The Legend of Kage 2 (DS) Review

Posted by Jordan Williams on 11.03.2008

It's been almost 25 years since the last Legend of Kage game. There actually might be a good reason this was left in the past for so long...

Note: The screenshots in the following article are from a preview/beta build of the game, however outside of darker tones an a different HUD nothing has changed between this version and the final build

While it seems that going retro and re-releasing games or making sequels to games that still maintain that retro feel are all the rage right now, not everyone out of the gate can pull it off with such success. Square-Enix and Taito's Legend of Kage is an old school run and slash game for the NES that was seen by many as a distant rival to the ninja games of the time like Strider, Ninja Gaiden, and Shinobi. It's been 24 years and six generations since the last Legend of Kage and it felt like time to bring this game out for new audiences with an official sequel.

You can play as the Legendary Kage or newcomer Chihiro in two 'different' stories that lead them to their various legendary tales. The game is much faster paced this time around and also in keeping up with seemingly ALL Ninja-based games it has to be painfully hard. But is the retro feel of the working against it more than it is working for it this time?

Graphics

The graphics in LOK2 are a mixed bag. While someone might be able to appreciate the fluidly animated sprites and the style behind it, others are going to quickly point out that there is NOTHING about this game that looks like it should be on the DS outside of it spanning two vertical screens. The sprites are so small that you can't see any detail on a large variety of them, the bigger monsters boast some detail but they do it at the expense of them having any real animation.

The enemies you fight against are all ninja-related...which is a pretty cheap way of saying they all look exactly alike. In the early going of the game all you will see are ninjas of varying colors and near the end you will see some special type enemies and even they don't look to good. While it's hard to make sprites look appealing nowadays, most of the DS games that have gone that route have done so wonderfully, but this game looks and feels like a game that should've came out at the height of the GBA rather than well into the DS's reign.

The level designs are bland and uninspiring, thankfully you blow through them at super speed for a good chunk of the game, but this all just looks like game that just doesn’t look like it should've been on the DS, having some sort of 3-D element or animation of the levels and characters would've helped but sadly this game is old skool through and through and frankly it's just quite boring.

Gameplay

The gameplay here is just about as deep as the graphics. Your job is to get from point A to point B while killing as many evil and demonic ninjas as possible. There's two ways to go about this, you could play as the Legendary Kage who uses a Katana for melee and shurikens for long range attacks and has more HP at the expense of less MP. Or you can go with Chihiro who uses a Scythe with a hook attachment that all around gives her less range but more power than Kage, her MP is through the roof but she can only take about five hits before she dies.

Those are the only gameplay differences between the two and in the end it does make a lot of difference because outside of the first few levels this game is VERY hard and unforgiving. Enemies will rush at you in the cheapest spots and there will be a lot of moments where you might just end up taking the hit rather than trying to avoid it. The bosses aren't much easier, the first few you will literally walk through, but there are some that will take you 5 or more tries to beat and that’s even after you've gotten their pattern down.

Along the course of the game your chosen ninja will learn skills that are meant to help you along, but they are by large part useless for two reasons. Most of them are things you'll never have to do (like a 3-hit combo or a special falling or rising attack) and others hurt the gameplay experience more than it helps. Two of them worth mentioning are skills where you can create multiple copies of yourself which mimic your every movement. They are supposedly supposed to increase your attack power and range but in the end they do nothing but just drain all of your precious magic, the other are skills that increase the height of your jump which SOUNDS like a good idea in theory, but in practice it's even worse. Kage and Chihiro already jump about 10 feet at the start of the game in a single bound, by the end they are able to jump to the top of the TOP screen in a single bound. This is bad because there is NO WAY to gauge your jump distance; a short hop ends up sending you into the clouds and opens you up to a whole slew of attacks and misjudgments on your way down. The other reason the skills are largely useless is because there's no set way to 'learn' them. The game just decides to bestow you with them at random intervals and the skill you learn also seems to be random. There were times where I would completely suck ass through a level and die 15 times on a boss yet be rewarded with a skill at the end, where others where I would finish a level without dying or never actually being hit and wouldn't get diddly for it. It's very possible to finish the game without earning all of the available skills simply because the game dosen't tell you how to.

Another mechanic that is available are the uses of magic through a "Ninjutsu" maker in which you use magic orbs to create spells, while some of the spells are useful the others are just fodder and look pretty. I beat the game through with both characters and truthfully I used the same three spells the entire game and never had a moment where I was like "Okay, I NEED this spell". Truthfully the only time you might want to consider using the spell is during boss battles due to the fact that every level generally only has 1 or 2 health and magic recovery items.

Kage and Chihiro together have their own story throughout the game, but sadly it's nothing different than a few line changes and no so much as a different level or boss fight between them. Obviously since the game is called Legend of KAGE, Kage's story is a bit more fleshed out while Chihiro's is painfully obvious and tacked on. Honestly, Chihiro was just annoying to play as, her weapon and lack of health made an already hard game almost unplayable. Overall, the game is a bare bone action game that doesn’t bring anything new to the table from a genre or sequel standpoint the game doesn’t even have touch screen support except for the aforementioned Ninjustu Making portion and the menus. The more you play it the more it seems like one of those games that are hard for the sake of being hard rather than having a reason behind it.

Sound

Like the rest of this game, sound also tries to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to its retro feel. The games music sometimes is downright unbearable with its cliché pan flutes and oriental themed strings and other times it gets some Dynasty Warriors like buttrock thrown into the mix and sadly none of it is good. There is also no voice acting in the game which is just a no-no seeing that now almost every DS game features some type of voice acting even if it is just pre-recorded clips. There are little sound effects to speak of and all in all it just sounds pretty muffled and lifeless. Just go ahead and turn the volume down and turn the mp3 player up.

Lasting Appeal

Seeing as this game has NO co-op at all, something that would've been great with this type of game. The only things you can do after you've beaten it are tedious. You could go through the game again a two harder difficulty levels as well as do the Boss Rush mode in which you have to take on all of the games bosses in order with only one life and limited magic to use. You can also meet certain requirements during the course of the game that unlock special concept art for the characters in the game. Sadly this isn't much of an excuse to pick the game up after you've beaten it unless you're one of those type of people who need to complete every single thing that you need to do to truly feel that you've completed the game.

Fun Factor

Despite its difficulty, the game is actually fun for awhile. You do feel like a really badass major mega ninja but then the difficulty ramps up and screws you the fuck over big time. You'll begin to curse at bosses and more importantly yourself and Kage/Chihiro as you end up jumping too high and killing yourself as you fall into an enemy attack or yawn at the boring flat level designs as you just say "fuck it" and plow through the level with no real rhyme or reason.


The 411

Legend of Kage 2 is an attempt to stay retro but current enough to appeal to today’s generation that ends up falling flat. It looked like it set out to bridge the gap that the current Castlevania franchise has done so well but in the end this just ends up looking, feeling, sound, and playing like a game that should've been released six years ago when the GBA was still the handheld king. Legend of Kage 2 had a lot going for it but it sadly falls flat and just feels old and dated, then again it is on sale at a budget price. So you can just chalk this up to a case of getting what you paid for.

Graphics	6.0	Bland and uninspiring. The sprites are animated smoothly but this could've been so much more.
Gameplay	6.5	It seems like it's just hard for the sake of being hard rather then being actually challenging. Characters offer little change outside of difficulty.
Sound	6.5	Jumps all over the place, but the cliche and tired oriental tunes become grating after awhile.
Lasting Appeal	4.0	Boss Rush, Harder Difficulties, and unlockable art won't persuade many to play through this again.
Fun Factor	7.0	There's no doubt that you feel like an awesome ninja at first, but at the end you feel like you have no control over what you are doing.
Overall	6.0   [ Average ]