Soul Calibur Legends (Wii)
Anyone who enjoys fantasy games or fighting games is probably a good fan of the Soul Calibur series. The game is widely adored for its excellent usage of weapons in a fighting game, the wide variety of disciplines and weapons, and fast-paced and immersive gameplay that never fails to entertain. Definitely one of the best fighting franchises around.
Well, this time Namco has brought its marvelous title to a console that still has yet to prove itself to the public that it can handle whatever is thrown at it. However, Namco is departing from their beat-em-up roots and in its place putting a hack and slash adventure title on Nintendo's baby. Now, at first one might think that the drastic change from a one-on-one fighting game to a one-against-a million hack and slash game could cause some complications and make for a bad game. However, Namco knows what they're doing, and have put out an excellent creation that, when coupled with the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wiimote and nunchuk, is enjoyable for many.
First, let me make one thing perfectly clear: this is NOT traditional SoulCalibur. Diehard fans of the series who won't settle for anything but what they loved in the first four games (including Soul Blade) might want to leave this game alone. One on one fights with people your size in this game is very rare and confined usually to boss fights. Usually when you fight people your size the battle is very unbalanced in favor of your opponent, in order to make it your traditional adventure game. So if you were looking for something similar to the beat em ups you love, you might want to press "back" and read another review.
Next important point: this game uses motion sensing in some of the best ways possible. Games such as Red Steel implemented sword fighting in a fun but limited and organized way, and usually the fights were broken in your favor. This game allows you to control your sword freely as you wish, so you can use certain strikes and strategy as you please. The nunchuk controls movement entirely. You move with the Control Stick, and waving the nunchuk allows you to dash. Depending on which direction you swing the Wiimote, you can do an upward or downward vertical strike, left or right horizontal strike, and you can easily choose your swings strategically to do combos. Any fan of the SoulCalibur series can easily spot and recognize the moves that they do, that make feel like a part of the Soul Calibur series. By pressing C, you can activate Spirit Charge. This enhances your power using energy you've gathered in your Spirit Gauge from kicking a** and pickups. Using Spirit Charge makes your attacks stronger, and lets you unleash a Spirit Break, your most devastating attack.
The game has two modes: Quest and Party. Quest is the single-player mode where you advance through the story and unlock things like weapons and levels for Party Mode. Party Mode is the 2P multiplayer, where you choose what scenario you and your friend want to do. You can either both do a quest together, or you can fight against each other one on one to prove who's superior. ONLY ONE WILL SURVIVE!
A lot of your progress in the game is acquired through pickups. You can acquire three kinds of pickups: Healing Bottles, to restore health, Spirit Stones, to fill your Spirit Gauge, or Blade Hearts, which up your weapon's skill level. Improving your weapon's skill level will increase your deadliness, as one could guess. Your performance will add to your experience points. After enough experience you will go up a class. After enough classes, you gain a new weapon.
Levels work on a tag team system. You start as one character, and can switch to another any time you want by pressing B+C, B+Z, or C+Z. This way you can strategically choose who you want to use in battle, and who you're going to use to fight certain enemies.
Boss battles are challenging, as they should be. You're fighting a gargantuan enemy where the odds are totally balanced against you. And the challenges are always fun, but in the first level, it's simply frustrating because you're fighting a huge dragon and have no space to go anywhere, so you will always get hit by him. Plus, you have barely any idea how to play the game because they haven't told you all the controls, so you're basically struggling. But once that's behind you, boss battles are always enjoyable.
As for negatives, there are a bunch of small flaws that, while minor, do hurt the experience. For example, whenever you die you have to start the quests over. Boss battles are no exception--when the baddie kills you, you're starting at the beginning of the level. Thankfully, the levels are usually pretty short, so the experience isn't too tedious. Unfortunately, there are only 7 characters. That's right--SEVEN! And there's few variety between the weapons of these people. And some of the characters are horribly put together, so that they're both slow and weak, making them not an option to use. However, expect to see Lloyd from the Tales of Symphonia series as a playable guest star.
Unfortunately, Siegfriend is much of a broken character. No matter what, it seems that you always have to use him as a character if you want to get through the game. I've tried playing levels without using Siegfried, and it wasn't pretty. However, choosing who you want to pair him with can make it even more interesting, because it can make or break a game.
Visuals are great, and some textures and models are very well-drawn, such as the dragons. However, other than that it's extremely similar to how Soul Calibur 3 looked, and barely looks upscaled at all. But they are still great to look at! Cinematics are using the same visuals as the gameplay, and are therefore pleasant. There are lots of big, bright and awesome things that go on at times, and the game still maintains a full 60 frames per second at all times, and runs in 16:9 widescreen. The musical score is great, with good voice acting paired with it.
The only thing that could really bring down its score is how badly weighed down with text it is. Between quests you watch as illustrations of the characters talk to each other in front of the world map. But instead of talking, they speak through text boxes on the bottom. But they talk far too much. They talk...and talk...and talk...and eventually you stop caring. No one gives a crap about your life story! You're a minor character in the series! LEAVE ME ALONE!
While the game does have some setbacks, Soul Calibur Legends is an all-around enjoyable title that you'll never get enough of. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves fantasy, action, adventure, Soul Calibur...or just using the Wiimote&Nunchuk! So for my final grade...
8.0 (Out of 10)
