Tournament of Legends — Not What Wii Needed
The Wii needs more good fighting games. There, I said it. Outside of Tatsunoko VS Capcom there are no competent fighters on the damn console. I know that the Wii has this stigma for being the casual gamers’ console and casual gamers don’t normally go for the whole fighting game thing, but dammit, we have had fighters that range from the astoundingly mediocre to the flat out bad on the Wii. Would it kill us to have some sort of quality?
Tournament of Legends, Sega and High Voltage Software’s latest Wii fighting game was supposed to be the fighting game title the Wii desperately needed. This is the biggest lie I have ever heard. It certainly puts a unique spin on the fighting game genre, but it simultaneously proves that not all innovation is good. The game is unbalanced, hard to control, and most of all, simply not fun.
If you care about story in fighting games, at least Tournament of Legends has some of that. The framework of Tournament of Legends is basically a corny comic book about mythical gods or something. Basically, Thanatos, god of death, is angry, so everyone has to fight each other. Yeah, it’s about that stupid. It’s a poorly cobbled together grouping of other mythologies and considering what a good job games such as God of War have done with mythology, you’d think it could have been done more professionally.
There are only three real modes in Tournament of Legends. Story mode is the only one player mode, and don’t let the name fool you, it’s just Arcade mode with cutscenes. You fight through the entire roster, fight yourself in a mirror match, and then take on the final boss. Versus mode is also exactly what it sounds. If you are lucky enough to have some friends who like this god awful game, you can fight them there, but only face to face. There is no online mode, which once again makes the game fall short of other competent fighters currently on the market. Finally, there is practice mode which is supposed to help you train with your favorite character, but fights in Tournament of Legends are so random, training honestly doesn’t do anyone much good.
The fighting system in Tournament of Legends is about as basic as it gets. You have normal attacks, special moves, and projectiles, as well as defensive options that allow you to block and dodge. Range is the key word in Tournament of Legends, and playing a good game of spacing is the key to winning battles. Of course, this is moot because each character has an on screen guide at their feet that shows when an enemy is within range, thus totally taking the human element out of the spacing again. However, this guide is also moot because it never actually works. Even if you are well within the range of the guide you have a chance to whiff your attacks over and over again, especially with alternate weapon sets you are able to unlock. It takes real skill to try and implement a game system that will make the game worse, and fail in that too. Bravo Sega.
The game actually feels like boxing or wrestling than a fighting game. If you knock your opponent out they can mash on buttons to get back up with regenerated health, but if they go down three times then they are out no matter what. In addition to this somewhat stupid mechanic, there are also environmental hazards that you have to attend with, but these hazards aren’t errant beams or explosions like Smash Brothers has. No, when an environmental hazard comes into play gameplay simply stops and both players have to participate in a quick time event to see whether or not they get out without losing health. It totally breaks the flow of battle, and losing to a random quicktime event is extremely dissatisfying.
There isn’t much in the way of replay value in Tournament of Legends. Once you have beaten Story mode with one character, you can basically assume what will happen with all the rest. Getting through the game with all of the characters unlocks alternate weapon sets, and two secret characters, but even doing this only takes a few hours. This leaves the game with nothing but Versus mode to keep you coming back, and it’s just not enough.
You can control the game in two ways and both are pretty stupid. The classic controller lets you fight with an analog stick and buttons, but forces you to do some stupid quicktime actions with both sticks and generally feels stiff and unresponsive. On the other hand, the Wiimote and nunchuck combo is far too responsive. Sneeze on them and your character will haul off and start flailing in the air, and good luck trying to do the moves you actually want to do. It’s like the Wiimote has a mind of its own and it’s angry for you for making it acts as a control interface for such a shitty game, so it decides to simply do whatever it likes until you stop playing. I suppose the classic controller is the lesser of two evils here but that isn’t saying much.
Tournament of Legends encompasses everything that is wrong with Wii game design theory. It’s too stupid to be a hardcore fighting title and too boring to be a party game. The game seems to be developed for no other reason than “because we can” and it appeals to very few gamers hardcore, casual, or otherwise. I’d call it a massive disappointment but no one was actually expecting anything from this game in the first place. In the end, you are better off ignoring this piece of junk and just playing Tatsunoko VS Capcom again. You know the game developers weren’t expecting much considering it released at a 30 dollar price, but sometimes you get what you pay for … or in this case even less.
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
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