Pros: Cast of 30 Masters, plenty of unique match mechanics, lots of maps and modes
Cons: Cheesy and tedious story mode, frustrating tutorials
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 9
Performance: 8
Overall: 9
We were given access to NCSoft’s newest game recently, a new MOBA called Master X Master that has been brought to the West, previously published in Korea a few years ago, this futuristic sci-fantasy brings a cast of thirty playable Masters to test out across multiple PVE and PVP modes with pretty stunning graphics. With an Alpha weekend access we put a few hours into the game to see what it was all about and where it feels like it stands in the current MOBA market.
From the onset Master X Master (MXM) shows promise, at first glance it looks like it shares a lot of qualities with many other MOBA, the look of the game and WASD controls of your character really had a Shards of War feel to it, the browser MOBA from Bigpoint, with a more Action RPG style combat. NCSoft have also pulled a bit of a Blizzard, with playable characters from many of the different IPs belonging to NCSoft (Lineage I, Lineage II, Aion, Blade & Soul, Guildwars 2, WildStar) featuring in the game similar to how Blizzard did with Heroes of the Storm only MXM has a few characters unique to the title.
The game has a number of game modes including a more Action RPG PVE mode where you roam around different levels fighting off enemies in a story mode, with the option of repeating the content at harder difficulties or trying them solo or with other players. PVP has a brawler arena mode where players battle it out to get the most kills in five minutes in a 3 v 3 showdown in a small map, or the main traditional 3 lane 5 v 5 MOBA game mode known as Ruins of the Titans.
In Ruins of the Titans players will push minion waves down three lanes, trying to destroy enemy towers, battling in the jungle for camps or securing boss spawns that will help push lanes into the enemy base and ultimately destroy the core. Earning skill points players will upgrade their abilities in their home base to make them more powerful as the game progresses, though the game lacks an in match item system where players need to earn gold, buy gear and upgrade it throughout the battle they will have the option of crafting gear and equipping powerful Node buffs to their characters prior to the match.
The matches themselves have a 25 minute cap where players either need to destroy the enemy core or acquire 1000 points to win the game, or ultimately the team with the most points at 25 minutes is the winner. This finite match length for many will throw the game straight into the “casual” MOBA scene and a far cry from the gruelling 50 minutes + slogs we see in League of Legends or DOTA2; but don’t be fooled to think that the game lacks strategy.
With a cast of thirty characters available in the Alpha that’s a pretty good platform to launch a MOBA from, with many MOBA launching with far less, albeit the game has already been out for a while. We see characters covering many traditional roles, from assassins, tanks, summoners and more allowing players to cover a number of styles of play with each character having their own unique QER skills and weapon attacks. What MXM does that no one else does is introduce a “tag” system where you enter the game with two selected characters and with the push of a button can independently switch between them at will with a 12s cooldown between switches.
This alone is very much a game changer when it comes to MOBA, from an individual point of view you can switch from one low health character to a fresh secondary character during a fight which keeps you in the battle longer but also will heal over time the inactive Master, giving you a lot more sustain in battles and the ability to stay out in the lanes for longer periods. More importantly is how the system affects team comps and more organized play; with players able to cover multiple roles you can ensure there’s always a healer available if multiple people choose one, or teams can fully switch from being an all offensive team when pushing to an all-defensive team when being attacked. Using stronger tank characters to push through to the enemies’ weaker backline and then switching to an assassin to finish them off can have dire consequences for a team unable to react to the situation. The ability to switch between characters, and do so effectively and tactically, we feel greatly increases the skillcap of the game and drags it from the realms of a “casual” MOBA.
The matches themselves also have a rather interesting Titan mechanic, as players earn their points through the battles they will automatically spawn an AI controlled Titan every 100 points that will spawn in the middle lane and smash his way through enemies, minions and towers to try and get to the core. This is balanced with powerful boss camps being available on the two outer lanes to keep players constantly pushing the enemy defenses down; more interestingly than that is that by collecting 10 Titan Shards and bringing them back to base through the game a single player gets the chance to convert into a Titan Incarnate (prompting a team vote when they try to do so asking other team members if they’re happy with this player becoming the Titan). As the Titan this highly mobile, hard hitting juggernaut can smash through enemies with ease and even comes with its own siege mode where it plants its feet, pulls out a huge hammer and can start smashing away towers or nearby heroes. Very fun.
Acquiring Heroes is done by either spending premium currency to instantly unlock them, or purchasing them with SOLONS, a secondary currency earned by playing games and PVE stages. Uniquely having SOLONS isn’t enough to get you a Master and each one comes with their own quest pre-requisite that players must complete before they can be purchased, such as completing 100 matches in Titan Ruins, or killing 5000 monsters in PVE, or collecting X number of an item from particular stages. At first thought it seems like a quirky and fun way to keep people playing the game, but we’re not sure whether it’s also a little bit grindy and a bit too much of a hurdle to jump in order to acquire the character you want.
One of the more frustrating hurdles for us was the duration of the tutorial and “quests”, which whilst guiding us through the myriad of features was welcome it was the story dialogue between characters that got very tedious after a while, a little too long at times, and felt ultimately unnecessary. Similarly quests such as “Recruit a friend” and “play games with a friend” forcing us to add random strangers is a little off putting; we’re social enough and capable of making our own friends without the game trying to force it on us and everyone else.
So ultimately where does MXM fit in the market? Most definitely a casual approach to the game with the match duration, but a high enough skill cap and strategic use of different features to make the game unique, interesting and extremely tactical; we’ll be surprised if it isn’t a fairly big hit with its Western release.
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