MOBAs are a mystery to me as a gamer. I understand the concept and see why some gamers gravitate towards it, but it never appealed to me.
Maybe it’s because I’ve never been a big PC gamer, or that the controls in MOBAs can feel overly repetitive, but it never felt like I was missing out. However, that’s until I came across Master x Master from NCSoft.
I was hesitant at first to try the game at E3 2017, because of my indifference towards the MOBA genre, but doing some research and watching some beta gameplay on YouTube piqued my interest. The aesthetics and the characters really popped and it looked fun and easy to play even for a noob like myself.
So when I finally sat down with the Master x Master team I was nervous but excited to dive into this world.
I was excited to try something new and there were so many characters to choose from and they all looked like a blast to play. You have all sorts of archetypes, from Ice Giant tanks to stealthy ninjas and everything in between (Just a FYI, my personal favorite was the gatling gun toting Poharan ).
Also, Master x Master pulls characters from a ton of NCSoft properties, like City of Heroes/Villains . That’s not to say there aren’t unique characters to this game, but if you’re a fan of NCSoft’s other titles then you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see them here.
You can purchase upgrades to the masters with in-game loot, which just opens up the customization even more.
With Master x Master, players choose two masters to go into battle with. You can swap between the two in the midst of the battle with ease (obviously with a short cooldown). So the team combinations are vast, allowing players to get through seemingly any situation. The catch is that if one master dies, then you die. It becomes a test of how fast you can swap out and managing your health properly between the two heroes.
I was paired up with another journo who seemed like an experienced PC gamer, and particularly with MOBAs. We were paired up for the hands-on demonstration to try out the PVP and the co-op PVE modes found in Master x Master.
First was PVE, where horde after horde of enemies approached as we made our way through different levels. I tried to pull my own weight and it was surprisingly easy to get the keys down and start blasting monsters. We made our way across the level, shooting down hordes and totems that were holding items. It felt as if I was playing one of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games, which is definitely a positive in my book.
Bosses appear in each level of PVE, and they were rather easy, but that’s probably due to the normal difficulty that was set beforehand. You can raise the PVE difficulty level if you feel it’s a bit too easy so that’s not a big deal.
As for PVP, there are two different modes. One is similar to League of Legends , as you run through levels to capture areas while fighting the opposing team. As the NCSoft rep told us, this mode includes AI-operated titans that can take out lanes of enemies with ease.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough players to try that out, so we did a simple 1v1 match: pretty standard battle arena fare. There’s a lot of open space and it’s clear that this mode was really made for a five-player fight. That doesn’t mean the 1v1 wasn’t fun, it just made it more difficult to fight your opponent when there is so much area to hide and run away.
Overall, Master x Master is something PC players looking for something new and fun can really get into. It’s also a great introduction to the genre for players like me who usually passed on it the past.
The deep customization and unique characters really make grinding out experience and the need to become more skilled with these masters a blast. I highly recommend trying Master x Master , and you can check it out now for free.
