I think the vast majority of mobile gaming enthusiasts have at least heard about the existence of the N.O.V.A. series of games in one way or another The roots of this franchise go back to 2009, at a time when mobile gaming was not overly sophisticated with this kind of projects. For the first time N.O.V.A. showed itself to the world on iOS, where it made a splash. In those distant times, a full-fledged FPS on a mobile device was perceived as nothing more than a wondrous and wonderful miracle. In 2010, amid huge growth in the mobile games market, N.O.V.A. migrated to Android, where it also got a standing ovation. Not to say that the game was something really incredible, but, I repeat, at the time of its release on mobile devices it was downright revelation. In the wake of success, Gameloft decided to forge the iron while it is hot, having given birth to a sequel in 2010 (ported to Android in 2011), and in 2012 – a tranquil. All projects in the series became quite successful, and the development of a sequel seemed a matter of time.
At some point, the developers decided to test the free-to-play distribution model of N.O.V.A. 3, releasing the so-called Freedom Edition (in the Russian Play Market, the game was called N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom). To say that for mobile games the donate available in the Freedom Edition was very “Orthodox” is to say nothing. Yes, sometimes you had to watch ads, but the campaign was easily passed without any investments, and only multiplayer could force you to spend your hard-earned money. But the time has come for N.O.V.A .: Legacy (in the Russian Play Market – N.O.V.A .: Legacy), and, as they say, other times began. According to the developers, Legacy is nothing more than a remake of the very first N.O.V.A., only if you do not know this in advance, then in the future it is unlikely that you will come to such a conclusion even if you are familiar with the original. However, first things first.
One of the advertising slogans of Legacy sounded something like: “a full-fledged FPS with a size of only 40 megabytes.” I, as a person who is well acquainted with such a project as .kkrieger (if suddenly you are not familiar – I recommend at least one eye to look at the game, which occupies only 96 kilobytes), of course, I was not surprised by this, but I was very intrigued. At the output, however, it turned out to be a big zip – and the unpacked game “hung” about 400 megabytes. And these are flowers, berries in front. After a long unpacking, the game shows us a very scanty video (whoever remembers the videos of the three main games will understand me), and then throws it into the thick of the gameplay. The significantly reduced game size clearly did not benefit the graphics, which are at a level between the first and second N.O.V.A. I can hardly be called a great esthete of graphic beauties, but I simply do not understand the need to deteriorate the quality of the picture. Why couldn’t it be done at N.O.V.A. 3? For the sake of saving a gigabyte of memory? On modern devices, no one will notice its absence. There is no answer, as well as many other questions. By the way, the well-known Unity is responsible for the local beauty, which is quite capable of producing a good picture. But in Legacy, the complaints are not even about the engine – we have models with a small number of polygons, low texture detail and simple special effects.
The further is better. It turns out that, as unnecessary, the voice acting of the characters has been completely cut out of the game, and all dialogues are now conducted exclusively in the form of text. I think everything is clear about the convenience of reading them, especially in the heat of battle. Why it was necessary to do this is again not entirely clear. Save space? Or money? In any case, this approach finished off the gaming atmosphere in one shot. And this is not the main drawback, because all the horror lies in that very free-to-play, which has crossed all the boundaries of reason. Up to a certain point, you can go through the campaign more or less comfortably without pouring in funds – but towards the end of the game, an attentive gamer will notice that the difficulty has climbed somewhere into space. Taking a closer look at what happened, it turns out that the game recommends us to take more powerful weapons and implants to protect our protégé, or to improve the existing ones. Weapons and implants in Legacy are crafted right in the menu – if there is a certain number of cards for the object being created. But these same cards can be obtained in different ways. First, they are issued in small quantities every day; secondly, they are a reward for completing special missions, a successful game in multiplayer, and are also awarded when viewing ads. But even if you go through “special missions” a hundred times and memorize all the advertisements available on the Internet, it turns out that the coolest trunks are still not open, since their cards “fall out” only from boxes that are purchased for very real tugriks ( why don’t you have loot boxes). As for special operations, this is a completely separate type of bullying of players, since for conventional “cards” we are repeatedly forced to return to the levels already passed, to destroy the same opponents who even stand in the same places …
The next type of earnings is multiplayer. Everything would be fine, nice cards, well-known modes – but … you will definitely run into a seasoned donator, whom you can only scratch with your fart. The outcome, I suppose, is not necessary to chew. At the same time, if you are the same hardened donator, then your life in Legacy changes dramatically: in multiplayer you become king and god, and the campaign turns into an easy walk. But what can I say, if in the campaign, in case of death for a modest amount of trilithium (mined in the same way as cards), you can instantly resurrect in the same place where our protégé was successfully killed. Given the lack of saving at the levels (!) For such a decision, the developers want to chop off the causal place, so that it was discouraged. And so here – in everything. As it should be backed up, you can generally restore the shield, even to infinity, – there would be money. After spending some time in local multiplayer, I want to note that if it were not for the wildness with donation, the local multiplayer game would have become very competitive, and so we have … what we have.
Actually, Legacy is not the only drawbacks – there are positive aspects here, for example – management. It will not be an exaggeration if I say that it is the most convenient of all FPS in the game that I have so far “touched” on mobile devices. It seems that Gameloft did not invent anything extraordinary, but the clarity of the character’s response, super-convenient auto-shooting, the ability to customize control schemes and sensitivity are very pleasing. We must also not forget about optimization: the game behaves perfectly on almost any iron, in principle, capable of “pulling” games. Also, to the pluses, I would attribute the music, which looks decent against the general background of the project, not that it is particularly striking, but also not too annoying. Well, the title melody turned out to be especially memorable and deserves at least a solid “good”.
