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Check out Part 1, Breath of Fire 3, here.
Saturday morning cartoons, anyone? Growing up in the 90s, I remember running to the living room to switch on the TV and watch some of my favorite programs every weekend. X-Men was at the top of that list. It was also on after school on weekdays, too, so I was never lacking for my favorite superheroes. It was probably one of the first shows I ever binge-watched, and the 4-part “Beyond Good and Evil” to end Season 4 kept me on the edge of my seat as the X-Men battled, perhaps their most formidable opponent, Apocalypse.
The animation in the comics was top-notch, and every story was engaging. But as the years passed, I moved on, my interests changed, and university, travel (57 countries now!), and frequently moving around slowly turned me into a minimalist. After all, who wants to travel to a new continent with tons of big bags filled with all sorts of stuff? As you might expect, the X-Men became a distant memory.
Two decades later, and a blast from the past in the form of “X-Men Legends” for the GameCube entered my radar. Developed by Raven Software, many of the best-known X-Men, 15 playable in total, appear in this surprisingly competent game. I’ve been let down several times in the past by film/TV to videogame adaptations, most recently The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, also for the Gamecube. Just because something is a hit in one form doesn’t mean it will be a hit in another form. So I came into this with no expectations and left impressed, despite a few minor shortcomings.
Many familiar faces, both friends and foes, appear in the game. It starts with Wolverine slashing his way through the dilapidated streets of New York City as he tries to rescue Alison Crestmere, a teenager who can control volcano activity and magma. The developers did an awesome job introducing players to the gameplay mechanics right from the start. It is nothing complex and flows well. The game functions as a combination of an action RPG and a beat em’ up. However, it is a thinking man’s beat ‘em’ up as you can’t just jump into the fray mindlessly and mash away, especially later in the game. Rather, careful, deliberate progression through levels is key to success. Isolate enemies, fight them 4 on 1, and slowly move on through the level, as moving too quickly will lead to a swarm of enemies.
Anyway, Alison is led to the Xavier Institute mansion, the base of operations for the numerous missions that pop up throughout the game. It is linear and, as far as I could tell, levels can’t be revisited. The X-Men crew must investigate several issues around the world, including Alaska, Russia, Central Europe, and beyond, and some surprising places that lead to a mission to decide the fate of the world against a well-known enemy.
Issues pop up as more of the game is explored. The camera isn’t as flexible as in other games, sometimes working against you when objects in the foreground completely block out your characters as they try to navigate narrow, twisting corridors in each level. The camera is top-down but slightly angled down, which makes seeing things in the distance difficult. I personally prefer a camera slightly angled up to get a better feel for what is coming. It simply isn’t wide enough, and after playing around with the camera extensively, I could never adjust it to the point where it was just right.
The camera, coupled with the color palette in some levels, was hard on the eye, to the point where I accidentally ran off a cliff a few times. The game is extremely punishing in these cases, and characters instantly die, which requires a decent chunk of money to revive, and the amount needed to revive climbed as the game progressed, which didn’t strike me as fair.
Thankfully, these were the only issues, and the game is otherwise a great deal of fun. Remember how I said the developers excelled in tutorials? They took it a step further by introducing the “Danger Room,” optional (though highly recommended) training grounds. It starts with Freshmen rank (100-level classes) and moves to Sophomore (200), Junior (300), Senior (400), X-Men (500), and Legend (600). These classes are expertly crafted to be tough enough to force your hand as far as honing your skills, but not so tough that you want to give up. Match the recommended level for each class, and perseverance will see you through. They are short, usually, no more than 3 minutes, fast-paced, and test varied skills such as endurance, stealth, protect, defend, survive (against high numbers of very strong enemies for a set amount of time), using combos, and so on. They take the in-game tutorials and ramp them up a level, or six (in the case of Legend). Crisis Core would have done well to emulate this style; this is how you create side quests accessible via save points! Each of the six ranks has about a dozen classes, and each class can only be challenged if you find discs scattered throughout the levels and complete the final exam for each rank. Some of the discs can be purchased from a shopkeeper named Healer, whom you find towards the start of the game. Still, playing this blind, I missed several discs, and some of them are very well hidden.
By the way, the Danger Room is a fantastic way to grind for levels. Two hints: it is ok to fail a class and repeat it, and once a class is complete, enemies no longer drop anything (at least from what I could see), so always leave at least one class incomplete so there is a place to collect potions until they are at maximum and fail. This way, you have a free source of potions.
There is a second shopkeeper named Forge that sells armor. Generally speaking, the armor I found from enemy drops was sufficient to get through the game, so I never needed to purchase much. I finished the game at level 38, and the quality of what can be purchased improves with the levels.
This is one of those games that starts hard, but as you are exposed to more of everything, more characters, more skill points, more stat points, and an increase in maximum potions that can be carried, it becomes easier. There are plenty of stat points to build your mutants in any way you want: Strike improves melee damage and speed, agility impacts defense, body improves HP amounts, and focus is for special attacks, as well as how fast the meter for those special attacks regenerates. Skill points can be assigned to many different categories: A strong special attack that hits one enemy, an attack that hits multiple enemies, a support skill, and passive abilities, such as an increase in the frequency of critical attacks. Leadership skills that Storm and Cyclops have are one of the best ways to spend ability points, as these skills increase experience gained and combo damage.
Getting combos is a very rewarding experience as it is a fast way to do massive damage, sometimes one-shotting even late-game enemies. A combo occurs when two characters do a special attack at the same time, and if an enemy is killed on this special, more experience is earned, which makes a gigantic difference late game when the enemy experience earned surpasses 100k.
Every once in a while, the maximum number of potions that can be carried increases by 5. It starts at 10 in the beginning, but mine hit 25 by the end game, and though they don’t heal all that much, enemies are constantly dropping potions, so it is easy to keep everyone near 100% HP. I rarely had to buy any potions from Forge. Regarding resource management for potions, the first few hours of the game are the hardest, and after that, it slowly but surely becomes easier.
The levels are designed well, except for the astral plane. Poor visibility on some levels, like the aforementioned astral plane, can make navigation tough, and having the big map on the screen, though distracting, is the only way to truly and effectively navigate. There are markers on the map most of the time, making progress through the levels straightforward, but sometimes they are not on the map, and it is not always clear how to move on, so count on getting lost at least a few times. Plenty of objects can be destroyed that hide tons of goodies, so be sure to go into destruction mode and don’t shy away from striking everything, except flammable objects, which are easy to do when in the heat of a battle or if you get careless.
But that’s ok because the music is solid in this game, so if there is wandering around, at least it’s with some good tunes in the background. The track playing at the mansion gives off bookworm vibes, like being in a sophisticated study, which makes sense, seeing as Professor X is incredibly intelligent.
Like the comic books, the animation style is unique. In X-Men Legends, it is cel-shaded, doing a decent job of capturing the comic book style. A few games around the same time tried this art style and, in my opinion, looked better, such as Wild Arms 3, Rogue Galaxy, Dragon Quest 8, and even Megaman X Command Mission (which was otherwise a vastly inferior game), even Jeanne D’Arc looked more appealing on the handheld PSP. That’s not to say the game is ugly, but more care could have been put into the sprites. Beast was the biggest shock, a huge hulking mass in the comic books and show, but he looks like a slim, average mutant here. Sadly, the same can be said for the enemies and the large majority of the bosses; they are underwhelming, outside of the Sentinels, who are imposing and can cause a ton of damage if they gang up on one X-Man.
Similar to the TV show, the game was a pleasure to dive into, and there’s a certain addictive quality that feels effortless. The positives far outshine any issues the game had, and the learning curve is player-friendly. Give this a shot, it is a well-done action RPG!
Wayback Wednesday Volume 1: Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger.
Wayback Wednesday Volume 2: Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Wayback Wednesday Volume 3: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
Wayback Wednesday Volume 4: Secret of Mana and Wild Arms
Wayback Wednesday Volume 5: Illusion of Gaia and Grandia