Taichi Panda 3: Dragon Hunter review - An MMO that plays itself

There's something slightly disconcerting about sticking a giant panda in some warrior armour and making it kill monsters, yet games just love doing it.

The latest of the warrior-panda titles is Taichi Panda 3: Dragon Hunter, an MMORPG which ticks all the boxes for epic mounts, plenty of social elements, and endless monsters to obliterate.

What it lacks is clear menus and a reason to physically play it, which means most of the fun here comes from boosting numbers and earning gear.

Strike me down

Taichi Panda 3 kicks off with a fairly substantial character creation system, letting you pick one of four classes from warrior to mage, and then letting you choose your armour colours and hairstyle.

After you've picked warrior – the only class with a panda, and therefore the only smart choice in a game called Taichi Panda – you're dropped off into the starter village and sent to find your first objective.

Already, you'll run into problems. Quest markers in the game are really quite difficult to spot, and when you do finally find them, actually tapping the thing seems almost impossible.

From there you're off on the usual MMO fare – kill so many enemies of one kind, run between quest givers, level up, so on and so forth.

What makes Taichi Panda 3 slightly more engaging is the rate at which you gain XP in the early hours, which feels astronomical compared to similar games.

Where elsewhere you'd be left grinding low level creatures for hours before you can move on, here you'll be level 15 and riding a flying mount before you've even learned how to upgrade your equipment.

Stick to the path

This is made even simpler with a button on the side of the screen that automatically sets you on a path to the next objective, whether that's just to go to the next quest giver or even start killing monsters for you.

While auto-play is in some ways a godsend, here it actually feels like it's robbing you of an experience. You don't need to engage with the battles at all, so why bother?

Instead, you'll spend your time trying to work your way through a myriad of menus, jabbing at buttons and spending all your starter gold on various bits you don't really understand.

And there's nothing encouraging you to go off and explore either. Aside from the occasional creature, the game world is largely just an empty expanse that offers no benefits to those who head off the beaten path.

Bamboozled

All in all, Taichi Panda 3 is going to appeal to a very specific player - those who enjoy seeing their stats go up, and not much else.

If you're looking for an MMO that lets you build a character without putting in much effort, this might well be for you.

But if you want to play something that actually requires you to invest your time and effort to get the most out of it, you're not going to find there here.