As you might expect from a wrestling title, Legends of Wrestlemania includes single and two player modes, online, dozens of superstars, a variety of match types, a create a wrestler feature, and a handful of other modes. This particular title is obviously focused on events that occurred at Wrestlemania, and Yuke’s Media Creations did a nice job of putting together the atmosphere by using realistic entrance music, including plenty of great stock footage, having JR and The King call the matches, and even using the proper logos and graphics for the time. As someone who has seen nearly every Wrestlemania, this was nice to see.
Wrestlemania fans in particular will also get a kick out of the large Relive, Revise, Redefine mode whereby players can go through several different Wrestlemania moments and attempt to either relive them, change them, or totally redefine them. For example, one of the first choices you have is it to try to recreate the incredible Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant match from Wrestlemania (III). As Hogan, players attempt to body slam the Giant. There are several objectives you can attempt to achieve going into such a match that earn you points.
You can also choose to revise and redefine other moments; you get the chance to play as either the good guy (baby face) or bad guy (heel) in these matches and you can alter wrestling history. You have to complete one challenge before being able to unlock others, but for Wrestlemania aficiondios, there are several hours of entertainment to be had here.
You might also want to partake in the Legend Killer mode. Here, you can either import your character from Smackdown Vs RAW 2009 or create a brand new wrestler. There are literally dozens, and in some categories, over a hundred, different customization options ranging from facial features to clothing to body type, hair, and so forth. Try as I might, I couldn’t find any combination that looked quite right for WCW’s Sting at the time, my favorite wrestler of all time 🙂
After creating a wrestler, you can enter the Legend Killer mode and attempt to knock off some of the biggest names in wrestling history, like Hogan and the Undertaker. There are three tiers of Legend Killer mode; I managed to get through the first one in less than thirty minutes (which earned me a 90 point Achievement). The only real difficult part about these matches is that your health carries over from one match to another while your new challenger has full health. Should you lose a match though, you can just rematch and continue on. Playing this particular mode highlighted for me what I believe to be the game’s biggest drawback: it’s repetetitive. In short, the game is a button masher, and by button, I mean Square. You can execute other moves like Irish Whips and grapples with X and Circle, but for the most part, just pounding away at Square will get you the victory. By rapidly pressing Square, your wrestler unleashes a series of punches, holding Square charges for a harder wallop. This series of hits is often enough to send any CPU opponent reeling backwards. You’ll build up your Chain meter, which has three stages, fairly quickly with this and each stage has a bonus to it; for example, Stage 3 allows you to execute a finishing maneuver that deals a good chunk of damage to your opponent. When it comes time to pin, simply press Circle near the fallen opponent; one nuisance wit this though is that Circle is also used to run towards the ropes, as well as climb the turnbuckes if you’re close to them. The issue I had was that instead of climbing the ropes or running towards them while my opponent was down, my wrestler would often just go for the pin.
I can appreciate simplified controls, and it absolutely does make the game easier to get into, but it also dumbs down the experience and control mistakes like that are more frequent. Still, just given the actual core gameplay of Legends of Wrestlemania, (i.e., button masher), it’s not really all that important. In other words, I have yet to lose a match because of a control miscue. The fact that the CPU opponents are hesitant to go for a pinfall was also helpful in my effort to win. Even when I had zero health and no chance to kick out of a pinfall, the CPU opponent would instead, 9 times out of 10, go for a series of moves that I could button-match (think God of War, etc) my way out of. Countering their moves with these button matching sequences kept me going and allowed me to wear them down and win, even though for the longest time I was out of health and all they had to do was go for a pin. It felt like a gimmick (a lot in professional wrestling does), but truthfully it did make the game more enjoyable just because I could continue to battle back and win, rather than get pinned as soon as my health was gone.
And that’s really how the flow of matches went; button mash where I could, get involved in those button matching sequences and win, and then pin. Most matches end in well under five minutes and I found it very hard to have a truly classic match; and even though the game gets you into a lot of historically classic matches, they never really play out that way because everything from the commentary to the action on screen is repetetitive and frankly not very fun after that first hour. This actually doesn’t change from one opponent to another as each wrestler — while having their proper entrance music, appearance, and classic moves — really feels just like every other one. There are statistics for durability, striking power, speed, technique, and grappling ability, and nearly everyone on the roster has very nearly the same stats. While that may be “accurate,” it doesn’t necessarily translate into a good wrestling experience, and in my experience, it amounts to a very similar feeling match from one bout to the next.
As far as presentation goes, I can appreciate the job done here to try to emulate the Wrestlemania’s of old. Wrestler entrances, the graphics used to show the wrestler’s names, the logos, and the classic commentary by JR and The King (who didn’t actually call all of the Wrestlemanias, of course), all add up to a pretty cool atmosphere. At the same time, as with the real thing, entrances, entrance music, and commentary all get stale and you’ll want to skip them before long. Rather than having to let each entrance load just so you can skip it, Yuke’s wisely allowed you to disable the entrances in the ‘summary’ screen right before you press to start the match. The commentary, while featuring two of the best announcers ever (JR being my favorite of all time), also wears thin before long when you realize how limited their dialogue options are. I’m not sure how many times I heard The King comment on how my wrestler was ‘doing great in the first round” during those gauntlets. Also, everytime one of the wrestlers’ health went to zero, on cue, one of the commentators would say one of a few lines regarding how the body can only take so much. You’ll hear the same three or four lines for every pinfall outcome too, and you just get tired of it.
Graphically, Legends of Wrestlemania looks okay. Animations are smooth enough and I didn’t notice any significant technical issues, but players still felt kind of clunky, a problem I’ve had with wrestling games for years. I suppose I was spoiled on Akklaim’s Wrestlemania arcade game that just had a faster pace to it, although matches lasted as long or longer than matches in today’s wrestling titles. The increase in speed may have made it more of an arcade than a sim, if you want to call today’s offerings a sim, but it also made them more fun.
While I’ve had a lot of overall neutral or negative things to say about Legends of Wrestlemania so far, it isn’t to say that the game doesn’t have several redeeming qualities, some of which I’ve already mentioned. While it is repetetitive, the experience was fun enough to warrant continued play, but I don’t think it honestly has the legs to be much more than a weekend engagment. Big WWE fans will dive into the create a wrestler mode, which you have to complete to enter into the Legend Killer mode, and there are several hours of gameplay to be had there. Local play with a friend gives the game additional life too, as wrestling games are just one of those types of games that are best experienced with a friend or two. Furthermore, there is an online portion that allows you to challenge others with your created wrestler or one of the built in stars.
Ultimately, Legends of Wrestlemania is worth a look for serious wrestling game fans or those of us who have lots of great memories of Wrestlemanias from year’s past. I thought the gameplay was just too darn repetietive and easy, and that’s what really is holding this back from being a much better game. It also doesn’t help that two favorites, Randy Savage and Ricky Steamboat, are oddly missing!