Gauntlet Legends

"good game, bad price"

The orginal Gauntlet was, and still is, one of my favorites. So naturally when I saw Gauntlet Legends at my local arcade, I was all over it. A few days, and about 15-20 bucks, later I killed Skorne just to find out that I needed to find all the rune stones to really beat the game. I never found them all, for some reason they got rid of the game, even though it was making more money than anything else in the arcade. After months of feeling incomplete, I found out they were making the game for the consoles. I eagerly awaited it's release and when it did it was like seeing the arcade game for the first time all over again. I took it home and started it up. I was a little dissappointed, but on the whole I was pleased.

Midway changed the game around some, so it would play better on a console. First of all, the characters no longer suffer from ''Capitalism Sickness.'' That's when your life decreases on it's own so you will have to pay more money to keep playing. Secondly, the player can go directly into any level they have accessed. Meaning, if you missed a rune stone in the second level of the mountain world, you can go straight to the second level, you don't have to go through the first level again. Speaking of levels, the arcade's mountain and castle levels are still here, but the forest and the Pyramid have been replaced by the ice domain and the skytown. Another change, there are the hidden characters. These are the orginal four characters, but with a differant skin. The only real point to these guys (that I can tell) is that it lets you change your class in the middle of a game. Finally, there is no four player support, it's only two players. This kinda sucks, but if you have three friends who love Gauntlet, chances are one of them has a DC and will get it. Go to his/her apartment/house.

The graphics are not nearly as good as the arcade game, but this doesn't bug me. In fact, I think I like it like this. It brings back the nostalgia of playing a game in the arcade and then playing the home version on the good old atari 2600 (or NES). Who am I kidding, I want good graphics but I'm too poor to get a DC.

When you first pick this game up, you'll play through it from start to finish in a day or two. After that you'll probably put it down for a while (unless you are a freak like me, then you'll play through the game with all four characters). This is really the type of game you play when you are getting burned out with an RPG or any other really long game, in other words, this game is a break from other games. Unless you are a hardcore Gauntlet fan, wait until this bad boy is in the 20 dollar bin. But then, if you were a hardcore Gauntlet fan, you'd already have bought the game.

Graphics - 5 (bleah!)
Sound - 6 (voices muffled. music is good, but out of place at times)
Gameplay - 10 (I still like the orginal better, but this is a good game)
Overall - 7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/00, Updated 04/17/00