Tuesday, 21 May 2013
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse
GameCube, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (2005), game
I previously documented my experiences with this game in last year's Retrogaming Review of The Year. I'd played through almost to the end when the game, which had occasionally been glitchy, crashing now and again, happened to crash at a moment not long after I'd saved and when I went back to reload it, the file wouldn't work - all my hard work had been destroyed! I decided to play through again for the sake of completion and to see the end, but this time I wouldn't be collecting things out of my way or smashing all that was destructible. No, I planned it to be a quick return to where I had previously arrived. It was the right decision, except towards the end I realised I needed to bulk up my team a bit more or I might be too weak to finish. So I did take it a bit more seriously and succeeded in completing the game on Normal difficulty, and I must say it wasn't worth the destination, the ending being typical of last levels in games in that it was a bit too easy and unimaginative, but the journey wasn't painful and could be fun. Mind you, the whole game was an exercise in roving the landscape solving simple switch puzzles and the like, while tearing into any enemies that attacked, so it was never going to be an amazing joy. I never felt overwhelmed by enemies, and it was a pretty comfortable experience at that difficulty level, so perhaps I should have tried the harder option.
In my second run through the game I didn't have the heart to go through the Danger Room stuff either as I'd spent a good portion of time and effort on my first game, so this was pretty much a straight run to the finish as quick as possible, though I was still playing in chunks here and there over weeks or months, so I wasn't enveloped by the story and keen to get back into it, but at the same time I quite enjoyed it, it was probably as good as the first one in general, colourful, but not as satisfying in that there wasn't as much to develop in the way it could be exciting that you started with one character and slowly added the other three. It wasn't worth improving many characters as it was best to choose your four and stick with them to get the most out of them, but I've always enjoyed hearing the history and backstory and connections between characters as I had little knowledge of the X-Men world. Unfortunately, I always come back to the fact that I had to play through almost entirely, twice.
I think back to the Hall of Knowledge level or the Nuwali jungle environment and have good memories of playing such areas (deep underneath the Gothic cathedral structure was a good sequence), even the second time, but overall I can't give it more than the previous rating I gave it in my Retrogaming Review. The environments were reasonably varied, but I still think back to the first game and can think of more highlights. This should really be looked on as an extension of the first title rather than a completely individual experience, though you don't need to know the story of 'X-Men Legends' to enjoy it. With that in mind there should have been an option to transfer the characters you'd built between the games - obviously the difficulty curve would have to be automatically adjusted to stronger characters, but it would have been a sensible addition.
In keeping with the last level being typically disappointing, the main man, Apocalypse took only one attempt to defeat, then it was over, and after putting almost fifteen hours into playing it this time (not to mention the twenty-four and a half hours of original play), I felt it should have had a more challenging ending that had had as much thought put into it as the opening. So it wasn't a bad game, but not quite the experience of a good game, mainly thanks to the glitch, nor did I really like the cel-shaded style of the characters, though I got used to it. It's repetitive, yet somehow enjoyable anyway if played sporadically, but I wouldn't want to play through again, and it deserves a star less than I would have awarded the first game. Never having played the co-op variation I can't comment on that except to say I can imagine it might be difficult to see your own character with four dashing around as it could be awkward sometimes in one-player when one of the special moves was unleashed in a flurry of light and speed.
**
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