Tournament of Legends Game Review

Tournaments of Legends for the Wii is developed by High Voltage Software. The development company has gained a certain level of notoriety for going after an under served market on the Wii. Their biggest splash to date is The Conduit, a first person shooter that was heavily hyped. While a decent enough game, the Conduit ultimately fell short of it's promise and the PR from the developer.

Tournament of Legends falls into much of the same category. Originally called Gladiator AD the game gained some interest in the video game community. A gritty game that looked to be a fighting simulator set in the gladiator arenas of ancient Rome. Somewhere along the road the game's direction changed into Tournament of Legends. It is not really fair to judge a game by what it is not, but in the case of this game the high expectations to the original concept makes the finish product somewhat of a letdown.

Tournament of Legends is still a fighting game set in an ancient Roman world, but the characters and the game world has changed significantly. The game actually has an interesting collection of characters to chose from including a minotaur and even a robot of sorts. The game's storyline has some interesting ideas but they are not expanded on enough to really make the story anything more than a side note. For example, all the characters have different motivations for progressing through the game to the final battle. This could have been a very compelling aspect of the game if the different characters and their stories had been integrated into the game better.

The game itself plays like a pretty straight forward fighting game. You can attack and dodge, block and super attack. Players can chose between a physical wave fest using the wii remote and nun chuck, or go for the more traditional classic controller. Either way the game is not overly complex control wise. This actually works rather well. Paired with the slow action the control scheme gives you a feeling that what move you make actually makes a difference. Too often in fast paced fighting games it can be just as effective to just push buttons at random, not so in this game.

Another interesting feature in the game are arena specific events. Every battle location has events that can be triggered at random where both fighters have to dodge huge enemies. For example, Neptune might descend upon the combatants wielding an enormous trident. This is another great idea that is implemented in a way that takes away from it's impact. Instead of these arena events adding to the frenzy of the fight, it causes the fight itself to pause and both players have to perform a set action to avoid the attack. Having to dodge these attacks while still fighting your opponent would have been a lot more interesting.

Finally, Tournament of Legends also comes up decidedly uninspired in the graphics department. While the character models are decent enough there is nothing here that will make anyone look twice. The game looks decidedly bland and average which is a disappointment coming from a development house that so often talk up the polish of their other games.

Playing Tournament of Legends quickly turns into an exercise in imagining what could have been. While nothing in the game is horrendous there is nothing to lift it out of mediocrity either. The fact that the game retails at a discount price at launch just underlines the feeling that the game just is not a full effort offering. Even at the very reasonable price it is a good idea to rent this game before buying.