Legends of Wrestling on the PS2: An Odd Game

A while ago, I looked at the GameCube wrestling games, and two of them stood out as being better than I was expecting. The Legends of Wrestling games were surprisingly fun to play, especially after getting burned out on the other Acclaim wrestling games. This time, I’m going to be looking at the PS2 version of Legends of Wrestling.

Much like the GameCube game, there are a lot of wrestlers that I remember from my childhood. I know a few of them from watching internet videos on the history of wrestling, but I would’ve had no idea who they were back in the early 2000s. This is one of the games that I must’ve seen in the stores back in the 2000s, but I wasn’t interested in it. My knowledge of wrestling back then was largely limited to the WWF and WCW from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

There will probably be some overlap between the two reviews of this game. I’ll do my best not repeat myself too often, but there will have to be some comparisons. Let’s get into the game and see what it has to offer.

TLDR: A solid wrestling game that relies heavily on nostalgia to pull the player in.

Narrative

There is something close to being a story mode in this game. You can either play a career mode or a Create a Legend mode. It’s a cool idea to have both of these, and it is in line with what other games at the time were doing.

The career mode has you play “a season” worth of matches as you try to win the championship. I’m taking this vague and unhelpful description from the manual. It really doesn’t do a good job of explaining what you’re going to be playing.

Create a Legend is the fancy name for the game’s create-a-character mode. This lets you make your own character and make up a story for why they’re chasing the belt. There are quite a few customization options, which makes this very fun.

While there isn’t a story for the game, you can always make up your own. For the first game in the series, this is a solid wrestling game. It does rely on you using your imagination, which isn’t a bad thing. Since I don’t remember much from the GameCube versions of the game, I’ll be interested in seeing how the series improves over time.

Gameplay

The gameplay is okay. I’m not a fan of the controls, but they did get easier as the game went on. There are plenty of game modes and quite a few wrestlers to use. What I don’t like is how sluggish things are. I don’t remember having this same issue with the GameCube version.

I do like that there is a career mode and a decent create-a-wrestler mode. While it isn’t as deep as some of the other games, it is decent enough for what it is. It lets you have something close to a storyline in the game, which is something I like.

The controls feel off to me. When I started playing, it felt very sluggish. After I got slapped around a bit, things got a little better. It is an improvement over the other Acclaim games, but not by much.

There are a lot of game modes, which help a lot. Like other wrestling games, things will get repetitive over time. It would help if you were playing with a friend. As the game went on, things got better as I adjusted to the sluggish and delayed controls.

Thankfully, I do own the manual for this game. It isn’t all that necessary to learn the controls, but it helps. I still hate the counter system in the game. It feels like your opponent will always counter your moves, and your counters are a struggle.

Overall, I like the direction of the gameplay. The controls scheme has been simplified, but they don’t feel that much better than the Attitude and Hardcore Revolution games. The gameplay is fine, but still not as good as the SmackDown games or the No Mercy.

Visuals

Legends of Wrestling looks decent. It is a step up from the PS1, which is what you should expect from a PS2 game. I don’t notice much of a difference between this version and the GameCube version.

The character models look like the wrestling figures from the 1980s. If you’ve ever seen the LJN WWF toys from the early 1980s, then you’ll see some similarities. For me, I think they look like the figures from the 1990s. That is more of a product of when I was born and what I played with as a kid.

Each character is an exaggerated version of their real-life counterpart. It works for a game like this where the developers are hoping that nostalgia brings you in, and then the gameplay keeps you. The animations on the moves also look quite good.

Despite some clipping issues, things look good. You’ll have some moments where the wrestlers will pass through each other. This is something that you’ll see with many of the wrestling games from the late 1990s and early 2000s. I could complain about it, but it is something I could’ve mentioned with plenty of other games from this period.  

The moves and the ring look good. I don’t have anything to really complain about. Legends of Wrestling looks like a step up from the PS1 games, and I like how the game takes a less realistic approach. Overall, this is a decent looking game.

Reviews at the Time

This game wasn’t reviewed very well when it was released in 2001. The scores are between a 2/5 and a 4/5. There is only one outlier, which pulls the score up a bit. Most of the scores are average to good. I looked at three publications for this.

GameSpot gave the game a 5.3/10. At the time, this was considered an average score. The reviewer liked the change in direction for Acclaim’s wrestling games, but didn’t like the controls, which they called “sloppy.” They also held out hope that the game could be improved on in future games.

GamePro gave the game a 2/5, and the community average was a 2.8/5. I like to see how fans and critics have different opinions on these games. The reviewer called this “strictly a renter,” instead of encouraging people to buy it. I miss seeing stuff like this in reviews.

IGN gave the game a 4.9/10, which was considered to be a bad review at the time. The reviewer was really disappointed with this game. While he called it an improvement over WWF Attitude, he said the game got “old really fast,” and the Create-a-Player mode was “really bad.” Some of the complaints he made were rather dumb, and his “joke” and the end fell flat for me.

The reviewers liked this game more than the other Acclaim wrestling games, but didn’t think the developers made enough of an improvement over what came before. Some of the complaints made a lot of sense to me, while others are a little strange. It’s also a little odd when they try to imitate Hulk Hogan when writing about a wrestling game.  

6.5/10. There are a lot of good things in this game, but the controls hold it back. The graphics look fun and remind me of playing with action figures. There are a lot of ways to play, which is nice. Unfortunately, the controls feel sluggish at first. They get better as you play the game, but never feel good.

Pros

• Lots of game modes
• Good Create-a-Wrestler mode
• Good Graphics

Cons

• Lacks a real story mode
• Can get repetitive
• It would help if you knew wrestling history

Conclusion

The part of this game that I found fun was simulating matches with the wrestlers that I remember. Watching Brett Hart wrestle an in-shape Iron Sheik was cool. This was much better than watching two of these wrestlers trying to have a match while past their prime.

The control scheme is better than that of the previous Acclaim wrestling games. It was a struggle when I first started, but I eventually adapted to the controls. They aren’t as smooth or responsive as one of the Smackdown games or the N64 games from the 2000s.

The first Legend of Wrestling game isn’t terrible, but it wasn’t as good as the SmackDown games. That is what it was competing with, and it fell short of matching them. It is a solid game, though. There is a good foundation for the future games in the series. It will be nice to see how the other games improve.

If you liked this post, please check out my other wrestling posts. Such as, Legends of Wrestling on the Game Cube or PS1 Wrestling Games Ranked.