Boldly going where plenty have gone before
Originally released on iOS as an Apple Arcade exclusive on April 2nd 2021 Star Trek: Legends has engaged its warp core and set course for consoles. Arriving on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox One. But does a mobile game translate well to console?
Story
Star Trek: Legends is at its (warp) core a gacha game. But the story actually ties in the gacha mechanic really well. You are the captain of the U.S.S Artemis. Study the Nexus (Star Trek Generations) and the energy it emits when you are suddenly pulled inside.
By refiguring the transporter to the energy of the Nexus you can transport crew back to the Artemis, But there is no way of knowing which franchise they are from. This nicely contained story easily explains how Lt Worf – Star Trek Next Generation, Michael Burnham – Star Trek Discovery and Dr Leonard McCoy – Star Trek original series, all end up on the same team together without it sounding outlandish.
Unfortunately that is as much praise as I can lay upon the story as I quickly became disengaged from it. Star Trek: Legends is broken up into episodes but the dialogue dished out before and after each fight is extremely bland, generic and drawn out.
This issue is made even worse when you remove Micheal Burnham from your team yet still have dialogue scenes between. It quickly became evident that no matter the team you use it has no effect on dialogue.
Personally I am a big Star Trek fan. From the original series all the way through to Voyager. Kathryn Janeway is my favourite captain of all time (Yeah I said it! So what? Wanna fight about it?)
I do however absolutely detest Star Trek: Discovery. I hate Michael Burnham as a character so couldn’t wait to remove her from my team. Only to find that of course she is in every bloody dialogue scene. I couldn’t disconnect with the story quick enough!
Gameplay
Can Star Trek : Legends, a mobile game, transfer well to console? The answer is kind of. The story, as mentioned above, is pieced out in tiny morsels so doesn’t really lend itself to console gaming.
The gacha mechanic works absolutely fine. Missions reward you with orbs, usually 5 or 10, and it costs 50 orbs for a random crew member or 75 orbs for a random character from a specific discipline such as engineering, medical or command.
The main beauty in Star Trek: Legends is the turn based tactical combat. It works so well. Each character has 4 moves. 2 unlocked at the start and the other 2 unlocked as you level up the character. The moves sets of each character are so varied that it males building a team of four members a joy. Finding characters with complementary skills makes team building incredibly in depth.
Using the D-pad to move between targets and L1, R1 to move between skills, menu etc can be quite cumbersome and makes it really obvious that Star Trek: Legends was developed for touch screen controls.
Cost
Now, when it comes to cost this is a little tricky to compare with its mobile predecessor. Star Trek: Legends was exclusively released on Apple Arcade so whilst free it did require a monthly subscription to Apple Arcade in order to play.
On the PlayStation Store Star Trek Legends is priced at £9.49 for the game or £15.99 for the game, 18 new characters and extra resources.
The 18 characters are also available as DLC. These are reasonably priced at £1.69 for 3 characters and extra resources.
Final Thoughts
Star Trek: Legends is blatantly a mobile to console port. There is no way you cannot notice that whilst playing. The way the story unfolds just doesn’t work well on console.
The combat is deep and tactical. It is executed wonderfully and is a fantastic base to build a console game from. There is plenty here to work from and build a great in depth tactical RPG. I would love to see a Star Trek game like that on consoles.
Unfortunately a mobile port just isn’t up to scratch.
