The Consensus: Overlord: Dark Legend Review

Jul 1, 2009

GameSpy's Take

Overlord: Dark Legend surprised me for a lot of reasons. It could have been a shoddy port of the next-gen versions but Dark Legend's been designed for the Wii from the ground up. It features a unique story and new controls, and takes a lot of the complexity from the other versions out (to its detriment at times), leaving us with the most accessible Overlord yet. Yet it can also be boring for those seeking a more nuanced and challenging experience.

As I said in my review of Overlord II, the minions are the series' highlight, and Dark Legend's no exception. Sure, you're playing as the game's big bad titular Overlord, but his story is really just a vehicle for vignettes that feature his quirky and crazy minions, and a host of other odd characters who inhabit the world. The storytelling and voice acting are pretty good, and it feels a lot like you're playing a twisted fairytale. My one complaint about the story: It doesn't really present you with many (or any, really) opportunities to be evil. Instead, all the "evil" actions involve helping people so that they can stick around to worship you or eliminate your obvious enemies. None of the other Overlord games' terrorizing-of-the-populace options made it into this version, which really makes it feel like a "lite" family-friendly version.

Dark Legend's newfound friendliness doesn't just manifest in the story, but also in how watered-down a lot of the elements from the other Overlord games are. Each of the four minion types pack different abilities -- blues heal, greens sneak, yellows brawl, reds throw fire -- but they all rely on a single type of essence, which is easily collected in bulk. The result: You never have a shortage of minions to draw upon, so losing any amount of any color minion doesn't make a real difference at all. And while this certainly makes things easier, it also means that strategic players don't even have cause to think about the cost of battle -- something I really liked in other Overlord games.

So, yes -- Dark Legend is definitely the easiest Overlord yet. While overall, you'll always be managing less minions than the other games (the max is 20 in the Wii version, as opposed to 35 or more in the others), you don't even have to use them that strategically. This is partly because the A.I. is really competent and completes a lot of actions with very few orders, but also because you can easily win most any battle via simple mob mentality. With the exception of a couple of fights, most any boss or enemy group is easily dispatched by simply swarming with your entire horde of minions. It's fun to watch, but I would have liked a little more pressure from time to time.

It's too bad that the game doesn't require more strategy -- the Wii's motion controls actually work really well, and would have accommodated complex commands for intense situations. Moving minions around is as easy as pointing the Wii-mote where you want them to go, while issuing attack orders just requires you to aim at a target and press B. You can also "throttle" a minion, which turns him into a walking bomb, with effects like poison clouds or fire, depending on the minion type. It's a cool, unique feature... but outside of the few times that you must use these powers to progress, the game doesn't take advantage of 'em at all. Perhaps the developers assumed more complex puzzles would have been too much for the perceived audience?

Dark Legend's fun, I just don't think that a person with considerable skill at games will find it all that challenging. Still, if you want a good, humorous story, and are looking for something to entertain you (albeit briefly), then Dark Legend is among the better choices for the Wii.

While other reviewers seem to have enjoyed their time with Dark Legend, they also all seem to have been bothered by some of its technical issues (which I found pretty inconsequential). They also didn't always agree about whether or not the lack of a real challenge was a good thing.

The Critics Agree

"That said, Dark Legend attractive visuals often force the action to chug, an overabundance of minions makes the game far too easy and at times incompetent artificial intelligence forces you to reissue the same commands to brain dead minions. If you can deal with those issues, then you'll probably enjoy this dark and destructive adventure." -- Chris Buffa, GameDaily

"Normally an inconsistent framerate and some random bugs would be a serious, serious game-killer, but with Overlord: Dark Legend there's still some obvious fun to be had if you can manage to overlook the game's faults." -- Mark Bozon, IGN

The Critics Disagree

"In a way, Dark Legend is like Overlord with training wheels on. Which isn't by any means a bad thing. It introduces some fairly complicated gameplay in a painless way while maintaining focus on a great storyline, excellent dialogue, and the sheer glee of making a bunch of underlings break a lot of stuff along the way. It serves as both a great introduction to the series, and a fun distraction for veterans who've already enjoyed the games on other systems." -- Scott Sharkey, 1UP

"If it wasn't for the mild puzzles, you could almost certainly finish the game by chopping and hacking your way to the end. For once in the Overlord series, the Minions feel like the kids back in high school you didn't invite to your party -- but they showed up anyway so now you have to babysit them. I do commend Codemasters for catering to the Wii with a brand new Overlord game instead of porting over Overlord II, which could only have ended in tears -- but give us a challenge guys. We're not stupid." -- Heather Bartron, GamePro

The Word on Twitter

"overlord: dark legend is keepin me up..im addicted to stupid things, but this game is kinda fun." -- Davinjpr

"Overlord Dark Legend (wii): Pikmin clone with a twist,good gameplay but lack of style (7/10)..." -- bambyhambali