As a kid, I always loved superheroes but never got in to comic books because pretty much all the money I ever had went into saving up for a video game or buying action figures. I would watch pretty much any superhero cartoon that they would air and saw just about every superhero movie that I could talk my parents in to taking me to. And yet the thought of paying two bucks for a comic on a regular basis was just too much for someone with no steady income outside of the random ten bucks my parents would throw at me when they figured I hadn't been given an allowance for awhile. The interest kept with me throughout high school, but in the same limited degree despite the fact I was working. It took until my study abroad semester in Rome for me to really start getting in to the detailed backgrounds of superheroes, as I was faced with an odd hour two days a week where I was between classes and didn't really have enough time to walk anywhere. As a result, I spent the time in the computer lab looking up random superheroes on Wikipedia, which informed me as to what I should read when I got back home. Thanks to the beauty of the Interlibrary Loan System, I could exploit a research system in order to score comic book anthologies that finally filled in a gap in my nerd hobbies that had remained open for way too long.
One of the series I loved as a child was the X-Men, almost completely due to the T.V. show (I was actually pretty pissed when I bought an SNES game where the costumes didn't all match up to the show). However, the series was always a bit too daunting for me to actually read through, as I could never decide what was really important in X-Men lore since there seem to always be at least 3 ongoing X-Men series. The show provided glimpses at the best storylines, and yet I couldn't really determine what was worth reading as even these storylines seemed to be picked up and dropped off randomly throughout X-Men's publication history. Instead, I stayed content with Wikipedia's summaries of their story arcs, as I could read about their entire history instead of 1/1000th of their actually comics.
When I heard that Raven Software was going to release an X-Men RPG, I was incredibly excited as they had developed some of my favorite games (including Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast). But when X-Men Legends was actually released, I passed for one reason or another despite the overwhelmingly positive reviews. Instead, I waited for a few years before picking it up at Gamestop for about 12 bucks in hopes of having it as a party game at college. I ended up playing it up to the third to last level before I hit a section in which Xavier battles the Shadow King in a battle that involved controlling a character I hadn't used before and didn't particularly like. After losing the battle twice, I got frustrated and walked away from the game, assuming I would go back and finish it. However, I went to start up a new round of the game with my friend Dave and accidentally erased my game, which wouldn't have been as big of a problem if I had ever played the game with Dave past that night. And so X-Men Legends was shelved and not touched until this summer.
Honestly, I was a little more disappointed in the story now that I know about the different arcs that the comic book has had. I guess I was hoping for a somewhat original storyline, but the game offers a mish-mash of several different storylines/ story ideas that even fans of the show will find familiar. There's a mutant everyone is after, Magneto is trying to destroy all humans, and the government is trying to eliminate mutants with Sentinels. The game took me just over ten hours to finish, so it seems a little short for an RPG.
Thankfully the story isn't the focus of the game, but rather the mutants are. X-Men Legends offers most of the mutants that players will want to use, although certain fan favorites are oddly underpowered. Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, Iceman, Gambit, and many others make an appearance, although anyone who likes Gambit is going to be severely disappointed at how useless he is in the game (he's about as powerful as Jubilee, which says alot). Each character has two attack buttons that can be strung together for different combos, but chances are you'll rely heavily on just hitting A repeatedly. The game also features two mutant attacks per character, plus a power up move and a super move that can only be activated after collecting certain powerups. The mutant powers are what you would expect for each mutant, although its a bit disappointing that some of the powers are clearly cloned versions of another mutant's power with a color change.
The difficulty in the game is off, but not necessarily in a bad way. You'll find that your team will become exponentially more powerful as the game progresses, which will leave you way overpowered compared to your enemies. While many would consider the fact that the game gets easier as a negative, it makes you feel like your mutants are incredibly powerful, which lends itself to the franchise. Don't be surprised if you find yourself easily clearing out rooms of people with one move from one mutant by the end of the game.
X-Men Legends was clearly meant to be a four player game, as almost the entire game allows you to take four mutants on a mission. If you have less than four people, then the game allows any player to change to any mutant that isn't be used with the D-Pad. The inherent four player nature of the missions reveals an odd oversight in certain sections of the game, however. The first mission, for example, starts as a single player mission as the only available mutant is Wolverine. Halfway through, players find Cyclops, and yet that's still only two mutants. The rest of the missions (other than one half mission) feature four players from the beginning, which makes this first mission stand out even more. Additionally, there are interludes between missions where Player One explores the X-Mansion with Magma. There really isn't anything for other players to do during this period other than set the controller down and watch, which seems odd.
One area that X-Men Legends succeeds in is its fan service. Other than the odd underpowering of a fan favorite (I understand Gambit isn't that powerful of a mutant overall, but they could have at least made him decent), the game dotes on fans with obscure facts recounted casually (like a battle between Cyclops and Havok where neither's powers can injure the other because they are brothers) to flashback missions that feature the 70s X-Men team battling Sentinels and a mission feature the four original X-Men versus the Juggernaut. The game also features a trivia game where fans can test their knowledge more directly.
X-Men Legends is a good RPG that captures the feeling of being on the X-Men well, which is what any comic book game should do. While it has its shortcomings, its succeeds in its principle aim, which explains why it became the template for every Marvel superhero game released afterwards.
Overall Score: 8.3
Recommended Price: $6.00
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