, however the more cards you have in your deck the less likely you are going to draw the ones you want unless of course you are running a heavy card drawing deck. At the start of a game you will draw 7 cards, all of which you can mulliganed if you want for the possibility of a better hand, after that though you will be stuck with the cards you draw. At the end of the game, depending on whether you win or lose, you will receive various different gems that can be used to craft new cards in a system that has unique gem currency for each card rarity. So legendary gems for legendary cards and rare gems for rare cards. There is also a card upgrade feature that will turn your normal card into a golden card, purely cosmetic, and will require these gems too.


As for game modes there are currently two modes based on the one format in casual and ranked, ranked being playable form the very start however you will be severely disadvantaged without some of your classes key cards. The ranked system is a little bit more advanced then what you’re probably used to in other Collectable Card games with 4 different tiers like Gold and Bronze, each with 50 levels to climb until you reach the top. To progress into a new tier you’ll have to be in the top certain percent at the end of each season, with a season currently planned to last around 3 months or so, this is subject to change though. Finally there is a campaign mode planned for the game later on in its development, details of which aren’t fully known yet.


Chronicles look and feel is actually pretty neat with its storybook slash board game style. Every card in the game has a standing 2D representation that spawns in from the card when you encounter them, most of which have great voice acting and sounds associated with them. Saying that though, it can get a little repetitive seeing as at this point in the game at least, most decks have very similar cards in them plus the animation sequences do take a little longer then they probably should. Also on the sound, particularly the gladiator’s voice, it’s a little bit jarring with a lot of post processing effects going on. I would also like to see volume sliders for both the games music and sound rather than just a mute unmute options that are currently available.


Other features of the game include a practice mode were you will be playing AI if you’re not quite ready to play against other people. There will be stats added to the game as well as various different items you can purchase from the in game store including bundles, gold cards and customization items for your main characters. As for the games relation to the Runescape universe, unfortunately I haven’t played in quite some time so I can’t really comment on its ties to the source material. 


Altogether Chronicles: Runescape Legends is an interesting take on the collectable card game genre and it’s a nice change with more of a PvE orientation. The game does rely on a little bit more guess work from players, anticipating what cards have been placed and were so you can try to counter or at least somewhat prepare for it. With Chronicles current set of mechanics and format, it does seem it will struggle with card variation and different abilities that they can have while still maintaining balance. It will be interesting to see what they come up with but they are working in a very confined space. If you’re looking for a collectable card game with a bit of a twist or perhaps prefer facing your own deck of cards rather than your opponents then Chronicles: Runescape Legends is definitely worth a look.


Anyway, that’s been my player preview for Chronicles: Runescape Legends. The game is currently in closed beta with no date set yet for open beta or release. If you want to find out more about the game check out the links below. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you guys next time.