IRON MAIDEN: Legacy Of The Beast Mobile Game

Though it’s been out since 2017, mobile games publisher Nodding Frog and Heavy Metal icons Iron Maiden now consider their Iron Maiden: Legacy of The Beast mobile game to be in an “official” release state. This official release also coincides with a thirty-eight date European Iron Maiden tour, currently in progress, which is meant to support the mobile game. The tour is aptly named the “Legacy of The Beast” tour. Given all this, it seemed like the right time to provide a review of Iron Maiden: Legacy of The Beast mobile game!

The Iron Maiden: Legacy of The Beast mobile game is free to play and is available on iOS and Android respectively. The game is best described as a turn-based, devilishly-fantastical RPG game. The main character, and center of attention, is of course Iron Maiden’s infamous mascot, Eddie. At face value, this game seems to follow a tried and tested formula much in the same vein as DC Legends, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, etc. but in an “Iron Maiden skin”, but there are several reasons under the surface to like this game.

As the player, you form a roster of, initially, up to twenty combatants (the roster size can be expanded later) by collecting various souls or minions. Many of the most sought-after souls are in the guise of a re-skinned Eddie of which many pay tributes to Iron Maiden’s legendary music. For example, the elusive “Piece of Mind Eddie”, named and portrayed as the Eddie on the cover of the iconic album with the same name. Characters come in one of five classes; Sentinel (tank class), Magus (mage class), Warrior, Gunner (ranged DPS) and Assassin class. Before each battle you must decide on which combatants will represent your team on the battlefield. You may choose three Eddies, with two being held in reserve, ready to swap out if necessary, and two allies (other player’s characters) to assist.

Battles take place in one of several themed “worlds”. The game contains PvE (story mode), dungeons, and a PvP arena with leaderboards. PvE battles are akin to missions, in that, each has objectives that must be met to achieve a three-star finish, i.e. yield better rewards. Objectives will be stated as, e.g., “Use 1 Fury Skill and Kill 1 Enemy with A Fury Skill and Complete the battle in 8 turns or less”. There is a bit of a strategy required here because if the team you take into a battle is too “powerful” you might not get the chance to achieve all the stated objectives. This is especially true when you need to use power or fury skills.

You can traverse / replay through these worlds repeatedly in increasingly harder modes after completing the world in said mode, e.g. Normal, then Hard, then Madness, etc. Each battle uses “Sands of Time” (a.k.a. Stamina, which is a popular mobile game “energy mechanic”) to start and has a minimum of three stages. In between each stage your team will heal slightly. Battles, if manually played at least once, can also be auto-replayed.

Upon victory, you will be awarded with Gold, Sands of Time, and various item drops. For each star you earn, you will receive Ironite. Ironite is used to revive fallen souls lost in battle, purchase Gold, Sands of Time, or Souls in the store. Gold is needed to upgrade or evolve your characters, upgrade, or evolve Talismans (i.e. Runes that increase stats), as well as use what’s known as the “Book of Souls”.

The “Book of Souls” is where you unlock new characters by feeding the soul furnace “Souls”. Throughout the game you’ll earn “Fragments” which are small portions of souls, once enough are collected a complete Soul is formed. Souls have varying degrees of rarity. Each character summons, via a soul feed into the “Book of Souls” has a chance to be an Eddie. It’s this chance at an Eddie that the fun factor comes in, especially for Iron Maiden fans. Sure, human gunners, wicker dogs, harpies, golden sons, etc. all have their uses but who doesn’t want the coveted Eddie “variants”, e.g. “Fear of The Dark Eddie”, “Beast Eddie”, “Hallowed Be Thy Name Eddie”, etc.

One other differentiator is in the real-time component included in the turn-based play. When a command is executed there are circles that form beneath the enemy (or your character, if you’re using a Power ability). When the circles overlap, tap your screen in real-time to land a “Perfect Attack”. “Perfect Attacks” do more damage than normal and are usually a requirement for earning more skulls.

Another plus is of course the wonderful Iron Maiden soundtrack, which for the most part is instrumental. Each of the five worlds contain music culled from a given album(s) just for that world, it never grows old. For example, the “Kingdom Of The Sands” world aligns with the Powerslave and Brave New World releases.

PROS:

• Amazing soundtrack
• Adds a real-time element to a popular format
• Fun factor in trying to score those popular Eddie incarnations

CONS:

• At times, seems all too familiar
• Eddie’s (Bruce Dickinson) scream at the start and end of each battle can get repetitive

Note: Our copy was reviewed on Android Mobile with added currency by PR.

COMPARE TO:  Marvel Strike Force, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, DC Legends