Mobile Legends has been growing to be one of the most popular games for Android. It is a good mix between fast paced action, and real time strategy, but simply put it is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA for short) game. Players who are a fan of this genre would greatly enjoy this game as it has characters that may seem familiar in order to appeal to a larger range of audience.
For those who are unfamiliar of the genre, then here is a quick explanation. A MOBA game is a type of battle royal that includes two teams. The two teams would then fight each other for dominance, and the team who makes their victory more pronounced wins. The victory conditions are commonly seen through taking “objectives”, such as taking down certain structures, or the enemy base.
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Mobile Legends’ Game Mechanics
In Mobile Legends, it takes upon a very simple concept. Destroy all of your enemy’s turrets, and their base, but as long as you destroy their base, you have sealed your victory. So far, it has 5 game modes: Normal, Ranked, Custom, Co-op, and Brawl.
Normal and Ranked Matches are game modes that place two teams of five players against each other in a map consisting of three lanes. Each lane has three turrets, and the bases are placed on the top right and bottom left corners of the map. The objective here is to destroy the enemy base, while making sure to claim the Turtle and Lord for your team. Defeating the Turtle gives free experience points and gold, while defeating the Lord summons a weaker version of him to fight for your team. Co-op follows the same premise, except you are facing AI heroes.
The only difference between Normal and Ranked Matches is Ranked Match gives you a certain rank that you need to grow from. It starts from Warrior III, and ends at Legend.
Brawl Match is a game mode that puts the same number of players into two teams again; except you cannot choose your own hero. The game chooses the hero for you at random, and you have to choose between two. It’s a single-lane map consisting of only two turrets and the bases found in the same corners of the map. Your objective is to destroy the enemy base, just like the first three above.
Custom Matches are what the name entails. Here you can create a room and organize your own team and the enemy team as well and you can choose the game mode you wish to play.
It also has very basic controls. There is the left analog stick that lets you move your character around, and buttons on the right to perform very specific actions. The large button makes your character attack, while the three smaller buttons positioned as an arc above it are the skills exclusive to your chosen hero.
There are also buttons found in the bottom of the screen. The icon on the right of the buttons can be changed for different effects- this particular part is called Battle Spells.
Each hero can have varying strengths due to a factor known as “Emblems”.
Mobile Legends Heroes
The heroes in Mobile Legends are both unique and not. Some of the heroes have borrowed premises from existing heroes of other games, but it was done so to give a familiar feeling to veteran MOBA players. Though, these heroes are separated into different roles.
We have Tanks who are tasked to take most of the damage and carry the team by being durable. Fighters are assigned to deal a lot of damage, next to Assassins who are tasked to take out the squishy heroes. Mage, Marksman, and Support are there to finish up the kills, and deal most of the damage when it comes to team fights. These three are the most important as they would be the deciding factors of the game.
Personally, I play the roles of Tank, Fighter and Mage more than others, and I main the hero called Ruby.
Mobile Legends Pros
Mobile Legends is definitely a fun game. It’s a good game to bond with your friends, especially if your friends are fellow MOBA players. If not, it’s a good way to introduce them to the MOBA genre, since it is ridiculously face-paced and actually challenging if it comes down to it. The game is well-made, and there are rarely any bugs. If there were, they would immediately try to fix the bugs, and provide a well thought out and enjoyable experience for the players.
The graphics are average, and the skins for the heroes are pretty to look at. My personal favorite is Ruby’s Catgirl skin.
Mobile Legends Cons
The heroes are expensive to buy. This means you have to invest so much of your time to playing this game if you wished to unlock the other heroes. You can also use real life money, but it’s not advised over how expensive it is. The heroes are also very unbalanced. Some of the heroes are more broken (a term used to describe an overpowered hero) than the others, and the Emblems provide an unfair advantage to players who have played a long time over players who just started.
There are also very odd bugs that players would encounter, and the community can be very bad. There are plenty of awful players who frequently talk trash, but that is something to be expected in any gaming community. While you play as well, you’ll have a very good chance raging instead of enjoying the game because of how bad your teammates will be playing. If you’re going to play Mobile Legends, I advise playing with friends than strangers. At least that way, you can hit them in real life.
Overall Review
I give Mobile Legends a 7/10. It is a good game, one that I would definitely recommend but not something I’d play frequently. It gets boring without any friends to play with, and it gets more annoying than enjoyable if dealing with horrible teammates.
About the Author: Another guest post contributed by my youngest son- 17 years old, grade 12 student, who excels academically, a gamer, a writer and the author of The Lunacy of a Warrior.
