Legend

SNES

Review by Matt Paprocki

Seika

Beat-em-up

Graphics: 9

Sound: 6

Gameplay: 3

Overall: 4

It's the usual story. An evil wizard type (in this case Clovis) is about to resurrect the curses of Beldor. The usual small medieval town (Sellech) will of course be the victim. Conveniently, they just happen to have two of the biggest heroes around (Kaor and Igor who look exactly the same) to help save them.

It's utterly amazing at times how some programmers just don't care. This is a brutal "Golden Axe" knock-off, a game that becomes far too difficult for its own good. As is the norm for a bad game, this isn't because of smart AI or well laid out levels. No, it's due to the fact that our two brain-dead heroes can't find it in themselves to swing their broadswords any faster to take out more than one enemy at a time. They can't even run.

Once a player is surrounded (which happens, oh, every screen), you will take a hit. There's no way around it if you're trying to play fair. That's about the only thing the AI is programmed to do. Not even the ability to block will do you much good. Only a jump kick proves effective against the horde, but just doing that through the entire game can hardly be considered entertainment.

Worse, the bosses can only be hit when they want to be hit. The first challenger flies all over the screen, bashing in skulls with a staff and hard hitting kicks. Most of your blows will have no effect on him. The same goes for the rest of roster (which only gets more ridiculous).

Still wondering how much this game is like Sega's classic? Magic is done in the same way, by gathering potion vials. The more vials, the stronger the magic. Replacing the gnomes/elves are annoying crows that are practically impossible to hit. Some of the enemies look familiar, and it's obvious the standard gameplay is the same.

Plenty of the extra time was spent on the graphics, just about the only part of the game carrying its weight. Each sprite is large and well detailed while the backgrounds use a myriad of special effects (the transparencies are really nice). Foreground objects can get in the way, but not as much as the actual combat. There is some minor flicker and slowdown as well, though it's a fair trade-off.

All of the music is well composed, but there isn't very much of it. The same track repeats for both of the initial levels as a matter of fact. It quickly becomes grating and some new music is an immediately apparent change. The sound effects are a pleasant change with some nice "clangs" when the sword makes contact. A few voice samples round out the package and make a kill satisfying.

If you're in the mood to hack people up on the SNES, you can better in Capcom's court. "Knights of the Round" along with "King of the Dragons" are both almost perfect arcade ports and provide enough to satisfy any bloodthirsty gamer. "Legend" falls way short of what it's trying to accomplish. You can't even recommend it to look at it.