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The Legend of Kay follows the ever budding adventures of a young feline named Kay, who is desperately, and recklessly, trying to break the confines of Gorilla and Rat oppression in his village, as well as the land he resides in. Kay goes off on an adventure to stop the two factions from taking over and begins to discover a few things along the way.
The story behind Kay is a simple one. It’s no different than an action role-playing game that you would find popular during that generation of gaming. It sets up a simple plot, leaves room for the main character to grow into a mighty warrior, offers up a few things here and there to make it seem deeper than it is and sends players off onto a linear journey that feels non-linear, but is quite linear.
What’s remarkable about this game from 2005 is that it still feels like a game that was on the PlayStation 2. The first sign of this? The controls. The controls are tough to deal with, yet simple in some ways. The tough part is mainly the camera, which is controlled by the right thumbstick. This camera feels like a camera you would be unwittingly fighting with, not knowing any better at that time in a typical 3D world, in 2005. It hasn’t changed at all, which is sad considering that it’s 2015 and there should have been a way to have that camera not locked on a specific track when you’re trying to move it back and forth. You do have the option to invert it to help with usual camera control scheme feel, but for the most part the camera gets in the way of gameplay — especially during battle. For example, the camera either doesn’t swing around fast enough or always swings not quite to the angle you’re looking for during battle times. This was the worst part of the release, in my opinion, as it could have been a completely free-floating camera for the player to use/control. Instead, we get a tracked camera that doesn’t agree sometimes with the area that Kay is standing in and there is little room for error.
Shifting to the good part of the controls, the fighting and defense, in general, is what you would expect from a 2005 title, as it requires you to use simple button combinations to execute particular moves. For example, if you’re trying to come down on your enemies with a sword, you need only jump in the air and then execute a one button (usually square) barrage to the ground. Or if you wanted to defend against attacks, you need only hold down triangle and use the left thumbstick to make sure you’re blocking a certain direction. What amused me about the defense is that you could tell through game dialogue that defending against attacks from all 3D directions was a badass deal. It’s fun to see an industry back in the day still wowed by 3D environments.
The rest of the controls were fine. You have your typical battle buttons, a set of different types of forgiving combos (forgiving means that the game doesn’t accurately expect precise timing or gives you a little bit of a time break when trying to execute a combo) and movement in a restricted 3D world. Speaking of which, when I see a game like this I realize how positively young the gaming industry was, even in 2005, with 3D environments. Even when the late 90s sprung the likes of Tomb Raider and Metal Gear Solid, the industry still didn’t figure out how it could use the 3D environment to break the confines of a 2D scheme. It’s very evident in Legend of Kay. The gameplay was built around the theory that you can have your XYZ axis, but you’re still restricted to only certain parts of the environment built for you. The gameplay feels like an early Crash Bandicoot, but desperately tries to convince its user that it’s living in a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time adventure. A good mix, but restrictive nonetheless.
As for the adventure itself, it had a lot of nice role-playing game elements in it to warrant that big adventure feel. There were side quests, such as helping someone find pumpkins or retrieving a banana for an ape, so that Kay could journey outside the walls (at the beginning). The gameplay also features some easter eggs, such as finding cat statues that lead to rewards (mainly coins throughout, but rewards nonetheless). All of this in addition to Kay’s main quest adds up to a nice size title, at least for 2005. It’s not Skyrim big, but it’s a big game for what it is.
The character progression helps to make Legend of Kay seem bigger. The game also mixes in some very remedial upgrades that actually encourage and engage gamers to keep pushing forward. Finding better swords, equipment and such helps to add a bit more variety to the gameplay process, as well as motivation to keep moving. Learning new skills and new ways to fight also helps it out a bit. Having said that, the game still is a step back from what you might be used to nowadays. But if you can put yourself back into a 2005 mentality, it’s easy to be impressed with what’s delivered here.
Overall, the gameplay is an adventure, though linear by nature, regardless of the 3D world built for it. It does offer up some variety with weapons, side quests and dumb fun (riding a boar through an obstacle course is always fun). I do wish that it had improved a bit with controls, as I think that was a bit of disappointment. Having a free-floating camera for gamers to control is a necessity these days, especially in remakes of games in 2005. Fighting off rats and gorillas is tough, doubly-so when you’re fighting a camera angle as well.
On the presentation side of the equation the game does a good job with improving things. The first thing you will notice is that the PS2 graphics have been smoothed out with current generation hardware. Seeing Kay’s reflection in a floor or admiring the smooth textures that should be jaggies around you goes to show that the visuals have been boosted a bit with the PlayStation 4 hardware. I’m not sure that what you get could have been taken further without comprising the integrity and majesty of the original game. Regardless, there are some aspects that have been obviously been bumped up a bit, but there is still the same personality underneath all that make-up. That’s a tough gig when you’re bringing in a decade old piece of gaming.
One thing to note is that most of the game is voiced over. The acting, while subpar, does have a subtle since of well-placed humor about it. You might run into certain characters that give you snide remarks or adult oriented jokes. While the delivery may not be the best, the dialogue can be gold some days. In short, the writing is pretty darn fun, but the acting isn’t the best. Good writing goes a long way, though.
At the end of the day, Legend of Kay Anniversary is a worthy bit of respect to the original 2005 game. The goods upgraded help to sell it at the $29.99 price point, but the adventure might be big enough by itself to make it interesting again. Definitely worth checking out.
Onto the summary.
