Soul Calibur: Legends

I am not a huge fan of the Soul Calibur series. The one on the Dreamcast (soon to be on the Live Arcade) was good but that was because it had so much to offer. I have not played part III either and thought II was a let down and IV is coming soon enough. Well, none of that matters because Legends carries the name and characters only, it's secretly a beat'em up title of epic lameness.

Yeah, I know. It seems like I hate the Wii but in reality I think if handled correctly it could have some amazing games. Just no one cares and they want to keep pushing crap on us. Well, this isn't as bad as some titles on the Wii as the controls are pretty good but it's really just boring.

This game follows the story of one of the characters of the series, the blonde guy whose name I can't remember and honestly don't care about. He has the Soul Calibur, he's in Spain and he slowly teams up with some series regulars on some journey about something that I couldn't bother to care about.

The game is mostly told through text boxes on a flat background with character portraits. I think there was some cut scenes as well but again I just couldn't bother to care. The game looks like a slightly older PS2 game. The textures are pretty splotchy and the character models feel underdetailed, even when compared to Soul Calibur II on the original XBox and come on, that game is old.

The game offers 9 stages to play on but contains 6 chapters. This means you will revisit these boring stages many times and while you enter and exit at different points, it always looks the same. I guess it could be worse but the locations kind of suck. An arena, a forest, a castle. You get the idea.

Even the game play itself is lame. You run around these empty halls, or if you're lucky the forest path may be littered with random barrels. And enemies will magically appear and you kill them to get rid of the sign that is blocking your advancement. Why haven't we gotten past that lame factor in these games? Hell, even the game I'm playing now does the same stupid thing.

Anyway, the game uses both the Wiimote and the Nunchuck. You use the analog stick to more around and you kind of swing the Wiimote as your sword. It works fairly well and the buttons on the ends of both controls allow for blocking, jumping and the swapping of characters.

The problem is that the AI is also kind of braindead or they attack in a group so you might have to jump over them. You may also run into some traps like arrows and spiked floors! How exciting, I can barely contain my glee...

Enough snide remarks. The game is some what fun to play but because I've played a ton of better beat'em ups in the past year or so and this is a much loved series, I can't let the lameness just win. Maybe worth a rental, it's only 8 or so hours long, and I see no reason to ever own this game.

It does offer some minor replay value but not enough to warrant a purchase. A quick weekend rental will net you the ending and I doubt anyone will remember this game in 5 years. Just more shovelware for the Wii and hopefully this months release of Mario Kart will change things around...

Story - 5/10
Graphics - 5/10
Sound - 5/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 3/10

Final Score - 5/10