Legends of Wasteland

Reworking the review as the edits were getting longer.

As of present, many of the early issues have been resolved in terms of character creation, a variety of stat bugs, several broken skills and balance issues involving stats stacking when they shouldn't or skills scaling exponentially beyond what was intended.

The Talent tree is slowly getting better, but it's still difficult to search for some things in an indirect manner. You pretty much have to type a word of what you want, hope it's in the suggested list and target the specific one in order to locate them, instead of a simple keyword search. Example: You type Health and instead of getting all nodes related to health highlighted, it instead suggests specific stats related to health that you have to select to make those highlight instead.

Translations still leave a lot to be desired and the formatting of stats just doesn't work... Things like "Increase Area of Effect(Less) 50%" instead of "Reduces Area of Effect by 50%". I'm assuming this is an issue in how they are handling translations where they are just replacing words in Chinese with English equivalents but ignoring the need to change the format. This tends to result in it being difficult to ascertain what a property really does and whether it's better or worse, or even at times what it even effects. There is also still numerous Chinese text that does not have translations as they should.

That all said, they did add an encyclopedia with some explanations about unexplained properties (like finally telling us what Sweep exactly does), but it's still in a very basic form and I suspect will be getting regular updates.

Hybrid classes are still missing, and will be for the foreseeable future as they have been removed from their original planned release at launch and added to a future roadmap. You can tell from the store description, the demo and the web that the three hybrid classes were intended to be there at launch, but were pushed back to meet a deadline. This results in bad vibes for the passive web tree if you want to play a build that uses two stats, as you have to invest roughly 10-11 skill points to move from STR, INT or DEX into the dual stat sections of the passive web, which actually holds a lot of powerful talents/passives. Think Path of Exile but they decided to launch without Dualist, Templar or Shadow.

Overall, things are moving forward and improving, but there are still numerous bugs, QOL issues and translation struggles. Still at a state that those that enjoy doing trial and error theory crafting and experimentation will probably enjoy themselves, but casual players will probably be turned off from it.

If this kind of game interests you, you're an english speaker and don't enjoy a lack of handholding/explanation, I'd recommend adding it to your follow/wishlist and just keeping an eye on it but holding off on pulling the trigger. The core features are there and you can see a good game with lots of depth under the mess but honestly, this just wasn't ready for a 1.0 release and it shows.

About me

I like odd games. Especially games focused on logic puzzles, stats, character building, theorycrafting, and “number go up” progression.

This game fits that niche very well.

What the game does well

The item stat system is interesting.

The skill tree has enough depth to make progression feel meaningful.

The skill system is solid, even though it could still be expanded and polished.

The story is basically non-existent, but I do not see that as a negative. This game does not need a story. It lives or dies by its systems.

To me, this is the first genuinely good attempt at mixing an ARPG with an idle game. If you enjoy idle games and also like games such as Path of Exile or other ARPGs mainly for their character progression, build crafting, and stat scaling, this game is probably for you.

What the game currently does poorly

EDIT : They added a Lexicon with clear explained interaction of stats, that fixes some confusion.

There is no proper extensive tutorial, and several mechanics are not explained at all. Personally, I found that interesting because figuring things out became part of the challenge, but this will not work for everyone.

The localization of stats is unfinished. That said, if you have played ARPGs before, most stats can still be deciphered reasonably well. They are not unreadable, just unfinished and sometimes unclear.

The game requires you to spend time understanding it. It does not hold your hand. It does not explain everything. It expects you to experiment, read stats, test mechanics, and learn through failure. For me, that is a positive, but for many players it will be frustrating.

The game also promised six classes and a more polished product than what was delivered at release. That criticism is fair. However, compared to the previous demo, this version is a clear improvement and, for the price, I think it is acceptable. We are talking about roughly 6 €. I live in Germany and pay that for half a loaf of bread at a bakery if I am lucky.

Current progress

I have reached Wasteland Stage 130 and am currently crafting, improving my skill setups, and looking for ways to break the game on my next character.

Conclusion

This is not a polished mainstream ARPG. It is rough, unclear, and unfinished in several areas.

But underneath that, there is a genuinely interesting progression system with real potential. If you like idle games, ARPG character progression, stat scaling, and figuring out mechanics yourself, this game is worth the price.