Gauntlet: Dark Legacy

The journey into darkness continues!

It’s quite amazing how much a control scheme can affect a game. While I enjoyed Gauntlet Legacy for a short while on N64 (it’s a game that’s better with more people), it wasn’t that long until I gave up. Dark Legacy is, for the most part, an enhanced version of the same game, but it plays much better if you pick the right settings.

You see, the good control scheme isn’t the default or even the second option. Scroll through the control schemes and there will be one called “Robotron”, this allows you to aim independently of moving.

Not only does this make aiming feel much more comfortable, but it also grants you the ability to move and attack at the same time, with a reduced rate of fire and a slower walking speed. This simple changes opens up the gameplay a lot for positioning and defending yourself, and thus makes the enjoyment last much longer.

I do think that not picking this control option is partly responsible for NGC’s magazine rather unfair 25% review score of Dark Legacy.

The rest of the game is similar to Gauntlet Legends, you shoot your way through levels destroying enemies and their spawning generators, kind keys to unlock chests and doors, and looking for secrets. Crystals are needed to open levels, golden icons to open parts of the hub world, runestones are hidden and used to open the final portal, and legendary weapons are used to help defeat bosses.

On top of all that, there’s a manner of special weapons, magic potions, and gold to find along the way.

There are plenty of annoyances, though. The biggest is the camera, which is far too zoomed in, so you’re often shooting at things off-screen. There also isn’t a chance to mix up the gameplay slightly by using different classes, as swapping your character means starting the game from scratch. There’s even some outfits that are only unlocked by cheat code (which also means starting from the beginning), it would have been nice to unlock these and swap without having to reset everything.

When playing with three others, some of the players could play around with picking different characters and swap to unlockable ones, as long as there’s a single designated player to keep to the same character and allow for keeping progress.

Playing on my own, I made it as far as the 6th world (out of 8). While I still had no trouble getting to the end of the levels, the game had grown too tedious to continue. Enemies streamed out of generators at a rate that took ages to get through, and the stronger enemies took ages to kill. With four players, this would be much more manageable, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Fun

Forgetting the one-dimensional play mechanics and horrible slur on a coin-op’s good name for a moment, Guntlet: Dark Legacy is worth seeing just to remind yourself that not every game is going to be a Pikmin or a Super Smash Bros.

Martin Kitts, NCG Magazine #68

Remake or remaster?

A cleaned up version of this game, with the ability to change characters and use bonus outfits without resetting progress, online multiplayer and a zoomed out camera would be a ton of fun.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Gauntlet: Dark Legacy.

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