Lemur's eye game review: Legend of Kay

Legend of Kay
System:Play Station 2
Genre: Adventure
Style: "Press forward," Platformer
Basis:
You are a cat (orange tabby to be precise) who is trying to defeat the gorilla/rat alliance. After escaping your village that is occupied by rats, you go gallivanting around the countryside, defeating enemies, etc., etc.
The Bad News:
The story line is weak, and the voice acting does not do it justice. Seriously, the voice acting is enough to make you want to blow out your ear drums so you can't hear it. It is bad. Really really bad. How bad the voice acting is cannot be described by words in the English language.
Moving beyond the voice acting to the storyline and dialogue. Well, it's not much better, as much fun as it is to watch the bad guys sabotage each other, the main character is pretty much left alone. They had so much potential for a good storyline, too. Dialogue is filled to the brim with bad jokes. It is hard to tell if the designers meant it to be so horrible as to be funny, or if they have no sense of humor. It really is, unless you sit around and find as many ways to rape the words "cat," "cheese," and "rat" into as many other words as possible, you will find none of this funny. Furthermore, the insult of "cheese-breath" gets real old real fast.
The good news:
The only reason I bothered to get this far is because the gameplay is awesome this game has some of the best gameplay you will ever...play. Each enemy has their own unique style of fighting that you must find a way to counter and dodge, but their styles change when you switch to hard mode. This made me happy beyond words, and this game has no problems throwing many enemies at you in one giant horde, in fact it is the fighting style of one of the enemies to charge at you from all sides the moment your guard is down. This problem showed up in many games, particularly other platformers, case and point, Assassin's Creed, and makes me sad on the inside. the combat system is truly original, shunning lock on, instead giving you three weapons, only one of which you will use for most of the game (sword) because the hammer leaves you open too long, and the claws cannot penetrate armor. A variety of techniques ranging from a basic combo, to throwing enemies in the air and using them as a weapon make the fights intense and fast paced. Unlike other fighting systems, this games not only discourages button jamming, but make it all but impossible if you want to beat the first real fight. With all this focus on the fighting, however, the developer managed to find the time to put extreme care into how the game looked, which is, in a word, beautiful. Even though you have fingers, you are a cat with a tail, and it waves around constantly, lazily drifting when you are standing and lashing in a fight, your ears lay back when you crouch, and innumerable other little nuances that make the world almost believable. It is a truly wonderful experience.
One last trick up the designer's sleeve, though. Crystals. There are three colors, the more you collect of a certain color, the more they are worth, so collect as many as possible in as little time as possible. Here's the catch: you are timed. If you take too long to get to the next little crystal, die, or collect a crystal of a different color, the multiplier starts all over again. The point? Why, to unlock specials of course, everything from concept art to cutscenes are dependent on there little buggers. They keep you moving forward at a rapid pace, and give you a little sidequest to play with.
Conclusion:
For all the bad rap you'll hear about the voices, it is good game, worth every penny spent on it. And if you ever thought that a game could not be ruined by horrible voices, think again, and listen to them. Once again, it is a beautiful world, displaying the full capability of the PS2.