This Hunter’s Arena: Legends review focuses on the PS5 version of the game released on PlayStation Plus.
Developed and published by Mantisco, Hunter’s Arena: Legends first released on PC in July 2020. Looking at Steam reviews that pre-date its PS5 release, it had been dead. Practically no one was playing it. Steam reviewers report an inability to even get into a game. So, for Mantisco, getting top billing as a free PS Plus title is guaranteed to bring in players they wouldn’t have had otherwise. And as we know, the real money in battle royale games comes from those precious microtransactions.
After spending several hours with Hunters Arena: Legends, I was left feeling conflicted. On the one hand, there’s a certain charm to its concept. On the other, it feels like a desperately mediocre attempt to mash together popular MOBA (massive online battle arena) and battle royale mechanics into a single game. That said, for a freebie, it’s worth a try because there are things here you might enjoy. And I suspect there’ll be some who pump serious time into it.
Hunter’s Arena: Legends Review – Gameplay
Battle Royale games are all the rage these days. And anyone who’s looking to develop one needs to think about how they can make theirs stand out. Mantisco did just that with Hunters Arena: Legends. Unfortunately, the reality is something of a letdown.
It offers both PVE (player-versus-enviroment) and PVP (player-versus-player) gameplay centred on melee combat. In the game, players can pick between three modes: Battle Royale Solo, Battle Royale Trio, and Tag Team.
Combat and Controls
The combat works as follows. There are basic attacks, martial arts attacks, skills, and blocks. In between those, you can run, sprint, dodge, and jump. Disappointingly, the combat often seems to devolve into button mashing and spam attacks owing to its complexity. There’s just too much going on for a fast-paced battle royale game. There’s so many different skills, cool down timers, and button combinations that PVP encounters feel like confused clusterf*cks of spam moves. Often, it just comes down to who saw who first.
Sometimes, though, you can get really intense and fun 1 on 1 encounters that involve real thought and perseverance, allowing the PVP element to come into its own. These are, however, few and far between, because you often won’t see your enemy coming. The mini-map offers no indicator of nearby players.
It’s a shame because the combat always works well in PVE encounters where the AI is more forgiving.
Battle Royale
Depending on if you want to play alone or in a team will dictate whether you opt for solos or trios in Hunter’s Arena: Legends.
Personally, I found the game’s mechanics do not lend themselves to trios. In fact, the issue of button mashing and spam attacks is only emphasised when you encounter teams of enemies. That’s because it is even harder to keep track of what’s going on on screen. Big and bright visual attack effects make things even worse, too.
At the start of battle royale games, you spawn on a floating platform over the large map. The platform’s barriers then lower and the game’s participants drop onto the map below. From here, you must scavenge loot and find the most money and best equipment you can. Equipment comes in the form of (non-visual) armour pieces, weapons and amulets that buff your stats. As usual for a BR game, they’re colour coded depending on their rarity and effectiveness. Equipment and money can be found by looting and by killing enemy NPCs around the map.
Of course, there’s a zone that closes in as the game progresses and you need to ensure you aren’t caught outside of it. Nothing new there. What is fairly unique is the inclusion of NPC bosses that drop rarer loot. They present a nice change of pace. Disappointingly, though, they’re often interrupted by other players who will steal the kill, murder you, and take the loot, making it all kind of pointless.
With time, I suspect Hunter’s Arena: Legends would become easier. But I feel the learning curve is too steep and complex for many to stick around that long.
Tag Team
Outside of Battle Royale, Hunter’s Arena: Legends offers a Tag Team mode. It pits two “legends” of your choice against two controlled by another player. Tag Team plays like Tekken with blocks and well timed skill moves really coming into their own. Obviously, the move-sets are nowhere near that deep. But the combat excels here rather than floundering as it does in Battle Royale.
Playing round after round, I felt myself become more in tune with the special moves of my chosen characters and grew to appreciate the differences between them. Unfortunately, there are some that are clearly overpowered and will no doubt become favourites. Nonetheless, the Tag Team mode was the most fun I had in Hunters Arena: Legends, even if I wonder how long it could keep you hooked.
How do you exit the game in Hunters Arena: Legends?
After dying, players must hold down (not just press) the Options button on PS5 to bring up the menu. From here you can choose to exit back to the main menu.
It might sound daft to include this in my review. But it seriously stumped me. And it’s symptomatic of a very big wider problem in Hunter’s Arena: Legends – nothing is explained as well as it should be. Not only that, but so much of it feels unintuitive. It’s like nobody other than the devs playtested it.
Hunter’s Arena: Legends Review – Characters
Before jumping into a game in Hunter’s Arena: Legends, you’re best to take a look at the Collection screen from the main menu. Here, you can see all the different “legends” or characters that are available. When you launch a game, it takes you here to choose your character, but it’s brief. So, doing it ahead of time and setting your favourite is basically a must. You can also do all the usual battle royale character customisations with different skins etc.
Mantisco have given players plenty to chose from and each have varied skills and move sets. There’s ranged, magic and melee combat based characters ensuring there will be something for you whatever your play style. As touched on earlier, however, there’s a considerable balancing issue. Those characters with ranged based moves seem to have a distinct advantage in the Battle Royale game mode (and Tag Team to a lesser extent). During my time with the game, I noticed more and more players opting for those characters.
Design
Graphically, the character models look fairly nice like the rest of Hunter’s Arena: Legends. Not “next-gen” or ground breaking by any stretch, but far from terrible.
The problem is that their designs are SUPER generic. They’re like every stereotypical character design you’ve ever seen from East Asian games – complete with “cool” macho white guys, a token black character and innocent yet sexualised looking females. There really isn’t anything in the way of innovation here but, in fact, the opposite. I can only hope more will be released with time to mix up the selection and add some much needed variety (at least from a design perspective).
Hunter’s Arena: Legends Review – Verdict
There are a few things to like about Hunter’s Arena: Legends. But, equally, there’s a lot that doesn’t work.
The combat, for instance, is fun and tense in the Tag Team mode but not really at all in Battle Royale – especially Trios. There’s good variety in the character play styles but not in the character designs. It also offers a level of complexity that might work in a single player campaign with a more forgiving AI but not in a battle royale full of other players.
For people who have the time to sink into it, they’ll likely find some enjoyment in Hunter’s Arena: Legends. The steep learning curve will unquestionably put casual players off, though. And if it wasn’t a freebie, I wouldn’t recommend it for that reason.
Overall Rating: 5.5/10
Version played: PS5
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