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Legends of Chima Online: Some thoughts


fishers64

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1. Unique Features

The Chima MMO allows you to play as one of the members of the Eagle, Lion, Gorilla or Bear tribes.

2. Story

The story for the Chima MMO is entirely conveyed through animated dialogue between characters. Dialogue is displayed on-screen and played through the speakers as sound.

 

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The story serves mostly to advance the gameplay. While there are some minor actual plot points (such as the “enemy tribes controlled by plants” thing going on, it’s rather lightweight and tied into the game’s questing system. That means if you need to grind/sell stuff/level up/etc in order to complete a quest, the coherence of the game’s story starts to break down.

 

It’s also worth mentioning that, after the first few quests, there are two “quest paths” – one of the story and one of the outpost enhancement/grinding variety. While you can skip the latter quests, sometimes they are useful to complete to enhance your character to complete a story quest.

 

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3. Gameplay

LCO is very much an RPG, so get ready to grind. Usually you end up grinding for studs, the in game currency which allows you to buy most anything (including healing consumables, which given the game’s battles, you need a lot of). The game isn’t severe on the grinding aspect (breakables for studs are everywhere), but more on the waiting aspect. The game has two components:

 

A. The outpost

Your outpost of the game has several features. One is making armor and weapons. Initially you will get these dropped directly by enemies, but as the game progresses you will get weapon and armor blueprints which have to be developed out using bricks (harvested from brick mines) and crafting buildings (blacksmith for weapons, armorer for armor). The crafting buildings take hours to do this, unless you have golden bricks, and if you’re not a member, you will have very few. Spend them wisely.

 

The second feature of the outpost is buildings that provide you with powers in the game, such as summoning a turret or an air strike. These are highly effective against multiple enemies, such as in a portal battle.

 

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The third feature is stud generation, which is very limited for non-members. In my experience, the fastest way to get studs is to go to the map and hit something. However, the Lion Market building, which allows you to sell excess inventory to other members for studs, is very good and I recommend.

 

(Also, there is a glitch with this building: if you sell it with items for sale still in it, it will “auto-sell” them for you. However, it will cost you 3000 studs in the building sale/rebuy and 2 hours of your time, so often it isn’t worth it.)

B. The map/actual game

The map, and its navigation, is point-and-click (no arrow keys). This is true for navigation, hitting enemies, and striking breakables. The map allows you to explore multiple locations and fight enemies, although you have to unlock special weapons to get to some locations by questing. Once you have gone to a location, you can activate portals in the game to more easily access each area of the map and save on travel times (walking, MNOG II Style). However, doing so will cost you Chi, and you have to fight all the enemies that appear. Turrets and airstrikes are useful for this. It’s also a good way to level up.

 

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So the game feels like a cross between MLN and MNOG II, with a fantasy combat aspect thrown in. MLN applies to the outpost wait times; MNOG II to the endless exploring and walking.

 

You can get out of the MLN aspect of the outpost by becoming a member of the game and using golden bricks, however, and you can get out of the MNOG II aspect of the walking by winning portal battles. In that respect, this gameplay isn’t too bad.

4. Game System

A. Chat

As with all Lego games, chats are preset by default. You have to hit Ctrl to bring up chat options, which took me a bit to get the hang of. And the chat options never say what you want to say anyway. Unlike with other games, you can unlock text chat, but they really need an option for those of us over 18 lol.

 

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B. Controls

Like I said, point-and-click. It takes some getting used to. You have two weapons, and right-click for the second one, which can be awkward on the laptop touchpad I was using. This makes it so you unintentionally move around in battles, which is sometimes very bad, or you can’t get to the health power-up because an enemy is in the firing range. Arrow keys FTW, please.

 

C. Optimization (computer work)

I’m pretty sure this game won’t overload most modern PCs. One of my gripes is that it can sometimes take an eon to come up. When visiting a new area, sometimes the loading can slow down. But it’s no slower than Lego Universe was. Also: they could use better loading artwork. That lion face…urg.

 

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5. Recommendation/Not Recommendation

If you enjoy RPG style games, I think you’ll enjoy Chima online. But if you’re looking for something that emphasizes combat and quick advancement, then best to go somewhere else. If you do play, keep Sensei Wu’s words in mind: “Patience.”

 

Game quirks:

1. You can’t have more than 100 of any given item. If you do, the game spilts it up into two slots. This is especially annoying with consumables, as items you purchase in the thick of battle can go into the other slot instead of the one equipped for use.

2. Buying stuff takes a good five seconds. You have to open the market menu, slide over to the stuff you want, open the item page, hit the button, confirm…and then wait for the computer to do its little animation thing. Not necessary, WHY.

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