Legend of the Dragon

If Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is an example of how to make a fighting game on the Wii, Legend of the Dragon is the demonstration on how things can go wrong. Lackluster graphics, a poor control scheme and practically no storyline make this game almost unplayable.

Essentially, Legend of the Dragon is a simplified fighting game. There are only two attack buttons, A and B, which means you could essentially play this game with just the wiimote, if it didn’t require the C and Z buttons for strafing for some unknown reason. So instead it requires a nunchuck as well, and uses the thumb stick to control its characters. The motion sensitivity involves waving both together madly in an attempt to throw your opponent, and that’s the extent of its involvement. Ultimately I find it somewhat ironic that upon attempting to play this game for the first time, the controls which had been dumbed down so much left me so confused I needed to read the book to understand them. I honestly did not expect them to have only two attack commands.

Graphically, this game is below average for a Wii title. The backgrounds are bland and the characters are quite plain, although it does maintain the cartoon look throughout. The animations are ok though, the transformation cut-scene (sadly) being the highlight of the game. This game definitely looks like it belongs on the GameCube, something I believe developers should strive to avoid.

As I previously mentioned, this game offers little to nothing in the way of plot. Having only read about the TV show, I can’t say if this is specifically a fault of the game or the show but nevertheless it doesn’t help the game at all. Your aim after choosing your character is to fight everyone until you’re the champion. The game makes you wander around the world map until you find someone to fight, 6 to 7 lines of dialogue come forth telling you essentially nothing except it is time to fight, and you carry on to the next battle. What little plot there is barely seems interesting, a very cliché story involving a brother and a sister fighting against one another for good or evil. As far as I could see, the difference between being the brother or sister is the starting location and your gender.

The game does involve multiplayer, apparently allowing 4 players to fight it out at once. If I had spent money on this game I wouldn’t admit it to a soul, let alone 3, so I don’t know if that was especially necessary, but in two player mode it uses the same button mash strategy that will get you through single player. The option of multiplayer did provide me with some relief however, as the game was as frustrating to work out for my friends as it was for me.

Basically, I would not buy this game. Not ever. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, not even diehard fans of the series, it’s really that bad. Even with the title drought affecting the Wii at the moment, this game wouldn’t warrant a rental. Go play Zelda again or something. Or if you desperately need an anime fighting game fix, go get DBZ: BT2. I had more fun playing Naruto, and I hate that orange ninja.