Soul Calibur Legends Review (WII)

The tale of two swords and a Wii Remote

Although Soul Calibur IV did provide itself as an epic fighter for many, to me it felt fairly hollow. Stripped of its speed, vast story modes and its epic adventure modes, it displayed itself more as a great multi-player fighting game and a competent piece of fun for the lonely. In response, Namco decided to stitch together some sort of tie-in tissue in order to dry my tears of solitude and called it Soul Calibur Legends.

For those who have followed the series story-line over the years, this will be a delicious treat for fans. Set in-between the first instalment Soul Blade and the logically placed second instalment Soul Calibur, Soul Calibur Legends follows the transformation of Siegfried into Nightmare and the gathering of several acclaimed characters to fight a great evil. For those who don’t follow the plot…well, it’s pretty poor here so let’s move on.

A quick money making spin-off

It seems that Namco have taken a step into unknown territory this time however. Gone is the classic beat-’em-up formula that the series has created over the years and a basic hack-and-slash game takes its place. It’s really hard to actually describe this as anything truly exciting, as action takes place in such a repetitive and bland way that it desperately pleas for a gimmick to entertain you with. That gimmick is the Wii Remote.

Controls are remarkably simple, using the Nunchuck to move and the Wii Remote to initiate attacks. To begin with, this proves to be a great introduction to the dynamics of the game and allows smooth control over horizontal, vertical and…poking attacks. Initially, stringing together combos in combat proves to be satisfying due to a more proactive approach to the proceedings. However, as the game progresses, the novelty wares thin and you soon realise that flicking the Remote rapidly around your body like a Nunchuck, although almost appropriate, proves a much easier and dull way of defeating all who stand in your way. It’s practically a more active version of button mashing…which is rather fitting when compared to the series’ roots.

Combat isn’t the main focus of Soul Calibur Legends however. Repetition is. Despite opening with a map covering the world, the game only comprises of eight stages. Eight stages that you’ll be playing through several times over the course of around eight to ten hours. As you can imagine, there’s only so much you can take of familiar combat techniques and familiar locations before you end up crying for some variety, yet SCL decides to push its luck even further by forcing you to face of against the same enemies you’ve faced before, but painting them different colours. It’s this incredibly lazy repetition that makes the game look like an incredibly shameless spin-off that thinks it can get by on the past reputation the titles have built up.

Although graphics don’t compare well to other next-gen efforts due to the Wii’s hardware capabilities, they do provide characters with crisp features and actually prove to be impressive. It’s a shame that this attention couldn’t be put into the dull and flat locations visited along the way, but at least the game areas fail to provoke any emotion at all, as the voice-overs only serve to enrage and patronise. Whenever characters talk, they sound so melodramatic it’s as if they’re starring in an animé pantomime and the dialogue is so unbelievably poorly written it would feel more at home in some sort of B-Movie. Fantastic examples of writing from ‘Captain Obvious’ include “As long as we don’t lose, eventually we’ll win!” and “Don’t die! Once you’re dead, it’s all over!”

The story isn’t told through conventional cut-scenes. Simple card board cut outs of characters pop up on screen wading through tons of unnecessary dialogue that has been repeated several times in the past, simply placed in the game to extend its life-span. This makes the whole plot ridiculously hard to follow and remarkably uninteresting. At many points in the quest to destroy great evil, one complete moaner sobbed about how his missing sister used to make bread, so much so I couldn’t help but feel the game was sponsored by Hovis.

Despite it’s questionably epic single player mode, SCL does delve into the realms of multi-player for a few moments, only to deliver more disappointment. Co-op missions simply force you to kill yet more enemies you’ve seen countless times and versus modes consist of little item gathering mini-games which make it look like you’re playing some sort of vicious ‘Supermarket Sweep’. Needless to say, this is not an ideal party game when compared to a majority of Wii titles.

When playing through Soul Calibur Legends, the lack of effort put into its development makes it look more like a quick money making spin-off than a serious addition to a successful franchise. Soul Caliburshould stick to what it knows best, and that’s thrashing friends around the heads with over-sized swords