Xena: Warrior Princess - The Talisman of Fate

"I played this so you don't have to"

Friends, this is your old pal Mr. T talkin' here. Let me tell you my wife picked this thing up on clearance, and boy o boy - I felt it was my mission to warn you of it. Like Batman Beyond for Playstation, this thing is a bonnafide stinker. The characters are here, the idea is cheesy enough as are the attacks, but- like Communism, it might sound good on paper - but execution is something else.

Praise:

Um it's cheesy
One character hits you with his smelly boot, how serious is that? They also do crazy leaps and even wall flips. Xena does her Yi-yi-yi thing.

Gripes:

For a Fighter, there are surprisingly few moves
It has about as many for each character as a side scrolling action game like Final Fight or Streets of Rage. Point being, this is not that type of game.

Parappa?!?
Lao Ma in particular seems very one dimensional, the designs are almost awful in all others.

Fireball fight!
This brought back memories of Psychic Force, most of the special attacks are ranged shots (most characters have two or three), which equal to everyone running to the opposite ends of the screen and tossing these lame projectiles under someone dies of boredom.

Graphics: 3
They are blocky and they know it. Lao Ma has a promising future in 1D games. Nothing looks fantastic, but you'll know that after the first fight it won't get better. Probably the best effect is the fire spurs by Callisto. Even the 'special attacks' appear nothing different from regular attacks, save for the ranged attacks.

Gameplay: 3
Like controlling a bathtub in the Indy 500, this games controls take some getting used to. But it's even though the game is jerky and slow, there is also a fault with the controller. I found quickly why N64 does not have many fighting games. It's controller does not map well. A jump button way at the top, to duck it's this button back here. This is not the game's fault so I am not penalizing them for that, but it's very easy to try a simple charge back-forward move and have it not come through.

Sound: 3
The music is bad. At times I noticed the sound totally clipping out on me in VS mode, even after repeated resets and attempts. Perhaps this is just a fault with our cartridge. Speech is not common in this game, generic grunts and moans are. Stage music seems inappropriate.

Story: 5
Well there's a big bad guy named Despair, you and the heroes of the world(or villains if you want to go that way) must claim the talisman of fate and control the world. It's a fighting game so what do you expect?

Originality: 5
Actually, the premise of the show makes this game seem likely. After all, Xena has duels all the time.

Challenge: 5
The computer is not an imbecile (usually) if you keep tossing fireballs, it will just start jumping over them, but it never cheats to win.

Replay: 2
I could hardly make it through enough to give this a fair review.

Overall(Mr. T's bottom line): I pity the fool who pays good money for this game! This game hurt me to review, please use extreme caution in the handling of this game, when in doubt, run away.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/31/01, Updated 01/31/01