This week I’m taking another look at Eldegarde. What’s that? You don’t remember my previous overview? Ah well, I see what the issue is here: Legacy: Steel and Sorcery was the original name. Yeah, that really was a mouthful, wasn’t it? I think I much prefer the new name. And with a new name comes a whole host of new features.
To be perfectly honest, I’ve been so caught up with me over the last couple months that I had completely been ignoring some great games, including Eldegarde! I missed it when we originally reported on the launch and name change, but last week’s report – which included a PvE mode – caught my eye. I know, it’s madness when I’m being lured back into a game not because of its PvP but because of its PvE. I’m a bit ashamed of it myself.
And yet, here I am, playing Eldegarde and actually enjoying myself.
I know most of you lovely folks don’t need a refresher, but I really do like a good springboard into my pieces, and I find it really helps me frame out the whole conversation. Yeah, I bet you like it too. Eldegarde, or Legacy as it was, was largely a classic extraction game. I’ve actually gotten my feet wet a few times now in the genre between Dungeonborne, Vaultbreakers, and even Arc Raiders. Although I do tend to prefer the more fantasy RPG-style ones such as Eldegarde. And as I said in my previous coverage, the game is one of my favorite implementations of the extraction genre.
It’s one of those things that’s very tricky to put into words why one is better than another. On paper the mechanics are the same basically, but something about the way combat works and the controls of Eldegarde just really make it stick better with me.
Another thing that really stuck out with me was the interview I had with Chris Kaleiki, founder of Notorious Studios and former developer at Blizzard. So many MMO style mechanics and influences are clearly on display in this game that playing it doesn’t feel so much like an extraction game. At least not until the countdown to your death timer pops up!
Since the last time I played, the team has put a bunch of new features in. Obviously, the PvE mode is the biggest, and I’ll get into that more later, but the team at Notorious Studios has also added a straight up Arena. In it, each round of combat lasts up to eight minutes, and there are two time limits where the arena will get smaller. Sounds similar to a battle royale, but on a small scale.
We’ve also got new classes (at least since last I played) in the Wizard and Paladin. The Paladin has some righteous on-theme skills for tossing magical hammers and summoning some dangerous light to smite the enemies. Pallies also have a few nice team support moves in their protection skills. The Wizard I did not play, but I can imagine it tossing out some lightning and fireballs.
Finally, there are new PvE-only maps and even a dungeon known as Mor’thog’s Lair. It’s meant to be a proper challenge for players to complete as you’re even encouraged to equip your best gear because you don’t drop the items on death. Speaking of unique maps, there’s even the Warden’s Hub – an actual social square! A place where you can log in and hang out. That’s fantastic, especially for an extraction game.
The game has seen so many updates and changes since the last time I wrote, but the main one we have now is a proper PvE mode. But what does that mean really? Well, it’s exactly what you think: It means you go join a map just as you would before with or without a team, but rather than watching over your shoulder for another player to pop up and ruin your run, you’ve only got to worry about the NPC monsters and baddies. It’s honestly kind of refreshing.
See, my greatest weakness is showing weakness. It’s weird, I know, but hear me out. I absolutely hate joining a match and not having really learned my combos and skill rotations. I hate not having that muscle memory just baked in. I know it’s dumb! We play games and lose all the time, but when I get smoked because I’m still learning or just don’t feel confident yet, that sucks! So, a PvE mode helps me build that confidence. Maybe I should be a more confident fool, but I’m often not.
Now, I don’t recall whether these larger quest tracks existed the last time I played or not, but they work with the PvE mode extremely well. There were certainly the dailies and the main sort of quest that helped guide you into the higher tiers of the game, but these quests are very much traditional MMO fetch quests.
There isn’t a lot to them but they do move me through a relaxing gaming session while leveling. They aren’t without their peculiarities, though. For one, when you select a quest to track, it will include every item on the track in the quest log. So while I’m going through a run, I can see all these different tasks to complete. You might like that, but it really threw me for a loop for about 5 minutes or so while I was swearing that I had completed the fishing quest but I couldn’t for the life of me find where to turn it in.
As I said, rather than just the next item in the quest line being on display, everything you to do is visible. It’s not awful, but it does mean I need to specifically remember which one of these multiple things I need to do first before it’ll unlock the others.
And I’ve got to say, I’ve had a blast logging in and just knocking out quests while trying to learn the games ins and outs better. Unlike a lot of extraction RPGs, it also feels like being in a real MMO! When you’re roaming around, there are players doing the same tasks as you are. It’s not like joining a completely instanced zone or anything. It’s no wonder Eldegarde is wearing that badge proudly, with “mini-MMO” right there in the game summary. Gotta love it.
Don’t think I’ve gone totally soft, though, because I am very excited to play in the Arena more. As you know from Guild Wars’ Random Arenas, that is where I shine. Check back with me in the coming weeks and I hope to have more to report.
