Random Article


 
Must See..
 

Labyrinth Legends (PS3) Review

 
gsm_169_labyrinthlegends_ot_ps3_121112_300
gsm_169_labyrinthlegends_ot_ps3_121112_300
gsm_169_labyrinthlegends_ot_ps3_121112_300

 
At A Glance...
 

Formats: PS3
 
Genre:
 
Year:
 
Developer:
 
Final Score
9.0
9/ 10


User Rating
no ratings yet

 

We liked?


Wickedly hard, but loads of fun.

Not so much?


Weak multiplayer options.


Final Fiendish Findings?

Labyrinth Legends is a really fun game at a great price. With loads of hidden areas, elusive stars, and weapon powerups, this is a game completionists will adore. And for the rest of us, the challenging gameplay and endearing graphic style are enough to keep me coming back for more.

0
Posted December 31, 2012 by

 
Full Fiendish Findings...
 
 

It’s a dungeon crawler. It’s an addictive puzzler. It’s wicked hard. And, it’s loads of fun. Labyrinth Legends from Creat Studios is your new obsession, and at a price of only $9.99, it’s worth every dime you put into it.

As you begin the game, you are treated to a cute little animation that provides the motivation for all that crawling through dungeons. In a short and sweet cutscene, you find your intrepid hero at the site of his joyous wedding celebration. As he and his new bride exit the church amid cheers and smiles, they lean toward each other to seal it all with an adoring kiss. Suddenly, an ominous black cloud forms above them, and as lightning crashes, the cloud descends upon the happy couple and steals your love away. And so ensues a Mario-like “Your princess is in another castle chase” that will have you throwing your controller and begging for more, all at the same time.

Right from the start, I loved the animation style in Labyrinth Legends. It is colorful, and kind of blocky and cartoony. It reminds me a lot of Castle Crashers, in that regard. As you begin to play, you will face a map, with various castles on it for you to visit in your quest for your bride. Each castle has stars that you can earn while you play through it, for anything from making it through a particularly tricky part unscathed to completing ridiculously hard puzzles to finding hidden areas. You can complete the dungeons without collecting a single star, but you need to collect a certain number of them to unlock each subsequent dungeon. That means you’ll be going back and searching, swearing, and all around praying to get through some very challenging levels.

You may have noticed an overuse of the word “hard” in this review already, but that is completely earned by this game. Labyrinth Legends reminds me a lot of the platforms of my childhood, where all you could do was plunge forth into a new area, watch how you die, and then repeat it over and over until you get the timing just right. And once you get through that tiny bit successfully, you’ll do the whole thing over again for the next bit.

Since it’s a dungeon crawler, the areas ahead of are in darkness until you reach them. The first time you go through it, you have no idea whether that switch you just tripped is going to send a freight train speeding at you from the left, or a deadly boulder rolling over you from below. You just know it’s going to be bad. From wending your way through spinning saw blades to solving the puzzle before your gas mask runs out, every bit of Labyrinth Legends requires near perfect timing and a whole lot of patience.

And once you’ve used up your lives, you’ll need to start back over at the beginning of the level, even if you were at the end guy and *almost* had him, you’ll be starting again at the start of the level (this would be the aforementioned throwing your controller part). Sometimes you’ll reach the end of a dungeon to see your lady love waiting for you……and then that darn cloud swoops back in to steal her away again. This is your clue that you are about to be subjected to an old school type boss battle, where timing and luck and a whole lot of skill are needed to get you to the exit. Even the early bosses required multiple play throughs, with my husband and I taking turns to minimize rage quits. Good times.

While there are multiplayer options available, we chose the controller pass method simply because they really weren’t that great. In fact, that’s my main complaint with Labyrinth Legends (and it’s a small one). I would have loved to see some cooperative multiplay, or at least online competitions. Instead, you get a choice between three different local competitive modes, for up to 4 players at a time. You either try to kill the most enemies, kill each other or collect the most treasure. There’s none of the puzzle solving or challenging gameplay that you get in the campaign, and that was a bit disappointing.

Labyrinth Legends is a really fun game at a great price. With loads of hidden areas, elusive stars, and weapon powerups, this is a game completionists will adore. And for the rest of us, the challenging gameplay and endearing graphic style are enough to keep me coming back for more.


Amy

 
U.S. Senior Editor & Deputy EIC, @averyzoe on Twitter, mother of 5, gamer, reader, wife to @macanthony, and all-around bad-ass (no, not really)


0 Comments



Be the first to comment!


You must log in to post a comment