Do you like the Legend of Zelda games? If you are one of those patiently waiting for the newest one to be released, Capcom has released a game that they hope will quench your appetite.. The game they have released is entitled the Legend of Kay. Even though this game borrows heavily from the highly popular and wildly successful Zelda franchise, does it manage to capture gamer’s hearts? Read on to find out!

The Legend of Kay takes place in a land far away, where four different animal tribes: cats, rabbits, frogs, and panda’s live in peace and harmony. They were able to stay this way because each village has wells that contain mystical water enchanted by a magical stone set in each one. In addition they each pay heavy adherence to “The Way”, which is a disciplined and peaceful way of life. Unfortunately everyone has gotten lazy over the years, which led to the gorillas and the rats forming an alliance and crushing anyone who opposed them as they tried to take over the island. It is up to Kay to put all of his recently learned ninja moves to the test to see if he can outsmart and defeat these strong foes. Are you up the challenge?

Kay has three different types of weapons at his disposal: a sword, set of claws, and a hammer. Just like in any game, each weapon has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. For instance if you use the claws you will have a very fast attack rate, but the damage done will not be that high. On the other hand if you use the hammer the damage will be a lot higher yet it is slower. Just like in other games, you can do aerial attacks, and even roll behind or snake behind and enemy to take them out really quickly. Another good thing about this game is the combo system. If you defeat an enemy and you quickly hit the triangle button and a direction, you will be instantly teleported in that direction and really close to that enemy so you can keep your combo points higher. If that wasn’t enough later on as you progress in the game you will be given different magical powers that will help you on your quest and make you more powerful.

The game is played just like any action-adventure game before it. During the course of the game players will come across puzzles that will need to be solved, enemies that will need to be vanquished, and even platforming elements. The puzzles are fairly simplistic to figure out and solve, such as hitting a switch or something else that is very generic. Sometimes you will have to use the teleportation movement, mentioned in the paragraph above, to get across big gaps to help you solve some of these puzzles. It wouldn’t be an action game without jumping, swimming, and swinging on a rope and the Legend of Kay will give you plenty of chances to do all of the above.

The graphics for the Legend of Kay are pretty decent. Everything in the game is brightly colored and has a very cartoonish feel to it. The different places that you will go are nice and different from each other, which always helps when you are playing through a game of this nature. When you acquire different magical powers, the graphics done for these are pretty nice, and not overly flashily like in other games similar to this one. I really like how detailed everything is in this game as well as animated. The animation for Kay is really well done, from when his tail moves, to when he is sneaking around.

The only thing I have to complain about in the graphics section is that this game has some framerate issues. When you start to fight many different enemies on the screen at the same time, the game starts to really crawl at a snails pace. It is a shame that this game is plagued by this because this really hampers and distracts from the overall game flow.

The voice acting for this game, oh my goodness, it is just horrid. I am pretty particular on voice acting in any game, to make sure that the voices match up with the characters and what not. Listening to this whiny, smart-alek voice on this cat is like listening to someone scraping their nails on a chalkboard for hours on end. Yes, I am not over exaggerating, the voice acting is that bad. Thankfully the music makes up for this over sight with the voices. The music that the developers put in this game really fits it pretty well. The sound effects are what one might normally expect from a game of this nature.

Just like almost all action-adventure games, the Legend of Kay has its fair share of mini games that will keep you occupied for a while, which take the form of racing games. During the course of the game you will get the chance to ride on various animals and boats. These mini games really help create a distraction and a nice change of pace from the rest of the game and are highly appreciated.

Legend of Kay is rated E10+ for alcohol references and cartoon violence. It will take up to 430KB on your memory card for game saves.

Gameplay: 7.8
If you have ever played Legend of Zelda, Dark Cloud, or any action-adventure game, then you will know what to expect in this game as it plays just like them all. The fighting mechanics for this game are not the best I have played but they get the job done.

Graphics: 7.6
The graphics for this game are pretty good. The game is bright, uses plenty of colors, and looks nice. What is not so good is that when you are fighting several enemies the framerate drops.

Sound: 5.0
Just mute the game to save your ears from the pain of listening to the characters talk, you will thank me later. On the flip side of the coin the musical soundtrack for this game is pretty good.

Difficulty: Easy
This game provides very little challenge to seasoned gamers but younger gamers out there will find a few segments of it pretty challenging.

Concept: 6.0
The developers really didn’t add anything new to the genre at all, the game just borrows heavily from almost all the popular games in the genre.

Overall: 7.6
Even though the Legend of Kay has some faults, it ends up being a pretty decent game. If you have any younger gamers in your household, this will be a great game for them to play. If nothing else this game is a good game to rent over the weekend.