Legend of Kay Anniversary celebrates the PS2 cult hit, Legend of Kay, which released 10 years ago, but is it still pawsome or should it have stayed in the litter?
This action platformer features Kay, an apprentice who is training under his master. Foreign armies (the gorillas and the rats) are taking over the land, and Kay’s village has been under control by both races. Before that, the world used to live under The Way, a period of peace and harmony among the lands of the cats, the rabbits, the frogs, and the pandas. However, when Kay’s training ends due to the rats and the gorillas, he decides to begin a journey to push them back out of the lands.
While it may seem like a candidate for a terrific story from its world building, the developers of the remaster have not done a great job at keeping it relevant. Legend of Kay has some of the worst voice acting I have heard in a long time. From awkward deliveries to wooden performances, including some awful attempts at accents, the dialogue sounds so unpolished and amateur; it’s as if they asked people in the street and put them in the recording studio. Characters don’t even show any sign of distress as their city is burning. In this remaster, it would have been valuable to hire current voice actors to replace the shoddy job of the original. The only saving grace is the voice actor of Kay, thankfully, who can bring a few good lines here and there, but his delivery is mostly as flat as the other characters.
In addition, most of the writing is cringe worthy at best; some of it doesn’t even make sense. For example, when Kay talks to a frog about how he can handle battles with his enemies, he says “I sure don’t eat bugs, but I sure can lick rats and gorillas!” What the heck!? You can expect a lot of terrible animal jokes (Crocodile Dundee jokes included) and awkward lines throughout, as the developers feel as though they should include cutscenes before almost every encounter.
Despite the dated voice acting and writing, the gameplay still stands out. Legend of Kay is a platformer with swordplay brawling elements. Overall, the game is well made in this respect, as it generally changes the formula as you go through the game. The majority of the puzzles are interesting to figure out, the platforming is challenging but fun to pull off, and the combat, while basic, provides plenty of variety from its enemy types. The variety of items you can get as well, including the Berzerk Potion (which enflames your blade), Hornet’s Nest Potion (which sends a wave of hornets towards enemies), and the Flash Bomb (which stuns enemies) adds to the variety and strategy within combat.
On the topic of combat, Legend of Kay provides a decent amount of challenge to the player with the variety of enemy’s attacks and skills. In addition, it may surprise you that this may have been a predecessor to the Batman Arkham series’ counter system. While not as refined, you can combo attacks together with its target roll system. The combat’s one downfall is that there is a lack of a lock on system, and at times, it is difficult to know what the enemy is doing or what is going on around Kay.
The game design itself still has some flaws that have to be addressed despite its excellent platforming and combat elements. Firstly, the camera is terrible. During some platforming and boss battle sections, the camera is too close to Kay, and you can’t see what is going on around you. The camera is also somewhat slow to turn, but after a while, the disorientation will fade when you get used to it. There’s also some hokey elements such as some awkward hazard placements, unexplained puzzles which have little reasoning behind them (despite most of them being fun to figure out), and uninteresting things to buy at the shop with the game’s currency.
The remaster is flawed as well. While having the game in 16:9 resolution is great, it seems like very few objects in the game have actually been changed. The models for each character have been updated, but the eyes are eerily shiny and vacant in expression. The wooden floors have been updated to have a shine to them too. Other than that, it is difficult to see what work the developers have done. The game itself did not date too much due to its comic book and 90’s cartoon style, but honestly it still looks like a PS2 title as opposed to other remasters like the Kingdom Hearts and Beyond Good and Evil reworkings. The music hasn’t been updated either, but the original work on the game is good to listen to most of the time. The music for the Village and the Haretree is pleasant to listen to, and the field themes work well with the theme the developers are trying to establish. The battle themes sometimes do get annoying to listen to, as they have a generic percussion sound to them. The surround sound upgrade, however, is a nice addition.
As opposed to other reviewers, I am delighted this was remastered for modern systems, as it shouldn’t be just the AAA games that get remastered. For example, a few of my fondest memories from the PS2 system were playing games after school with my friends, such as the Dragonball Z Budokai series and Digimon Rumble Arena 2. Movie tie-in games such as Spiderman 2 are also fondly remembered. The Legend of Kay may also hold a fond memory for many gamers out there too. Sure, it has terrible voice acting, badly written dialogue, and a clunky camera — but with the terrific platforming and combat, this can be a gem. I hope Nordic Games continues with remastering games that are not as highly regarded. Perhaps, it would be great to see Legend of Kay come back with a new game in some shape or form.