 STEAM DRUNK! Last month I found a random Super Famicom exclusive game on Steam, Umahara Kawase, and somehow I continue to find the most random Super Nintendo games that are listed on Steam for some bizarre reason. This time it's LEGEND, a very simple, straightforward beat-em-up that's really not all that noteworthy or memorable. I guess Umahara Kawase kind of makes sense because it was part of a series, and they at least ported it and made some minor changes instead of just sticking the ROM up for sale. What appears to be what's happened with LEGEND, your guess is as good as mine as to why THIS of all games is listed for $5 on Steam. The game at least looks and sounds as good as you could hope for from an older game. I will say the integer scaling and windowed mode looks really nice, but for some reason things get wonky when you play in full screen mode, it just doesn't want to work. The big appeal with a game like LEGEND is the local co-op 2 player mode. No online multiplayer, sorry, but the game is pretty fun for a while with the second player. Anyway, the footage you're seeing here isn't real time, that's not the game lagging, that's really how slowly you move. It's very, very deliberate and plodding. Seriously, this game feels like you're moving underwater, but oh no if that's not enough the second level has you moving through a swamp, oh come on, now the game is just taunting me. The beat-em-up mechanics here are decent enough, it is a bit similar to better games of the time like King of Dragons because there is a block button, you'll be using that a lot, but don't use it too much because you'll quickly be surrounded and then you're screwed. While your weapon range is disappointingly short, your jump range is substantial, so you do have the ability to escape trouble occasionally, in fact you could just jump kick your way through the entire game if you want. But this game is a war of attrition, you slog through, take damage, weigh the risks and rewards of taking more damage to pick up some items left behind, but by the time you decide what to do they disappear anyway, ugh. One key thing about beat-em-ups that they need to get right in order to be good in my opinion is the ability to switch sides quickly, or at least the ability to smoothly move enemies all to one side of the screen. Final Fight does this well, Streets of Rage, Turtles in Time, King of Dragons, all the really good beat-em-ups do this. It just makes it easier to progress further into the game and makes it less of a slog. Legend just does not do this, you hack and slash as enemies creep up, you try and block, but before you know it you're surrounded and constantly taking damage, this is a major problem with the gameplay. There's lots of other annoying stuff too, like things in the foreground constantly in the way, why do they do that? Also there's one more powerful attack you can do, but it uses up a lot of life, so what's the point? In case legend isn't hard enough for you, there's a difficulty setting, but I'm pretty sure all that does is just change how much life the bosses have. Speaking of, the bosses are probably the highlight of this game, they're huge sprites and pretty creatively done, and it's a nice break to have a sort of one-on-one fight instead of constantly being surrounded while your slow as molasses ass gets beat. Try saying that ten times fast. Anyway, I haven't the slightest idea what a game like Legend is doing on Steam because it's not all that great, and not even in the top eight or even top ten beat-em-ups on the Super Nintendo. They sped the game up a bit, it'd be a lot better, but it's just too slow. I guess if you really need a throwback, local multiplayer beat-em-up and you've got five dollars burning a hole in your pocket, then go ahead and check out Legend.