Legend of Kay Anniversary Edition Review

This is a year anniversary release for a game I have never heard of, which makes me ask the simple question, “why?” I mean it’s cool, it’s a new third-party game for Wii U, it’s twenty to fifteen pounds brand new, you can look at it more like, “why not?!” Are we Nintendo fans desperate enough for third-party love we will accept anything though, me personally no, not quite. Legend of Kay presents an interesting question, but does it bring an interesting game.

Overall, the answer is probably no for me. That doesn’t mean it is a bad game by all means, let me explain my stance. I lived through an era of games that was saturated with 3D platformers, Mario 64, Rayman 3D, Spiro the Dragon, Banjo Kazooie, while a few are good, the more there was the less you actually wanted them any more. No new ideas, no real differences left this genre of gaming to kids and the easily satisfied while action RPG gamers or sports gamers took over from where they left. Mario 64 and Banjo and Kazooie were the kings of this genre, the standard drops from there. Where does this leave Legend of Kay, a game I haven’t even heard of till now?

While it does play like one of the generic of this kind of game, it does play quite nicely, I just get the feeling of being there done that over whelming now. I am not meaning to be cruel, maybe I am even a bit old and jaded with gaming in general, but even though this is a well made, good-looking game, I just thought “bleh, this again”.

If you haven’t played a 3D platformer before this could be a bit more of a good offer to you I guess. You are given a third person view over a characters shoulder and you follow them about making them run, jump, hit till they beat a foe or make it to a destination. While I am claiming boredom with it, technically it plays good; the only issue with the gameplay aspect for me is the camera, which with some of these types of games can be quite a bit off! However as a whole I cannot fault the design or the gameplay world too much apart from the feeling of being there before.

The world and story of the game itself is quite generic, its made of a medieval Chinese theme with bipedal animals walk and talk like humans. The music is fine for the setting, but the voice acting grates, the main character’s voice is of it’s generation, a teenage wise cracking American, very annoying indeed. While the voice acting is rubbish in general and it is quite unforgivable in some cases, while it doesn’t ruin the game overall either. The cast of characters is okay, the writing is okay, it is a rebellion story against an occupying army type of deal. It has all the staples to be expected in this type of game, fighting, collection quests, jumping and swinging about even some bits of racing, it all as I said before feels like I have been there and done that.

All in all, ultimately, I say this is a decent celebration of The Legend of Kay, I can see the polish and care poured into make this a perfect performing remake. Anyone could recognise this though, however, the game itself, feels dated, not worth the celebration in the first place. I could easily look out the old N64 and play some games worth celebrating. Not that this is defunct of value, I have the feeling the original game was aimed at kids and that’s who I would recommend this one to, kids. It is a decent wee title for a budget release, but I cannot recommend this to any type of real gamer, it’s good for what it is, just not for someone wanting a varied challenge!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Nintendo Wii U code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.