Xena: Warrior Princess - The Talisman of Fate

"Xena = One of the best fighters on the 64"

Introduction
Xena bursts onto the N64 in a blaze of glory, well maybe not a blaze but definitely in glory, well for me anyways, maybe not for everyone! It’s a fighter in the tradition of Mortal Kombat, just without the blood. I warn right off this review may be a tad bias, with my love of the TV show and all…;)…I’ll try my hardest to keep down the bias and give an honest representation of the game, ok lets start then shall we?

Story
Xena and Despair (Dahak’s Champion) have both laid claim over the Talisman of fate, the person who holds this powerful object has the power over the Destiny of the World. The fates decreed that the only fair way to decide who controls the Destiny of the World is to hold a contest in which earth’s greatest heroes and villain’s battle it out until the one who remains must challenge Despair. The story is fairly sound and conforms with the TV series those who watch the series will see the similarities. 8/10

Gameplay
Well it’s a 3D fighter, you fight in an Arena similar to Mortal Kombat 4, but in Xena you can move all around the arena unlike Mortal Kombat 4. I think this gives the player greater freedom, it’s a lot easier to move around a breath of fresh air from the common side scrolling fighters. You can choose from 4 different play modes “Quest”, “VS”, “Roster” and “Practice”.

Combos and Special attacks are easy to perform because for nearly every character you push the same set of button combinations to perform different combos and special attacks for each character. No more remembering endless button combinations for each individual character, which again is a breathe of fresh air from the usual fighters where you must remember endless button combinations (Mortal Kombat anyone?) My only gripe is that the moves can be quite limited for some characters, a few extra moves wouldn’t go astray

The game does have a quite interesting multiplayer option, you can grab your friends and play a 4 player multiplayer game in which you all battle it out in a arena until only one remains…you don’t see this sort of multiplayer in many fighters.

Controls are fairly tight, took me all of 2 minutes to get used to the control configuration, controls are no problem at all! 9/10

Graphics
The graphics are pleasant, especially the arena backgrounds, they are very detailed and the lighting effects are just superb, they have done an excellent job with the texture details. The character details are also very well done, being a huge fan of the show I can honestly say that they got the costumes and faces almost perfect, I was especially impressed with Joxer and Autolycus. I have no problems with the graphics. 10/10

Sound
Not the most important aspect of a game but the music the is played in each characters arena suites that character for example in Callisto’s arena you have “dark” music and in Joxer’s arena you have “comedic” music. I would of liked to hear more sound effects incorporated into the game, maybe some voice sample from the actual actors, but unfortunately there aren’t, what sound effects there are have been well executed, I really think the game needed more in the way of sound effects. 7/10

Replayability
The multiplayer mode adds to the replay factor, I play with friends for hours on end. The quest mode is fairly easy and most people will be able to beat it on the first day, however it might take you longer on “hard” mode where you must battle to characters at once. VS mode is also good because it lets you play any character you want without going through quest mode, again adding to the replay factor. 8/10

Rent or Buy?
If you’re a Xena fan I recommend you go out and buy it right now, if you’re a fan of fighters you might get some enjoyment out of this game but it may prove a tad easy to die hard fighter fans in their case I recommend they rent the game. I picked the game up for $AU 9.95…;)

Conclusion
Xena fans will be happy with this game and the average gamer will also find enjoyment out of this game, I think it might be better for its multiplayer options then its single player “Quest” mode. I don’t think diehard fighter fans will find this game much of a challenge its still worth a look though! Overall I give this game 8/10…and that’s as unbiased as I can possibly get! Hope this review helps.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/02, Updated 02/07/02