Review #250: Mega Man Legends

 Definitely better than the PC port!

 When it was time to make the jump into 3-D, Capcom got ambitious. Not ambitious enough as to make it a numbered sequel, but ambitious enough to make an Adventure game, not unlike the Zelda games, spin-off out of Mega Man.

 You play as Mega Man Volnutt, a 'digger', a spelunker who searches for treasure in old abandoned ruins. He is aided by Barrel, the man who took him in, Roll, the girl he grew up with and Data, a mysterious monkey that was found with Mega Man. As luck would have it, after an expedition, their ship gives out and they are forced to land on Kattelox Island. Fueled by adventure, and the possibility of finding the 'Mother Lode', Mega Man embarks on an adventure throughout the different ruins of the Island. I'm gonna be completely honest here, the story is terrible. I mean, I liked the setting, but the characters are horribly cliched and dull. Their designs might be decent, but as far as personality goes, the Caskets(Barrel, Roll, Mega Man) and the Bonnes, the antagonists, are one-note tracks, with nothing original or interesting about them. The story does get a tiny bit interesting in the last part of the game, but it ends with promises of 'telling you everything later', and a 'To be continued'. Lame.

 Legends is a 3rd Person shooter/adventure game of sorts. While your main objective is the exploration of the different Ruins, you are allowed a certain degree of freedom to explore the town in Kattelox Island, heck, you may come across a few sidequests! Progression in the game is mostly linear, you can't do dungeons out of order, but, you can revisit dungeons to farm money, heck, you may want to revisit them after you get some upgrades, like the Jump upgrade or the drill, in order to access previously unavailable areas. And you will want to explore, since Mega Man Volnutt doesn't earn weapons from his enemies, oh no, weapons are made by finding and bringing specific items to Roll so that she can develop them! There's a rather large amount of side-weapons, however, for some reason they decided that the only way to switch them is by... visiting the car and talking to Roll. I found it unnecessary and tedious even, why not let the player carry all of them and decide what's best for the occasion during a dungeon?

 Still, it's not like side-weapons are really needed, I speak from experience when I tell you that you can clear the game with the basic buster. I mean, I had to choose between extra fire-power or the 'Vacuum' side-weapon. Movement in the game is pretty iffy, as I'll get into later, but the Vacuum arm sucks the money dropped by enemies, which is extremely useful, so the choice was rather easy to make, which meant I spent 80% of the game without another sub-weapon. Anyways, my point is that the game is very easy, and almost every boss can be defeated by strafing and shooting. Strafe 'n shoot, strafe 'n shoot. Sometimes you might need to jump, but otherwise, that's the winning formula. That said, I did enjoy the fact that the Buster can be customized by equipping up to two(or three, if you find the upgrade) items. Still, when it comes down to it, combat as a whole can be pretty repetitive, and a bit boring since it lacks nuance. The sub weapons are a welcome addition, since they are pretty different, there are mines, a laser, a sword(Ain't as cool as it sounds!) and homing missiles, and they can be enhanced for some money, but the Buster works just fine and I needed the Vacuum Arm in order to earn money effectively.

 The game's biggest flaw is, easily, the controls. They are incredibly clunky, plus movement is a bit iffy, couple them together and... it's not a fun time until you adapt to them. To start with, there are to forms of 'side movement', either function can be set to either Left/Right or L1/R1, and they consist of turning and strafing. Personally, I set L1/R1 to strafing, since it worked better for me. Anyways, yes, the other function is 'turning', which means that Mega Man moves like a tank, in a game that demands speed. What where they thinking? This is why gathering money from fallen enemies is such a chore, plus, movement is anything but precise, so gathering all those crystal is a nightmare, which is why the Vacuum side weapon is so useful. Oh, and there's not analog support! Not content with just that, the 'lock-on' feature is terrible, luckily Mega Man soft-locks into nearby enemies, R2 functioning as a sort of 'hard lock', but it disables movement. There are times when you will need to use R2, mostly on flying bosses, and it feels as if the game doesn't take into account that you are rooted to your place while using R2, so get ready to suffer cheap hits, not that he game is any harder for it. Even worse, sometimes Mega Man hard locks into invulnerable parts of enemy bosses, like 'Bruno'(Nope, no spoilers, it ain't an NPC!), holding R2 makes Mega Man hard lock into... his wast? But his weak point is his head!

 On the flip side, the presentations is pretty good. Graphics are beautiful, character models are charming, stylized and very colorful. While lacking variety, Kattelox and its dungeons are nice to look at, as a whole, it's a gorgeous game, if a bit simple. Music is pretty good as well, there's a couple of stand-out tunes as well. However, voice acting ranges from decent to barely passable, but hey,a t least it has voice-acting(It is a PS1 game after all!).

 Mega Man Legends is alright. It has it's fun moments, and I certainly like the idea behind it, but the execution leaves a little to be desired.
 6.0 out of 10