Games where you match blocks are not that rare, but I love those with RPG elements and clever mechanics here and there. 10000000(000?) was a good example of such a game, but Block Legend is less so. I found that a few mechanics were superfluous or not well thought out and the progression was almost doing more harm than good.
The way to play the game is to tap blocks when you have matches of two or more. Your character at the top of the screen moves towards a boss, encountering enemies and towns along the way. You match gold to get money, chests to get items, heart and other things to replenish your health and your shields… But not all blocks are worth it. Experience blocks give ridiculously small amounts of exp, so small they’re not to be bothered with, gold is almost useless because the items aren’t good at all and matching hearts and shields for no reason gives you nothing. I wish matching blocks outside of battle did something - maybe make your movement speed related to your matching? Right now, you don’t even have to.
One-use items are broken because they last for a very limited number of turns, about 1 or 2, and you get into so many fights that one item that would raise your strength by 3 for 2 turns feels so insignificant. Equipment is better, but you won’t always find it on sale in the random towns. There’s also the quest system, you get star blocks by completing quests, and these blocks are a currency you can spend all away unlocking characters and even getting back items you had in a previous run. I wish the blocks weren’t spendable and were instead gating your access to stronger characters. Also the quests are kinda random, so there’s no real progression through them. The idea to spend a finite resource to get a one-use item that I don’t care about is also pretty weird.
All and all, this game has some charm and some depth, but I don’t think it’s up there yet. Bosses have incredibly high stats, making it hard to get past the third world even though I was steamrolling everything beforehand. Having high shields is fine to block things for the first turn, but usually you won’t be able to replenish them during a boss battle. And the game crashes when you die, but that’s not a big issue. Block Legend looked neat, but alas, I was let down.
