Dice Legacy - Switch Review
"A unique experience in the city builder genre."
Stuck on an uncharted continent on a ring world, you’ll set up a new life with your subjects as you take advantage of the local resources and build up your civilisation. Dice Legacy puts a new spin on the city-builder genre, as you are beholden to the whims of the dice, which also happens to be a resource that you use to expand and collect materials. Can you discover what awaits you on this uncharted continent, or will lady luck roll against your favour as you lose yourself to the harsh winters?
The Good
As you start up your first run, there will be on-screen prompts that will bring you to the in-game encyclopaedia which expands on information as you unlock more mechanics of the game. It acts as a tutorial and allows the player to go back to retrieve the information as necessary. Take your time and read over it as refreshing your memory on mechanics and what certain dice can do is beneficial.
Speaking of dice, this is what truly defines Dice Legacy as it is certainly unique when considering others in the city-building genre. Your dice act as a resource which allows you to perform a specific action depending on what you’ve rolled. These include, but are not limited to, gathering, construction, exploration and defending. Each die represents people in your civilisation and are colour coded into different classes, starting as peasants and expanding out to soldiers, monks, merchants and so on.
There is a lot to explore and discover as you expand your territory further along the path. You can either form relations or raid Tribal towns but watch out for raiders who attempt to destroy buildings or set them on fire.
TL;DR
- An expansive encyclopedia for tutorials
- Fun Dice Mechanic
- Interesting Explorative Story
The Bad
Unfortunately, Dice Legacy on the Switch does feel slightly awkward to control; there were several times where I accidentally rolled a die that I was saving for a later project or sent the wrong die to complete a task. From promotional material, this looks to be mitigated on the PC edition of the game. Due to the world of this game being on a ring, there were several instances of UI covering over tiles that had resources on them, however it was too difficult to clearly see what was on offer.
In the beginning of the game, you’re warned that winter is harsh; this is not a threat to be taken lightly. During the early phases of settlement building when winter rolls around, a sense of dread and stress starts to bubble up. As you send a citizen die out to complete a task during winter, there is a chance the die will freeze which results in said die being permanently frozen during that winter. There are ways to eventually mitigate the freezing effects, such as setting up wood burner heaters or purchasing a tavern to sell a warm and hearty ale to your citizens, but investing in these options will put a drain on your resources, so it is a risk that can delay progress during the warmer seasons.
TL;DR
- Awkward control scheme
- Intrusive UI
- Winter is brutal
Final Score: 8/10
Dice Legacy is a unique experience in the city builder genre that embraces that high fantasy feel while capitalising on the rising popularity of tabletop games as a whole with its dice mechanics. While the Switch edition does have its challenges due to the restrictive nature of a controller as opposed to a mouse and keyboard, the ability to play on the go and progress your run is worth it. Ultimately, if you enjoy city builders and tabletop games, then Dice Legacy can speak to your core - just choose where you want to play it for the best experience.
Thank you for checking out our Dice Legacy Switch review, thank you to Koch Media AU for providing the review code and thank you to our $5 and up Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:
For more reading, check out our review of No More Heroes 3.