Legends logo AGA

Time travel. World Save. Shoot injuns and mummies. Steve Bradley sets forth to battle with the Legends...

Legends has been around for an age now. The game was finished some six months ago but, over the past year, coders Krisalis have concentrated their efforts on producing games for newer platforms and converting other titles for other mediums.

Thankfully, Legends has not be consigned to the dustbin, the publishing duties instead passed onto Guildhall Leisure, surely the most prolific of their ilk, in the past couple of years, as far as the Amiga is concerned.

It must have been two years (perhaps even a little less) since Krisalis first dropped into the office with an early demonstration of Legends. They were then in the process of completing the first world and we at AF were all rather impressed.

At the time there wasn’t anything like it available for the machine – the cutesy RPG style so far being reserved for Nintendo’s Super Famicom. The Zelda series on the SNES has proved to be massive and it remains a mystery to this day why nobody thought of the Amiga as a suitable platform for this style of game. Are we regarded as being too serious? Do they think we spend all our time playing Dungeon Master and the Ishar series?

Legends is a view-from-the-side-but-above role playing adventure game – take a look at one of the screenshots for the definitive perspective. You trot around the landscape in the guise of a fetching little fellow (OK, slightly cute) and rattle up to people to discover what they have got to say for themselves and discover if they can offer you any clues to aide your quest.

Not all people are so friendly though, for instance, in the first world – a Red Indian camp some years past – your first task is to collect a bow and arrow. Within minutes you will be getting chased by other dishonest injuns firing wildly at you, as well as others that prefer to give you a sound thwack with a fist.

After the initial ‘erbapetty (Arthur Daley used to say that_ you discover that you can dodge and kill them without much ado and collect the resultant hearts which replenish energy – you lose plenty of health in the early exchanges.

The worlds are huge, too. The first is possibly the biggest – all right, so we haven’t seem them all – but the games tester at Krisalis reckons that to complete the whole game takes six hours, and that’s when you actually know what you’re doing. So you can imagine the journey to enlightenment takes some time when you haven’t the foggiest what’s going on.

Some plot, perhaps with a biscuit? Well, basically, a couple of scientists have travelled back in time and handed powerful weapons to ancient civilisations who might want to do bad things with them. Hey, just a minute. Hadn’t we agreed that the Indians in the Americas weren’t exactly to blame for everything ever?

Anyway, only the professor and his assistant can save the world. You are the assistant and you have to possess the souls of each particular place and clock on to the next job. Otherwise everything goes horribly wrong, i.e. you get fed up and go and watch The Bill, or something.

For those not familiar with the Zelda genre, here follows an albeit brief description of what goes on. You’re a cutesy platformesque character. You wander around the landscape and chat with people – not in speech, mind, just text.

The people you chat with offer services or give you clues as to what the blazes is going on. More often than not, you don’t have the requisite coins or keys or whatever to make use of the service offered, but at least you know that yu need said coins or keys.

A map offers assistance, too. Jingly-jangly music plays in the background and often there are secret games and hidden areas, as is always the way of these things.

America 1400AD is up first (the aforementioned Red Indian place – probably now a ‘reserve’ or a drive-in McDonalds perhaps). It’s huge, probably the biggest world in the game. You’re heap the little Red Indian and collecting (read ‘finding’) the sacred bundle is the goal.

Dotted around are pick-ups which you slot in the inventory. The warp crystals allow you to beam to different parts of the reservation, firesticks are needed to blast rubble in order to open blocked entrances.

There is most certainly plenty of head-scratching even in the early parts of the game. You know you need certain implements but finding them is another matter.

What Legends glaringly lacks is a save option of any kind. The aforementioned first world is huge and it takes a deal of time to complete. A password is given upon completion of a world, but you can spend a couple of hours in America, die and have to start the bloody lot again. Having to retrace steps for an hour and more is asking a darned lot.

Each of the worlds has guardians and sub games (America – worm bashing, England – duck shooting, Egypt – alien bashing and China – the Great Wall dash). In America you battle swooping eagles and bears, in Egypt, crumbling mummies while Medieval England harbours the giant Robo Knight – he, rather unfairly, carries machines guns. Oh, and there’s a fire-breathing dragon to contend with.

Once you’ve got the hang of controlling the little fellow, you can dodge most of the enemies that come your way. Often as not, they’ve got a set movement pattern so you can sit tight and await time and space then tinker on through.

Legends is a quirky, enjoyable game. You can enjoy it even after scratching your forehead to the flesh. Because your enemies constantly regenerate you can always boost your health by killing them again and again. This is rather a pain at first but soon becomes a blessing. You now if you lose energy, a few easy killings will boost you back to maximum health.

Each world offers its own challenges and visual variety. In Egypt you come up against wandering mummies and Tutankhamens and bouncing and, erm, sharks. Anyway. In Medieval England witches hover the trees soldiers hunt and occasionally you change from human to frog, which is rather a shock first time around. You won’t get bored of the scenery.

The only problem is that you will struggle so much on the first, enormous stage and have to start it so many times (because you can’t save your position) that the initial enthusiasm you worked up for Legends dies a death before any progression is made.

But there is no doubt that much time and energy has gone into producing Legends and it is gratifying that games like this are still appearing on the Amiga. The PC version was coded by Pete Harrap, a veteran of the industry.

Although it looks a cutie, Legends is a horribly stubborn cookie, a game that requires patience, tenacity and puzzle-solving know-how. You won’t regret buying it because you’ll almost certainly get your money’s worth.


Legends logo AGA AGA Only Amiga Joker Hit

Bereits Ende 1992 begann bei Krisalis mit der Arbeit an diesem knuffigen Actionadventure, jetzt endlich leben die Legenden. Und das Warten hat sich gelohnt, denn AGA-Amigos dürfen sich nun auf eine der unterhaltsamsten Zeitreisen aller Zeiten begeben.

Während die mit hübschen Comic-Bildchen aufgepeppte Vorgeschichte über den Screen flimmert, erfährt man, daß die Menschen von Aliens geschaffen wurden, die sich am Südpol des Mondes niedergelassen haben. Das amüsiert nicht nur Erich von Däniken, sondern auch die interstellaren Schöpfer mit ihrem außerridischen Humor: Als das Ende des 20sten Jahrhunderts auch das der kriegerischen Zweibeiner zu werden droht, finden das die sensationslüsternen Mondmänner höchst unterhaltsam.

Doch dann kommt es zu Aussöhung statt Apokalypse, und die anschließenden friedlichen Jahre drücken mächtig auf die Einschaltquoten der alien-eigenen TV-Show, die von den Versuchstieren wider Willen berichtet.

Also schwingen sich zwei fiese Forscher in ihr Raumschiff und düsen durch die Zeitportale zurück in die Vergangenheit, um unter anderem mit Wasmaschinen im alten Ägypten oder einer Lieferung Maschinengewehre an die Ritter der Tafelrunde für Stimmung zu sorgen. Das funktioniert prächtig, und als sie wieder heimatliche Zeitgefilde erreichen, tobt auf Mutter Erde das schönste Chaos.

Doch noch ist Terra nicht verloren, denn ein englischer Professor hat ebenfalls die Zeittore entdeckt und macht sich mit Assistent Billy auf, den Lauf der Geschichte wieder in geregelte Bahnen zu lenken.

Der Spieler schlüpft nun also zunächst in die Rolle des wissenschaftlichen Helferleins und der wiederum anschließend per Seelenwanderung in die Körper eines Indianers, Ritters, Ägypters und Samurai.

Ausgehend vom America des Jahres 1400 n. Chr., konnen Pyramiden, englische Burgen sowie die Chinesische Mauer in zwei unterschiedlichen Reihenfolgen abgeklappert werden, ehe es anno 2025 zum finalen Showdown im Raumkreuzer des schurkischen Ober-ETs kommt.

Die Größe der Levels ist dabei wirklich beachtlich, vom Abstecher ins etwas dürftig ausgefallene Pharaonenreich einmal abgesehen. Für Übersicht in den Oberwelten sorgt deshalb eine per Funktionstaste einblend- und scrollbare Karte.

Daneben müssen aber auch noch jede Menge Gebäude, Keller, Höhlenlabyrinthe und dergleichen Dungeons mehr erforscht werden. Sie sind jedoch nicht allzu komplex aufgebaut, so daß der Zocker mit einer Prise Orientierungssinn seinen Stift nebst Papier getrost in der Schublade lassen und sich voll und ganz auf seine Aufgaben konzentrieren kann – das Kartographieren ist (wenn überhaupt) nur in den seltensten Fällen erforderlich.

Recht so, denn der Weg zum Weltenretter ist beschwerlich, und es gibt wahrlich alle Hände voll zu tun. Dafür sorgen schon die vielen putzigen Bewohner der gerade besuchten Gegend, die Billy mit Aufträgen geradezu überschütten: "Bring mich zu meinem Daddy zurück!", "Finde die Rassel unseres Babys, damit es aufhört zu plärren!", "Ich laß‘ dich erst vorbei, wenn du drei Wildschweine erlegt hast!", schallt es ihm allenthalben entgegen.

Damit keiner der Kundenwünsche vergessen wird, dürfen die letzten 32 eingeblendeten Texte jederzeit mittels F2-Taste nochmals in aller Ruhe nachgelesen werden.

Ebenfalls nicht vergessen sollte man trotz der Pfadfinderdienste die Eliminierung der drei, vier Ober-motze pro Abschnitt, denn nur so kommt der Seelenwanderer eine Runde weiter. Und ist der boxende Bär erst mal ausgeknockt, die Mumie abgefackelt oder der Drache niedergestreckt, können in diversen Subgames (z.B. einem coolen Klon des Arcade-Klassikers "Space Invaders") zusätzliche Continues erspielt werden.

Zu Spielbeginn sowie nach jedem Warp in den nächsten Level wartet nämlich nur ein einziger erneuter Versuch auf gescheiterte Recken, und der Finale Fight will gar ganz ohne eine solche Hilfestellung gewonnen werden – wobei anschließend auch noch die Flucht aus dem Raumschiff binnen 30 Echtzeitsekunden gelingen muß.

Aber keine Angst, das Überleben ist hier nicht übermäßig schwer. Zwar stört der feindselige Bevölkerungsteil regelmäßig beim Knacken der kleinen Rätselnüsse, und die Gegner sind nach kurzer Zeit auch wieder quicklebendig in ihrem Revier zu finden, doch dafür hinterlassen sie nach ihrem Ableben auch meistens ein oder mehrere Herzchen, die nach dem Aufsammeln Billys Energiebalken in die Höhe schnellen lassen.

Apropos Aufsammeln, die vielen Fundstücke wandern durch simples Drüberlaufen ins Inventory, das per Space-Taste auf den Bildschirm geholt nwird. Dort läßt sich auch die Wunschwaffe aus den jeweils drei unterschiedlichen Kampf-werkzeugen pro Epoche aktivieren – freilich müssen sie allesamt erst einmal aufgestöbert werden.

Bequemer ist die Wahl der Waffen aber immer noch via Tastatur: Neben Bogen, Dolch und Wurfsternen gibt es dann auch noch originelle Feind-vernichter wie das alles erschütternde Erdbeben-medaillon oder die durchshlagkräftige Mine.

Letztere werden insbesondere alle Grabräuber bald zu schätzen wissen, auch wenn laut Pyramidenhausordnung das Legen von Feldern mit mehr als f:unf Minen verboten ist. Kleiner Tip am Rande: Es lohnt sich von Fall zu Fall durchaus, mit dem Fight gegen einen Endgegner zu warten, bis die nächstbessere Waffe gefunden ist. Das schont die Nerven und macht den Sieg mitunter zum Kinderspiel!

Optisch läßt sich das unterhaltsame Abenteuer wohl am ehesten mit "Speris Legacy" oder dem legendären Konsolenvorbild "Zelda" vergleichen. Aus der Vogelperspektive steuert man sein knuddeliges Mini-Sprite durch bunte Landschaften mit herzig animierten Bewohnern.

Dabei könnte das multidirektionale Scrolling zwar getrost etwas weniger ruckeln, doch viele liebevoll in Szene gesetzten Details machen dieses Manko locker wett. Vor allem aber kommt hier der Humor nie zu kurz. So hüpft der Held beispielsweise im alten England für kurze Zeit als Frosch durch die Gegend, wenn er Hexe oder Hofnarr zu nahe kommt, befreit ein geisterverseuchtes Gartenlabyrinth in bester "Pac Man"-Manier von Unkraut, gerät im Wilden Westen in eine Indianerdisco mit abgefahrener Lightshow oder erfährt so ganz nebenbei, wie die mysteriösen Kornkreise entstehen.

Neben ordentlichen Sound-FX tönen derweil aus den Lautsprechern witzigfetzige Musikstücke, die prächtig zu den entsprechenden Szenarien passen und auch nach längeren Sitzungen nicht auf die Nerven gehen.

Die Kombisteuerung per Stick/Tastatur funktioniert jederzeit tadellos, unfaire Stellen gibt es nicht.

Und ein weiterer Pluspunkt, den das gelungene Gameplay für sich verbuchen kann, sind die immer wieder auftauchenden Subgames, die für willkommene Abwechslung sorgen, ohne irgendwie aufgesetzt zu wirken. So dar man u.a. noch eine kleine Runde Darten oder die Herausforderung zu einer Partie "Tank Attack" annehmen.

So viel Licht muß freilich auch ein wenig Schatten werfen, und deshalb zum Schluß noch ein paar schlechte Nachrichten. Erstens sollte man für Legends reichlich Geduld mitbringen, denn Abspeichern ist nicht: Ein Level muß komplett gelöst sein, ehe man das hochverdiente Paßwort erhält, und das kann beim Umfang der einzelnen Epochen schon ein Weilchen dauern.

Zudem versagt das Paßwort-System, wenn im multilingualen Einstellungsmenü deutsche Screentexte gewählt werden.

Aber was soll‘s, schließlich liegt auch die Anleitung nur in Englisch vor. Und ein paar Brocken Schulenglisch genügen völlig, um in den Genuß dieses erfrischend kurzweiligen Spielvergnügens zu kommen, das reichlich Spaß für wenig Geld bietet. (st)



Legends logo AGA

This game was finished a year ago. Weep for the Amiga.

There’s a scene that plays itself across the picture palace of my mind that I hope Legends’s (ugly, but I like it) being left on a shelf for a year will prevent ever occurring. The scene shows me being introduced at some sort of post-Variety Performance affair to the people who wrote Legends. (I’ve just escaped from a smugglers’ hideout with the aid of Moore Marriott and Graham Moffat, and have been mistaken for the visiting prince of Moldavia, but that’s not important right now).

The theatre owner and I pass down the line with me smiling and nodding and occasionally crooking a finger in the corner of my mouth and looking around squirerrelishly, and suddenly his choice, which has become background noise as I try to spot Graham and Moore, who are disguised as postmen, blinks into crystal-quality reception.

"And this, your highness," he says, lettucing backhandedly to a beaming figure, "is the chap who vetoed the save routine." He hands me a rowing oar. At that point the Legends. Instead you get a password, one per time zone, meaning if you begin to play, you must complete a level, start to finish, in a single go. ("There are continues," shrieks the figure as I paddle him sturdily. I demonstrate the difference between complicated action RPGs and, for example, shoot-’em-ups by attacking him with a helicopter gunship.)


He hands me a rowing oar

Of the five levels, the sharpest I completed one was in an hour and a quarter (there’s a window showing time elapsed) which explains why I’m writing up my findings at four o’clock in the morning, although you should not be concerned for I am borne up by the disco spectacular Space Themes CD, which long-lived readers may recall was disqualified from the Super Stardust Invite Eternal Humiliation competition because Jonathan Davies and I found it curiously excellent. Fortunately, two people submitted copies.

LIEGES
It’s this stupefyingly cretinous error (a save routine. How hard? A SAVE ROUTINE. I don’t want to have to play the game for two hours at a time to make it worthwhile) that’s prevented Legends from scoring 90 percent. I’d like to say that now, so that whoever insisted on passwords, should they be reading this, has plenty of time to sit and consider what they’ve done. Yes. It’s very well to hang your head now, isn’t it? Hmmm?

Legends, like Speris Legacy (AP59, 50%), is an action RPG; Gauntlet with puzzles, if you must. There’s a meddling aliens/time travel plot which deliberately introduces anachronisms (microfilm in ancient Egypt, for instance) but wisely keeps them as background jokes or boss items (a few are robots, and one bunch rides motorbikes) so saving you from kicking your monitor through a window trying to find the one thing the diamond-tipped drill will actually cut down, as happened in the wretched Speris.

Each level has three or four bosses (which I was immensely impressed to discover could be killed using your lowliest weapon skillfully enough if you fancied wading in rather than searching for better guns) and if you best one, there’s a sub-game such as squashing worms or massacring ducks to win extra (haarghh) continues.

It’s even got the structure right – a big outside area to wander around in using things, and dungeons in which to fight a lot. (Although the dungeons, unlike the level proper, foolishly aren’t mapped).

Oh, hang on. Space Themes has finished prematurely because I skipped the unspeakably dismal Star Trek Love Song. I’ll just put on some Emergency Broadcast Network, whom apparently I alone outside the US think are great.

Delightfully, I could fill perhaps half a page, probably as a vertical strip, with examples of splendid moments from the game. But this would obviously go some way to totally ruining it for you as surely as if I was employed by Empire to talk about any film not yet released.


Star Trek Love Song

Suffice to say the attention to detail in Legends is terrifically exact. Spreading out objects, which I rightly detest as a device to make the game seem bigger, is kept to a minimum (you’re generally meant to find four pieces of a roken artefact of the time, but you can just store the bits and drop them off all at once), the characters behave logically and don’t suddenly remember later on something they should have mentioned in the first place because the programmers couldn’t be bothers putting in a new character (stand up Speris), animals potter about for no other reason that it’s fun to trample on them, there are lovely effects (for example, day dawning when you fix the clock) and the incidental animations are first-class (I was particularly taken with the prat-falling shopkeeper and the bald compere who buffs his head.)

As a result, Legends hangs together in a way Speris never did. It may force you to play for hours at a time, but it doesn’t stop you having a good time doing it.

LIEGES
There are, of course, problems. But none so serious as otherwise to have jeopardised that 90% mark, Mr Increasingly-Contrite Password Bloke. (Well, it might have ended up with 89%. But that’s beside the point.)

I was shouting angry at the regenerating monsters – they return when you scroll back about a quarter of the screen, which obviously you do all the time because the idea is to walk around exploring. But that’s compounded by the inexcusable firing mechanism. When you fire, you stop. Until the firing animation’s played and you’ve flung your knife, or bouncing ball, or whatever, you’re completely immobile.

If you’re attacked by two or more monsters, you get hit. (The alternative is to run away and put enough space between you to hit the monsters cleanly, but then, of course, you scroll back down and other monsters regenerate.

Maddest of all, it’s possible to force a monster back with your shots until it vanishes from the screen, whereupon it races back as a new creature and your kill bonus is lost.) But just as I started to become incredibly furious, I found myself deliberately playing the scrolling to slaughter lots of low-level monsters and build up my strength. Grumble. (Staying with the monsters a moment more, I was disappointed to see that although imaginatively drawn, they all but one behaved in the same random movement/rushing forwards blindly way. Still.)

EBN’s album. Telecommunication Breakdown, has come to an end. I shall consume a bag of satsumas.

The text of Legends is surprisingly good, with a couple of priceless jokes, though spattered with spelling errors and overmuch concerned with bottoms. Bof – you Britishers. And it’s ALL IN CAPITALS, which was funny when we first did it, but has rapidly become tiresome. Surely they could have fitted in a lower-case alphabet. Hey- perhaps replacing that clumsy bloated password routine with a neat, efficient save game one would have made the necessary room.


It's snowing in China

What else is wrong is minor. It’s snowing in China, with snowflakes drifting all over the place, but the monsters fire, erk, snowballs. The darts sub-game drove me to distraction – you have to land all three in the blue to win, but if you lose, instead of playing on automatically, you have to walk a step back towards the compere and ask for another game, all the while the music flipping between the darts and castle tunes. (The music, as in Speris, is excellent, with dozens of atmospheric tunes. Luckily. Because you can’t turn it off.

There’s a blindingly obvious bug which means you have to reset if you get killed rescuing the lost woman at the start of level one because you reappear on the wrong side of the forest, and she can’t use the teleporter. Now and again your hard-worn kill bonus of an energy heart will stick in the scenery.

In both the China and America levels, the last task involves wandering the whole map trying to find a well-hidden item. In England, a witch and a jester fire spells at you from off the screen (I mean, what) that turn you into a pitifully unfairly slow frog to be destroyed by the simplest of guards. But it’s your fault for hanging around the quickly-learned danger areas. Arguably).

And tentatively-stepping upon an icy patch in a castle, I was unsurprised to see my knight (you change character from level to level) spin out of control, but was slightly staggered to see him ricochet, get attacked by the wrong monster, knocked off his plane and bounced left to right helplessly until he was dead and the game was over. Forty minutes in. But, again, probably my fault. Pfft. And wasn’t I you just now? Blast.

The flying monsters, which describe irregular circles or sine waves, travel in pattern-baffling pairs and are appallingly hard to kill. (But serve up three energy hearts instead of one when slain.) And I consider it slightly churlish not to give you the chance to increase your life meter beyond the initial three hearts, even though the levels increase steeply in danger.
Oh, damn these satsumas and their benign influence.

NED LEGS
In China one of your weapons is a hula-hoop. This made me laugh. In England you ride a mine-cart (no, it’s not one of those mine-cart levels, praise the saints) and can control it by switching the points. There are about six exits from the mine, so the track’s fantastically complicated, and there’s a bit where you speed towards a sudden rock, but instead of crashing you take off and Evil Knievel across a row of cars. This make me whoop.

When you deliver a level’s artefact, you’re directed to the pick-up point (you’re actually a lab assistant possessing these people, or something) and the game switches off the monsters so you can admire the scenery and revel in your victory. This made me admire the scenery and revel in my victories.


Bounced left to right

At the beginning of the game you can broadly choose a route – from America to China (and all points west) or from America to Egypt (and all points east). This made me do nothing, as obviously I wanted to change my mind I’d have to play through the entire first level again to get a different password, so just plugged away at the one I was on.

The final level, the alien base, has no map, squadrons of fast-firing soldiers, armoured tanks, watchtowers, an alien mastermind six times as tough as anything you’ve fought so far and a 30-second dash to the exit before the place explodes, but frankly I couldn’t be bothered as I loathe exactly this kind of last level. But at least the bosses I’d vanquished so far didn’t come back.

The best compliment that can be paid Legends is that, like the games it’s modeled upon, it has the courage to keep things unique. "Look," it says, "Here’s an underwater section, with bubbles and sharks. We’ll use it once, because then we’ve the impetus to do something even better for the next part. If you don’t know what’s coming next, it’ll stay fresh and fun." And they’re right.

If only the chap who decided on passwords had worked in a bank instead, eh?


UUGGHH
Skeleton hanging on a wall in Level 500AD England of the game Legends
You pause momentarily to catch your breath. A skeleton swings in the dungeon breeze.
Skeleton walking towards hero in Level 500AD England of the game Legends
Suddenly! the skeleton lurches forwards, sacrificing its arms to bite off your head. Agh! Agh! Agh!

SPLOSH
Legends: Screenshot from start of Level 2000BC Egypt
If only this was about a year and a half ago, and the programming team was still working on the Amiga, and people hadn't been lying about saving the Amiga, and Lucas Arts were still doing games for the Amiga, perhaps there would have been a conversion of the similarly-viewed Zombies Ate My Neighbours, which I like a lot.


Legends logo AGA

Price: £25.99 Publisher: Guildhall 01302 890 000

Reviews pose many questions, eg: if Speris was Zelda, is this Zelda 2?

We were not happy with Speris Legacy. It was a game that promised lots and delivered very little. Zelda was one of the NES’s biggest hits and Speris had promised the same sort of action on Amiga, but instead there was a lot of anti climax and frustrating boredom built into the game. Pity.

Then someone remembered Legends. In 1995 a nice man from Krisalis turned up with a preview version of this game, wondering what we thought of it. Did it have potential? We thought so. When would it be finished? He didn’t know (this sounds so familiar).

The premise of the Zelda-style game is that a hero with a mission (rescue princess, free lands, destroy evil – that sort of thing) sets off on a voyage of discovery through different ‘lands’ or ‘zones’.

Picking up weapons along the way it ends up being a cross between a Commando style game and an adventure. Yes you have to shoot or beat things roundly about the head with swords and like but you also have to collect an inventory, talk to people and solve puzzles.

Legends fits all of the above criteria in a much more involving way than Speris. They have got the plot the right way around here and although the puzzles can be just as hard in Legends there is a lot more to do in between puzzles.

Where Speris had you buzzing around like a fly in an empty bin, Legends gives you plenty of enemies to engage while you frantically try to find the next person to talk to, the next object to give to someone for a favour or the end of level baddie.

Bartering
Give someone an object for a favour? Yes, this game is all about trading too. To get something from the gardener in the mediaeval, for instance, you will have to engage him in conversation and discover that he isn’t very happy because he has too many weeds. Then you search for some weedkiller, bring it back to him and weed the garden for him, after which he will surrender what you need.

While you’re weeding the garden you’ve got a double edged opportunity: to kill or be killed. Basically, while you’re trying to weed the garden some nasty ghosts are trying to kill you. Like all other creatures in the game if you manage to kill them first though you can get more life yourself. As they die they surrender hearts, you can pick these up.

Ooops
Life is a precious thing in Legends. You have a certain number of continues, but there is no facility to save a game in the middle of a level, which is frustrating. One of Legends’ great advantages is that you have four worlds to explore: North American, Egypt, Mediaeval and China and an additional Space Ship level.

This provides major variety in terms of gameplay but it also means that once you’re used to the enemies in one world everything changes in the next one and you start getting killed too easily.

I was sceptical about the loading time too, off floppy at least. It’s supplied on six disks and takes a couple of minutes to get running. This makes going back to disk one and the start again tedious.

Another annoying point about Legends is that the weapons are a bit weedy and the enemies are too persistent at times. This means that you can spend far too long high-tailing it out of situations without having enough chance to stand and fight, which I always find most enjoyable. Perhaps a way around this would have been to allow the enemies to yield more life power when killed.

This is a step above Speris, and those who have been searching for Zelda on an A1200 or A4000 need look no further. With various sub games, mazes and the like there is a lot of gameplay in here, and even though the various attempts at humour seems to fall flat (on me at least) it’s still a fun adventure.


Meet the enemy

In the five time zones of the game you will meet hordes of enemies. The premise is that aliens have invaded Earth's past and future and are driving the inhabitants of each zone berserk. You play the nephew of a mad professor sent into the various time zones with a personality suiting each one. Your job? To stop the alien menace. These are the sort of thugs you'll meet...

Legends
An Egyptian phaoraph menace. Will follow you until you die.
Legends
A mummy from Egypt. Will give chase and hit you regularly.
Legends
A wild hoar. These charge around goring people like you.
Legends
A bloke with a big head. He spits fire and grimaces a lot.
Legends
A mediaeval thug, yesterday. Not a pleasant sight on bridges.
Legends
A parachuting knight!?! Unusual and very annoying.

Legends logo CD32 Amiga Joker Hit

Obwohl das Actionadventure bereits auf Disk ein echter Hit war, gönnt uns Krisalis nun noch einen kräftigen Nachschlag in Sachen Steuerung, Sound und Spielspaß und hat bei der Versilberung sogar den Preis gesenkt!

In wechselnder Gestalt muß der Spieler das Chaos beseitigen, welches vergnügungssüchtige Aliens in vier verschiedenen Epochen auf unserer Erde angerichtet haben.

Auf dem Reiseplan stehen der Wilde Westen, monsterverseuchte Pyramidenlabyrinthe, das mittelalterliche England, die Chinese Mauer und schließlich der finale Showdown im Raumschiff der Störenfriede.

Unabhängig von Raum und Zeit warten stets informative Schwätzchen, das nötige Sammelmaterial für die nicht übermäßig schwer gestrickten Rätsel und die unvermeidlichen Scharmützel mit den umherstreifenden Feindesscharen auf den Ordnungshüter.

An Gegnern gibt es bis zu vier Obermotze pro Level, doch bereits das gemeine Fußvolk hat hier anscheinend mehr Leben als eine Katze und taucht unverdrossen immer wieder an denselben Stellen auf. Aber mit Geduld, Spucke und der richtigen Taktik zwingt man die Kerle allesamt in die Knie, wofür man nach ihrem Ableben auch mit energiespendenden Herzchen belohnt wird.

Eine gewisse Ausdauer ist allerdings schon gefragt, denn mit den einzelnen Spielabschnitten ist man locker ein, zwei Stunden beschäftigt, und das jeweilige Paßwort gibt es immer erst am Ende – mal eben zwischendurch abspeichern geht leider nicht.

Langeweile kommt dabei trotzdem nicht auf, das verhindern schon die vielen netten Zwischenspielchen: Nach dem Erledigen eines Endgegners kann man sich z.B. beim Bekämpfen alt-ägyptischer "Space Invaders", bei der Entenjagd oder in einem mehrere Screens umfassenden Jump & Run zusätzliche Continues erspielen.

Auch sonst sorgen kleinen Einlagen wie ein Dartgame oder eine Partie "Tank Attack" immer wieder für willkommene Abwechslung.

Während das knuddelige Heldensprite durch die detailreichen und schön bunten Draufsichtlandschaften (in der Art von "Speris Legacy") läuft, wird es von einem gut einstündigen CD-Soundtrack begleitet. Die silberne Legende ist nicht nur wesentlich musikalischer, auch die FX klingen hier etwas satter als in der Disk-Version.

Außerdem steuert es sich per Pad nochmals eine ganze Ecke bequemer durch die Zeit, da man jetzt nicht mehr in die Tasten greifen muß, um die Übersichtskarte oder den Inventory-Screen aufzurufen, eine Waffe auszuwählen oder die letzten 32 Einblend-Texte durchzulesen.

Aber am erstaunlichsten ist wohl, daß den Konsoleros und AGA-Amigos mit Scheibenschleuder (zusätzliches Fast-RAM wird nicht benötigt) trotz all dieser Pluspunkte auch noch ein Preisnachlaß von zehn Märkern gegenüber dem Floppy-Original eingeräumt wird.

Fazit: Wenn einem so viel Gutes wird beschert, dann ist das schon ein zusätzliches Wertungspünktchen wert! (st)