Nano Legends Review – A Clash, but not so Royale

There are a lot of games out there that follow the midcore MOBA formula laid down by Clash Royale. Some of them add their own twist to proceedings, others stick pretty rigidly to the foundations. It’s fair to say that Nano Legends (download from the App Store) fits pretty squarely into the second camp. 

That’s not to say that it isn’t entertaining, or well put together. The game sees you leading a card-based army into battle, your goal – destroying a tower. Do that and you win the game. Obviously you need to defend your own tower as well.

Playing units costs energy, which regenerates over time. One thing Nano Legends does do differently is throw in a Champion. This is a burly unit with some special moves that you can throw into the fray.

And we do mean throw – everything in Nano Legends is, as you might be able to tell from the name, pretty small. A human-sized hand appears to drop in new units and spells, which at least gives the experience a slightly different visual hook.

There’s also a single player mode, which lets you work your way through a story, collecting new units and goodies as you do. There’s the inevitable PvP as well, but it’s nice to have something to do when you don’t fancy taking on another real life human being.

You upgrade your cards, add new units to your deck, toughen up your towers and then set out to do more damage. It’s a decent rhythm, but it’s pretty much exactly the same as the one we’ve been seeing for years on the App Store.

Nano Legends does everything it sets out to do, and it does it really well. This is a polished, engaging experience. But it doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table. If you’re an avid fan of the genre then you’re going to love it, but it’s hard to see how it’ll spark anything but mild interest in anyone else.

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