Developer: Midway
Publisher: Midway
Rated: T for Teen
Released: 31 August 1999
Completed: 2 July 2016
I worked a lot of late nights in retail. If you ever wondered how a store gets all of its stock, it's unloaded by bitter, underappreciated young men from sweltering hot trucks until the wee small hours of the morning. After many of these nights, my friends and I would go unwind at a local fun spot. There was a bar, an indoor driving range, Go Kart tracks, pool tables, and an arcade. It was here that I first fell in love with Gauntlet Legends. We'd head to the huge complex after midnight and stay until 2 AM when they closed the place down or until we ran out of money. The arcade portion was huge and was the only place I've ever seen games like Crazy Taxi, War: Final Assault, Mace: The Dark Age, and even Marvel vs. Capcom 2 arcade cabinets. I bought my Dreamcast the day after playing Crazy Taxi for the first time.
As much as I loved all those games, Gauntlet Legends ate more of my quarters than any other arcade game. Not just at the time, but possibly in history. I probably dumped enough cash into that machine to purchase several copies of the game, which eventually I did (I currently own no less than four versions of Legends and its upgrade Dark Legacy). Though our old hangout has been replaced by a Menard's (because we needed another labyrinthine home improvement store), my love for Gauntlet Legends remains everlasting.
Legends took the core concepts of the 1985 coin-op classic and brought it into the (then) modern generation with (then) impressive 3D graphics, booming sound effects and voice samples, and the requisite upgrades that enhanced the hack and slash gameplay without changing what made the games so much fun to begin with. You and up to three other friends (or strangers) could team up as classic Gauntlet characters, the warrior, valkyrie, wizard, or the archer formerly known as the elf to combat the relentless minions of the demon Skorne across four distinct worlds. Best of all, there was a name entry feature that would save your progress between sessions, so you and your friends could return to the machine days or even weeks later, enter your name and PIN, and pick up right where you left off.
When Legends finally made it home to the PlayStation and the N64, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. The PlayStation version, unfortunately, made many concessions and cuts due to the limits of the hardware. The arcade game looked akin to a PC game running with a 3D accelerator at the time, while the PlayStation version looked more similar to blocky software rendering, and it was limited to only two players! Levels were also condensed, monster frequency was reduced, and yet there was still prevalent slowdown.
The N64 version, while not being a direct port of the arcade cabinet either, is a much closer approximation. Graphically, it doesn't hold a candle to the sharp looking characters in the arcade version, but it's a marked improvement over the PlayStation version. Levels and textures look better, although they look hilariously flat and muddy today, and are generally longer, more closely resembling the arcade layouts where applicable.
There are still some key differences, however. Many of the arcade version's levels have been replaced. The N64 version features an all-new ice world that doesn't quite capture the magic of the forest realm from the arcade game (tree monsters FTW). Most power-ups are no longer instantaneously used, but can be stored and activated when needed. Your health no longer ticks down since there are no coins to drop into the Nintendo 64. This gives the game less of a sense of urgency, but the challenge helps make up for that.
Even with those alterations, Gauntlet Legends 64 plays very much like its arcade big brother. If you have the N64 expansion pack, you and up to three other friends (presumably you don't let strangers into your house to play video games with you) still mow down an endless stream of enemies spawned from generators. Those lacking the RAM expansion are limited to two players at a time. You can still use magic potions to clear overcrowded areas, but now you can also throw a potion into a crowd or create a magic shield, which is incredibly useful for the game's tough boss battles.
Like the Gauntlets of old, food is still scattered around the levels in chests, barrels, or sometimes in the open, and the disembodied voice of Gauntlet's announcer, now known as a wizard named Sumner, will still warn you that "Blue Warrior needs food badly!" Sumner offers plenty of obvious advice, such as "save keys to open doors and chests" and "some barrels contain items." Gee, thanks, Sumner! I've never played a video game before, so I never would have known! Most of the arcade version's speech has made the transition, though there are a few lines that I noticed were missing, including my favorite, "That was an heroic effort!" upon defeating one of the game's large golem enemies.
As you might imagine, Legends is best enjoyed with a full compliment of players, but I've still always managed to have loads of fun battling through the levels on my own. As simplistic as the action generally is, there's something incredibly satisfying about it, especially when Sumner announces I've gained a level. Between stages, you can use accumulated gold found in the stages to purchase upgrades. These include limited-use power-ups, or permanent stat boosts. You can even sell items you picked up in the levels if they're not your cup of tea. The upgrades will definitely help you on your quest and have a tangible effect on the overall difficulty; adding strength eventually makes it much easier to kill enemies faster, for example.
The last new addition to the gameplay formula are the turbo attacks. Each character has several, governed by a simple three-tiered meter in their info bar. They can be devastating to a group of enemies, clearing the way in a jiffy or getting you out of a jam when you get surrounded.
Levels are still large and maze-like, but the 3D perspective sometimes means the camera gets obscured by scenery. It's rare, but annoying nonetheless. Each of the worlds focuses on an overall theme with four major levels, plus a boss encounter. Certain levels contain hidden objectives, such as obelisks and rune stones that must be activated or collected in order to access the final confrontation with Skorne. You can get hints from Sumner about the locations of these in the game's hub world between levels. Legends is somewhat non-linear in that you can replay levels to rack up gold, experience points, and power-ups, or switch between worlds once you've found enough rune stones to unlock the next. You can even save all the boss battles for later, which is highly recommended because they're likely to slaughter the unprepared adventurer unless you've found the legendary weapon they're susceptible to in another region and have plenty of XP under your belt. Each world also contains a hidden level where you collect coins to unlock an alternate version of the four main characters. They're little more than new skins for the four base classes, but it's still cool.
As I said, there's no way the N64 was going to live up to the arcade version's graphical fidelity, but it does a respectable job for the most part. Unfortunately, the framerate struggles at times and the game becomes extremely choppy in certain areas when there are loads of enemies on screen. There are times when the framerate dips into single digits, causing you to look like you're teleporting around the environment as the game employs frameskip to compensate. Textures are generally flat with highly visible seams, which causes a very strange disorienting effect at times when the camera spins. The camera is also fully automated and cannot be spun, centered, or otherwise adjusted by the player.
Those issues notwithstanding, the character and enemy designs are fairly interesting. Each area has its own unique enemies that suit the overall theme, such as armored knights in the interior castle levels and green goblins in the mountain realms. Everything is fairly low poly-count, but it captures the Gauntlet spirit very well.
The N64 handles the arcade game's sound surprisingly well for a cartridge-based system. The music has a very medieval theme, including new renditions of the classic Gauntlet theme. It's mostly organ-based, but there are also some tracks with guitars and even some electronic beats. Sumner's deep, booming voice sounds great, but can sometimes be hard to hear in the sound mix. Oddly enough, the music and sound effect volumes can be controlled independently, but there is no volume adjustment for the voice samples to alleviate the issue. Overall though, I find Gauntlet Legends' audio package to be more than sufficient in complimenting the sense of the epic action-adventure.
The N64 control pad also does a fine job handling the action. The analog stick controls player movement, while the Z-trigger underneath the center handle activates your turbo. The A and B face buttons control attacking and potions, making it easy to use the combinations required to pull of turbo attacks or magic shields. Lastly, the four C buttons cycle through your inventory and stats, while the right shoulder button activates and deactivates your selected item. The d-pad can also be used instead for left-handed players. It's a thoughtful control scheme that works well, though again it would have been nice to have some kind of camera control added, even if it's just tapping the left shoulder button to recenter.
Legends is a challenging game, even on normal difficulty, so expect to spend some time grinding for levels, gold, health, and items in the late-stages. This is when the game's arcade roots definitely hinder the home console experience. Even for devoted followers like myself, this can be tedious when all you want to do is go to the next level. There's not much strategy to the combat, apart from using potions and turbo attacks at the best times, so there's little you can to but suck it up and replay some older, easier stages to prepare for the tougher ones ahead.
Some may say Gauntlet Legends hasn't aged well, or that it wasn't very good to begin with, but I'm still blinded by my somewhat nostalgic love for it. I've logged hundreds of hours across all the different versions of this game since 1999, from the arcade to the various console ports. I never claimed it was a flawless game, but I think the flaws are relatively minor. It's not very deep - it is an arcade game, at heart - but it's fun, especially with some friends around. If you're looking for a mindless hack and slash for some local couch co-op, you can do a lot worse.
Gauntlet Legends was completed on a real Nintendo 64 with no cheats.