Legends of Rock Review – From Garage Band To Actual Band, One Odd Job At A Time

Ready to hit the big time, start a music career with adoring fans, endless parties, champagne bubble baths and tinnitus for the rest of your life? Join the queue. It’s not easy to hit the big time, and you’re about to find that out as you start… rock bottom… in the music management game Legends of Rock.

You start the game without a guitar, any friends, and next to no money, so it’s a classic rags-to-riches tale. It’s not an easy climb, and you’re about to find out. Unironically, the developer, Arik Games, is also a one-man band, having created the brilliant Dude, Where Is My Beer? and Tapper-inspired Another Bar Game.

Heads-up: I used to chinwag with Arik and, at one point, had a bit of a creative insight into the game in the early stages, so while I will be completely fair and honest, I appreciate that giving this a score would be a bit of a bias, as he’s a great guy and has similar interests and opinions to me. That said, we aren’t in a band, so I’ll still give this the runaround, as you might expect.

As per usual, I started the Legends of Rock review on my Retroid Nova, which seemed perfect for the device with its low-key pixel art and retro vibes. While the elements are small, the readability is absolutely fine, though mini-games require a keyboard to work and I can’t be faffing with Steam configurations, so I switched this over to my tablet instead.

Rockin’ In A Free Mode

There are two main modes: Story and Free. The latter is probably the best place to go to learn the game first, though it’s not a free roam as such, but it opens up doors earlier on, whereas the Story is a bit more of a slog. Not in a bad way; it’s just that if you have an itch to form a band and start playing, the Free Mode is better to begin with.

Either way, both modes in Legends of Rock offer the same key experience of finding a job to make money, buy decent gear, befriend potential band members, create great music, and stay watered and fed. The job helps more with the latter, as you’d expect.

Making friends is easier than in real life. Simply walk up to someone and ask them the same thing, ‘Have you been to any rock concerts recently?’ again and again, and this seemingly will make them like you. The more you talk with someone, the further that relationship improves and may reveal they are a secret axe player or even a sound engineer.

Making Friends, Forming A Band

This isn’t useless trivia as you’re looking to form a band. Simply ask them to join, and that’s that. Naturally, you can’t be a Slipknot crew of 44 members and hire someone with better stats and kick the last person out, but without the emotional drama. Woo hoo!

Building the band in Legends of Rock takes a bit of time, as you need to talk to everybody and befriend them to find out their hidden talent, and as per art imitating life, there are hardly any bass players. When you do recruit enough people, however, you’re able to jam throughout the day to level up their skill set, and to maximise the songs that both you and the band create.

This all requires money, of course, so you can masquerade in Empire Records during the day, or work in a bar at night serving drinks. The latter was my preferred minigame, and it doesn’t take an age to stack cash. What will you use it for? Rent that’s due every week and food. You also need to make sure you take a regular bath and sleep.

Paying The Bills

Additionally, that money buys better gear, which includes the instruments, but also cables and effects pedals. It’s all very involved, and the more you invest, the better your band sounds and the more likely people will come to see your gigs. Equally, you can invite people you know, too.

As mentioned, I was aware of this game in the early stages and seeing it in action is pretty good, and Arik has delivered an experience I was expecting. Understandably, it is a bit repetitive, and there’s a grind as you’d expect; levelling up your band to be something worth seeing/listening to, and those rewards are carried through to an online leaderboard, too.

The world map does look quite hectic, and it’s not always intuitive how to play – notably the Empire Records side gig, as there were no guides and it wasn’t particularly enjoyable either. That said, the core management gameplay is a lot of fun and even more so when it has an excellent soundtrack that’s neither AI nor from generic sound libraries. After all, the rock is a critical aspect of a game called Legends of Rock.