Reader Reviews

Zoids Battle Legends (Cube)

by tengu

You remember Zoids? They were really big in the eighties. They were these crappy self assembly type robot toys that were all themed after dinosaurs. I’m sure they had their fans, but the rest of us were probably too busy with our Transformers toys to notice. Well, the Zoids franchise has seen a rather large revival in Japan in recent years, with several popular anime shows, toys and model kits, and now video games being released to cash in on it. This is the first of those games to be translated into English: Zoids Battle Legends for the Gamecube.

This game is probably best compared to the likes of the Armoured Core series, or even Sega’s Virtual On, as it is primarily an arena combat type of affair where you play through various game modes by selecting a Zoid and knocking the animal/dinosaur themed crap out of whatever opponent the game decides to throw at you. As well as the usual multiplayer options, the two primary single player modes in this game are ‘Zoids Battle’ and ‘Mission Mode’. In ‘Zoids Battle’, you select a Zoid and an AI controlled partner and battle your way through several arenas, earning cash to upgrade your Zoid or buy new Zoids, as well as unlocking hidden Zoids and pilots for use in other game modes. This is a surprisingly extensive game mode that allows for an impressive degree of customisation on any Zoid in the game, right down to the paint job.

The other single player mode is ‘Mission Mode’, which is basically just a story mode, with dull pictures and written dialogue used to advance the story. But the gameplay here takes a welcome shift, by having actual missions rather than simple Zoid on Zoid fights all the time. These missions usually just consist of stuff like ‘Defend the cargo from enemy attack’ or ‘Outrun the enemy ambush in the canyon’ but they are still a nice break from the samey-ness of the rest of the game.

The graphics in the game are okay, nothing special, with the movement of the Zoids seeming sluggish at the best of times, and the arenas are all rather dull and light on detail. The sound, especially the music, is crap, there’s no other way to put it that’s just how it is. The gameplay itself, though, is actually rather weak. The game gives you two primary forms of attack: Melee and Firing weapons. The melee attacks are annoyingly slow and difficult to aim, so making them connect with the enemy is no easy task, and the firing feels very weak, if slightly easier to manage. The movement of the actual Zoids feels fine mostly, as you can do all the usual jumping, strafing, and dashing you might expect, but when the combat is so badly realised, does anything else matter?