Gauntlet Dark Legacy

"Not an innovative game in it's own right, it's rather a mishmash of previous Gauntlets"

Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, the kind of game famous for it's ability to let you single handedly destroy an entire army in under ten minutes. All this means is that you get to hack and slash your way through 45 or so enemy filled levels of doom, pain, and locked treasure chests. Despite the simple goal to the game, it's still amazingly fun, until you get stuck and end up running around til you can find one damn switch hidden behind a barely noticeable secret wall 500 miles away from the door. Gauntlet also features 4 new characters from the typical valkyrie, fighter, wizard and archer. The dwarf, knight, sorceress and jester were all added in Gauntlet: Dark Legacy

Gameplay - 9/10

The controls are simple and the concept is great. The three controls you need are move, fire and magic, and you can get through the game without a hitch. In keeping with it's simple nature, the game is exceptionally easy to learn. The only possible shortcoming is the switch problem described above.

Graphics - 7/10

The graphics were definately cleaned up after the blur-fest of the N64 Gauntlet: Legends. While there is nothing spectacular or outstanding in the eye candy, the characters and monsters are all sharp and move crisply. Their is no slowdown that I encountered during the game. Some of the character's special moves look downright awesome.

Sound - 3/10

The sound goes over the deep end of annoying. If your into that old 8-bit charm sound, then Gauntlet will go fine with you, but to most other people, just turn down the volume. The voice acting is also on the weird side (as is the large majority of games with voice in them).

Story - 6/10

Following the same story recipe of Gauntlet: Legends, You play as one of the heroes who are supposed to find the 13 runestones and kill the demon skorne that sumner's (your friendly assistant wizard) brother, garm, summoned. Run through each level, grabbing crystals (which allow you access to the next set of levels) and runestones so you can kill skorne. (read the manual for a better story description). The story get's stale quickly, especially if you've played other gauntlet games.

Replayability - 5/10

There isn't much to do in this game once you've beaten it. If your really dedicated, you can try and get everyone up to level 99, but that isn't recommended for you sanity.

Pluses

+ Nothing like slashing through a horde of monsters in under a minute
+ Giant and hard bosses at every round
+ Turbo attacks are awesome

Minuses

- Nothing like a horde of monsters slashing through you in under five seconds
- Giant and extremely hard bosses at every round
- Repetitive gameplay

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/01, Updated 08/07/01