What if Boggle had some RPG elements added into it? That’s what Letters & Legends accidently answers with its twist on finding the longest word games. Whilst its simple and straightforward art and audio won’t make it stand out, the core gameplay is more than solid as it challenges you to think on your feet.
After picking from three starter characters, you’ll be taken into a grid of 16 letters to battle against various fairytale monsters. Using the 16 letters you’ll be asked to find the longest word to cause damage to your opponent and kill them before they kill you. Letters are ranked gold, silver and bronze according to their damage so Z will cause more as a gold letter versus an E that will be bronze but easier to place. Letters are swapped out as they are used, thus keeping you on your toes.
Once you are used to the game mechanics, things start to warm up across 5 chapters of campaign mode and various other endless modes. Depending on your opponent and your character, certain letters will cause status effects. Some will heal when you create a 5 letter word. Others cause double damage, poison your opponent or freeze them to prevent a next move. Other letters will turn to stone and be unusable, or you can crack letters which means they can be used but won’t score any damage points. It’s like Boggle does Puzzle Quest and it works extremely well. You get to see what damage each word could cause before making your decision and so you can take your time to make the best move… sometimes.
Some battles add on time limits either per turn or for the whole battle. Other battles give you a massive board of letter tiles to use repeatedly to make loads of words within x minutes to win. There are also some guess the word puzzles by their dictionary definition. All of these extras beef up the core gameplay and keep you entertained because from chapter 3 of 5, the AI starts to make some big words that will hammer your health. It means making big words back a must, not just to kill the enemy but to also replenish your health or add a shield. Add in time pressure and its easy to fumble and lose. Losing a level has a low penalty as you can just replay it but I recommend diving into each chapters endless modes to get some cash bonus rewards to spend in the shop. Here you can buy health potions, damage buffs and an equippable item that often brings a positive status effect too.
Letters & Legends takes about 6 hours to complete if you are a cunning linguist, but has the potential to be much longer if you aren’t, or get sucked into the endless modes. I’ve have loved to have seen a local 2 player battle mode but what’s here is an excellent casual word game that delivers exactly what I expected. A fun hidden gem.
Review copy provided by developer. Letters & Legends is out now on Steam.
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