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MU Legend

MU Legend is a hack-and-slack MMORPG that is the sequel to the popular South Korean game MU Online. Dark fantastical dungeons with waves of enemies await, with RPG-like elements and gear progression.

Developer: Webzen
Publisher: Valofe
Type: Isometric MMORPG
Release Date: November 7th, 2017
Shut Down: May 31, 2023
Pros: +Skill customization. +Great 3D graphics. +Difficult dungeons.
Cons: -Bulky user interface. -Hallway maps.

Overview

MU Legend Overview

MU Legend is a hack-and-slack MMORPG developed and published by Webzen. It is the sequel to MU Online. Originally labelled MU2, MU Legend was announced in 2004, but development didn't begin until 2009. MU Legend features four unique classes with special abilities. Choose to be a Blader, Dark Lord, War Mage, or a Whisperer. Level up as you fight mobs, gaining experience and unlocking stronger abilities. Pick up loot to craft gear, and join arms with friends to take on the endless waves in the dark dungeons. MU Legend features a guild system, a quest system, skill trees, and different game modes/dungeon objectives.

MU Legend Key Features:

  • Unique Character Classes – choose from four different classes, each with powerful abilities, strengths, and playstyles.
  • Great Graphics – experience smooth 3D graphics through the Unreal Engine 3.
  • RPG Elements – enjoy traditional RPG elements, such as skill trees and quests, artfully mixed with hack-and-slack gameplay.
  • Randomized Dungeons – dynamic dungeons adjust their difficulty to character levels.

MU Legend Screenshots

MU Legend Featured Video

Mu Legend - Sunday Funday Round 67

Full Review

MU Legend Review

By, Baruch Spinoza

Webzen wants MU Legend to be your go-to hack-and-slash ARPG. It perpetuates the cathartic combat of mowing down armies of mobs, interspersed with dungeon diving and skill customization. The latest MU is a game brimming with as many flashy effects as there are NPCs huddling in circles waiting for you to be the needle in their personal bubble. The question that hangs heavy in the air is, “Is it worth my time?” Is this free-to-play ARPG riding its wings to the sun, or will it burn up and fall back to the earth?

The Set Up

There’s five classes to choose between (the fifth being unavailable as of this writing) and they all boast their own degree of GAP model exaggeration. Customization is limited: a few presets for hair and face that don't differ much, though you can dip your character in any color you want. There’s enough personal flare for an ARPG, a genre that typically has limited sculpting.

Where your character will solidify their identity is through their patchwork armor set. You can preview endgame gear from the character creation menu, and they’re impressive looking. But you’re not getting that armor anytime soon. Starting at level 1, every class shows some skin and gradually covers up like they’ve just left the Garden.

One [Person] Army

Fights are a firework spectacle of colorful skills that could entertain any twelve year old bouncing off the walls; amphetamines can’t calm MU Legend’s effects. Combat is tapping all of your hotbar abilities, or finding the few that work in conjunction, after rounding up as many mobs in a given area as you can. It’s a spamfest, flinging ragdolls all over the field.

Abilities are bound to your keyboard keys such as Q and R which makes the rhythm of combat smooth as glass. And thankfully so. It makes the constant firing off of spells and spinning around in circles while holding your sword in front of you second-nature. Your fingers know what to do before your brain does.

But spamming the same skillset for every single encounter becomes repetitive, a trudge through a mire stretching to the horizon. Let me run you through my War Mage’s routine: I start by rounding up every enemy, then I can use an AOE stun (normally not worth the mana), throw down a fire-lane to dish out some damage over time, then I hold Q and charge up an electric surge until every enemy is a blackened crisp. If it wasn’t for the bombastic animations combat would become stale despite being flamboyant.

Flashy Abilities

Combat does manage to hold onto some freshness thanks to the impressive diversity of skills each character has available. It’s a children’s library of abilities, and just like a children’s library you’ll never use them all. So you have to decide on a playstyle, choosing your favorite 7—including an expert skill. Mixing and matching alleviates the sense of repetition.

As you use a skill you’ll unlock slots to equip crests: gems that enhance an aspect of a skill such as improving its Magic Attack or how much Critical Damage it dishes out. Each skill can have three crests equipped, but you’ll have to unlock slots by using those skills again and again, and again. While the bonuses are typically minimal they enhance your particular combat approach—prioritizing magic attack or critical damage—and quickly stack up into noticeable improvements. It’s another layer of customization and gives the impression that you’re your own hero, since most players not following a guide will end up with a personalized build.

Trapped In A Corridor

MU Legend’s world is a series of hallways stringed together by instance-portals. They twist and turn, with little pockets here and there, to give the illusion of an almost open plain. But in the end, they’re contained passages with walls like bowling bumpers dictating where you can roll. The environments are boring, lacking charm. Sure, some of the color palettes pop, and some of the architecture almost gives a sense of a lived-in world, but it falls short of anything but monotony.

The maps are designed like a line at a theme park, to push you through the game’s questing content. Once you fulfill the needs of a few exclamation marks in one area the map’s two hands nudge you along to the next parts quarantine, which you’ll inhabit until you fulfill the NPC’s tepid demands. If they weren't so small it wouldn't feel contained. But MU Legend’s world is like a series of rooms. You can’t move on to the next room until you fulfill all the requirements of the one you’re in.

Rift Diving

Thankfully, Rifts are scattered throughout the world, which are—typically—optional dungeons, and they break up the tedium of checkmarking one quest after the other. In fact, dungeons (rifts) are MU Legend’s best content. Far from being brainless, they manage to be challenging by swarming you with mobs and elites so that potions matter. You can often find multiple bosses in a single Rift, making you kite and dodge to shave their health down to nothing.

Oftentimes, a rift’s aesthetics makes absolutely no sense with the environment you’ve just entered from. Like many aspects of MU Legend, there’s little harmony within the world. But rift designs are the most impressive corridors: magma pits, ancient Babylonian temples, ziggurats with wall-to-wall ghosts; they look great. And they make sense as hallways, as you battle your way to bosses or treasures. The best part? Rifts have multiple difficulties so you can challenge yourself as you level up, or discover what teamwork means by partnering with other players in one of the harder difficulties.

Final Verdict - Good

MU Legend is good enough: an ARPG you grind while doing something else and tune in your attention when skipping through dungeons/rifts. Simple combat controls and gaudy skill effects make combat interesting for a bit, but become hackneyed through repetition unless you switch up your rotations, which is easy to do. The best aspect of MU Legend is its dungeon diving: gather a few friends and challenge yourself on higher difficulties to feel a sense of accomplishment. MU Legend is a fun distraction, a good ARPG to invest some time, but not a game to make a second life in.

Screenshots

MU Legend Screenshots

System Requirements

MU Legend Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP SP3
CPU: Intel Quad Core / AMD Phenom II x4+
Video Card: GeForge 8800 GT / Radeon HD4850 and above
RAM: 3GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 25 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 7 (64 bit), Win 8.1 (64 bit), Windows 10 (64 bit)
CPU: Intel i5 760 / AMD Athlon X4 740+
Video Card: GeForge GTS 450 / Radeon HD4890+
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk Space: 25 GB

Music

MU Legend Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon!

Additional Info

MU Legend Additional Information

Developer: Webzen
Publisher: Valofe

Game Engine: Unreal Engine 3

Closed Beta Release Date (Korea):
April 21, 2016

Closed Beta 1: October 25, 2016
Closed Beta 2: February 21, 2017

Release Date (Western): November 7th, 2017

Shut Down: May 31, 2023

Development History / Background:

MU Legend is developed and published by Webzen, a South Korean gaming company. This hack-and-slack MMORPG is the sequel to Mu Online. MU Legend was first announced in 2004, but development didn't begin until 2009. The game was revealed at the G-Star Expo in 2011 in Busan, South Korea as MU2, but was later renamed to MU Legend. On April 06, 2016 WEBZEN Head of Global Business Richard Moon announced that MU Legend would be published in the West. Mu Legend entered closed beta in Korea on April 21, 2016. MU Legend entered its first round of Closed Beta testing in NA on October 25, 2016. It then held a second round of Closed Beta testing on February 21, 2016. Mu Legend entered open beta on November 7th, 2017. Publishing rights for MU Legend were transferred from Webzen to Valofe on November 26, 2019. Players were given up to 6 months to transfer their characters to the new service. The Valofe version was shut down on May 31, 2023.