Legend of Kay

"Don't underestimate this cat"

Hidden at the bottom of a bargain bin, I found a little game called Legend of Kay. I didn't get it at first; the boxart screamed low budget game and the back of the box didn't tell me much. After watching some trailers later on, I hurried back and grabbed the game. If this ever happened to you, by all means, go back and get it.

Legend of Kay is rather unknown and that's a shame, for that it's an excellent game... for the price, that is. Set in the oriental side of the world, the game brillantly mixes action, platforming, and a small dose of adventure and puzzle solving. Kay is your usual hero who's about to save the day, in this case a young feline who practices martial arts. He lives in a peaceful village with his uncle and master until he has to set out to free the land from Shun and the evil rats. The story is as cheesy as to be expected from a game like this, but it's fun thanks to the many friendly characters. The cutscenes are shown through comic strips, which is a refreshing take.

Much like Legend of Zelda, you'll first need to complete some tasks around the village in order to first obtain your sword. Then you'll be taught a set of moves, from jumping between walls to balancing on ropes, among other moves you'll need for the platforming parts. Although the game starts off similar to Zelda, the more you go, the more it becomes more of a platformer. You'll jump around, solve small puzzles that usually involve finding hidden statues, and sometimes you'll even go through dungeons filled with obstacles to retrieve a key. There are even some animal races scattered around the game that are quite fun and a nice change of pace. This makes for a lot of gameplay variety, which is Kay's main appeal. If it wasn't of that, the game would be rather bland.

There's never a moment the game feels repetitive, despite some occasional tedious parts. The action is constant and fun, balanced out with the platforming segments. Obviously, Legend of Kay doesn't heavily ax on challenge as it was designed with kids in mind, but the difficulty is fair and the puzzles don't require more thought than they need. There is no backtracking either, the levels being fairly linear, and once you move from an area to the next, you can't go back. Never.

This particularly didn't play in the game's favor for me. There were times at first where I left items behind because I had in mind the idea of coming back later for them, but I accidentally moved on to the next level. The game auto-saves when you enter a new level, so I could never go back to finish the side quests I had started. This is my biggest grip with the game; it's way too straightforward. It would have worked better with a more open-ended world connecting all different areas together instead of divided levels. With a possibility of traveling back through Kay's huge world, the game would have had a much more larger scope and adventure feel. But the truth is that despite the few Zelda elements, Kay really is just a platformer.

It's even more strange that you cannot return to previous spots considering Kay gets upgrades that could have been used to uncover secret areas in past levels. For example, later in the game you obtain a hammer that can smash down through thin walls, but that is barely used. It would have been great to be able to return to previous levels with that hammer and find some walls to break for hidden stuff. Instead all you're incited to do is move to the next area and forget about what's been left behind.

Another minor grip arises later in the game. While the first couple of levels are very varied and fun, the game starts focusing a lot on combat in later levels. It seemed as if the developers ran out of clever ideas for platforming and puzzles, so instead they just threw in a bunch of enemies on our way. In Legend of Kay, the fights are forced so you can't just walk off until you have defeated all enemies first. The combat system is fun, but an overdose of it gets very redundant too. You can use three different weapons (the sword, claw or hammer) and there are a lot of combos to pull off as well as basic magic, but it's still monotonous when it comes to fighting large numbers of enemies over and over. Even though the game itself is pretty easy, the fighting is actually hard and frustrating later on.

Another great aspect of the game are the graphics. They're quite impressive for such a little game. The first level is really the show-off and is a looker. Leaves falling off trees, grass blowing in the wind, light coming from windows... the cartoony look appears realistic and is some of the best I've seen. Unfortunately, this only applies to the very first level. Later areas look more dull and lack style. Still good for a PS2 game, though. The oriental music is also beautiful and makes the game even more epic. The only thing that will make you cringe is the robotic, lifeless voice-acting. The actors sound like they were reading the text rather than acting it. The lines are delivered without any punch and some animals have accents that are overdone. The good (or bad) news is that every single text in the game is read with voice-acting, something that is quite rare. For instance, if you try to open a locked door, Kay will actually say the "That door is locked" line.

Everything rolls in together to make Legend of Kay a more than enjoyable action/platform game. The style and story is more aimed towards a younger audience, but the gameplay will appeal to platforming fans of all ages, thanks to a variety of genres that keeps it from being just a kids game. It's also quite a long game for something so linear, with more than enough levels. It's just too bad there isn't more place given to exploration and that you can't backtrack. Still, I'd take that any day over Jak and Daxter.

Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Music: 9/10 Voices: 4/10
Replay: 6/10
Overall: 7.5 ~ 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/08, Updated 03/21/08

Game Release: Legend of Kay (US, 09/21/05)