According to IGN, Overlord Dark Legend is a tech pushing game.
On the surface, Dark Legend looks very similar indeed, with players controlling the Overlord directly in third-person and influencing Minions by targeting the specific area of the game world you want them to interact with.
Actually, when we say it looks very similar to its Xbox 360 we mean it literally. On firing up the demo, Dark Legend's title screen featured a background FMV of fly-bys and cut-scenes which we assumed had been culled from the original game. It quickly became apparent though that these scenes had been taken straight form this Wii version, its in-game engine offering some truly stunning visuals that really haven't been done justice by the first batch of Dark Legend screenshots.
Inspired by classic fairy tales -- and skewering them into far less innocent tales for its own nefarious purposes -- Dark Legend plays out across a lavish fantasy landscape, with our demo set amongst ramshackle cottages, rolling green hills and cascading waterfalls. The world features vibrant colours, sharp textures, real-time shadows, bloom and incredibly detailed character models in what's possibly the best looking third-party Wii title we've seen so far. While closer inspection reveals some obvious visual downgrades in terms of polygons and other tricks, it's an object example of how some careful consideration and a creative approach to the console's technical limitations can still yield spectacular results. It's all the more impressive when you consider the number of Minions the engine is shifting round on-screen at any one time and how far off completion the game still is.
Another Revogamers interview with the Overlord Dark Legend Wii team.
http://www.revogamers.net/articulos-394-Dentro-de-Overlord:-Chat-con-Climax------3.html
(Visual effects) There’re a couple of things that we did to help, there’re separate processes like the really good shadowing system on there. It would generally be a “next-gen” games and PC hardware, effect, but we matched to get it working on the Wii hardware. We’ve tried to make it pretty much for the environment, to give that rich and lusterous feel. (Shadows from trees and leaves)
Walker: yes, our real-time shadow system, that’s exciting, different; it gives us a really nice look. We’ve got bloom effects, 20 minions, 10 enemies on screen. We’ve worked to push the hardware, and there’s a lot going on.
(Use of the TEV unit, we saw advanced effects on GC, nobody using on the Wii)
Yeah, we did use the TEV stages, which is essentially the graphic hardware of the Wii has. We did that quite a lot, especially to integrate: we had some real time code which generates them, so the shadows could work with that material like on the fly. That’s it, the way that we managed to get our interesting shadowing system was by manipulating the hardware with the TEV stages. (From scratch) It’s designed very much for the Wii hardware, it’s a custom code written specifically to get high performance out of the hardware.
TEV=Textured Environment Pipeline, Wii and GC's tools for custom creating shaders and textures.
(More on tech) Ric: The level of detail that we’ve got on Wii is probably unparalleled at the moment. It’s thanks to the engine that we’re using, but it also is thanks to the techniques that we’re using, as well. We’re using a lot of instant shading, we’re doing visual calling, so when you go around corners things are added on the fly. We’ve managed to pack in an abnormal amount of data in only 64 MB around, so it’s quite an accomplishment.
Overlord Dark Legend HD video
So to pick up on a couple of points from the interview, the shadow system is inconsistent. Sometimes upon closer inspection you can see that they have tried to shadow everything in the environment including individual leaves. When running through it can sometimes look beautiful. Other times when you look at them you can see the shadows made up of squares, tiles even. Not too pretty.
The visually calling is basically trying to build the environment as you walk through and not rendering what is not seen. Unfortunately, whilst a good idea, its not fast or seamless enough, which gives you noticible pop up.
Foolz said:Up there with MP3? That's big praise. It does look pretty meh from the screenshots.
Honestly yes if it had a stable frame rate.
Some GAF guys have chimed in:
"Graphic wise, amazing for a third-party Wii game, there are frame-rate slow downs in the open areas but generally its smooth and its nice to look at."
"I'm impressed with the amount of breakable stuff, and some of the vistas are breathtaking. Art-wise the game is certainly up there."
So this isn't meant to be some overwhelming reccomendation for this game. If you're in Europe you should pick it up for £12 at Zavvi.co.uk
Anyhow, I love the art, which is like a slightly twisted fantasy world and the use of colour and lighting is sometimes beautiful to look at. It's really hard to find decent representative screens of how this game looks in motion, but if it weren't for the frame rate, I'd say it would be up there with Metroid Prime 3 on an SDTV.
Why is it so damn hard to find good captures of this game?
If you are interested these are my impressions so far, I'm almost halfway through.
Screens don't do the game justice. I started playing on an HDTV which normally rapes most wii games, but even on the huge panel the game looked great and if experience is anything to go by it will look 20% better on the old SDTV.
The castle area is very well polished, the game has a lovely art style, great lighting and texture detail. It reminds me of Oddworld Strangers wrath only better looking. In terms of charm and character, the game is almost on par with Little Kings Story, the voice acting helps alot which is often hilarious.
Unfortunately once you hit the first open area things take a turn for the worse, the frame rate chugs quite badly, its not a game breaker but its noticible and the polished game you thought you had turns into a not so polished game. Some shadows are like pixel shadows, you can see the squares, its pretty bad and there is some noticible pop up.
Thankfully outside of the first couple of open areas it has seemed to go back down to steady and things are looking lovely again.
Nicely though there is tons of descrutability in the environment and everything you smash is animated like a crash in a Warner Bros cartoon with nice attention to detail. It's just fun to smash things with your axe.
Minion AI seems clever, they rarely get stuck on scenary but its easily remedied.
One problem you have is that you cannot save where you want to and when the game does save it does it pretty innocuously so you dont know what is saved and what isn't. Hitting the off button is often a leap of faith. The main complaint is that the game is too easy, this hasn't bothered me so far, I don't like ball busting difficulty in games so this is fine for me.
But the gameplay is pretty simple so far. The pointer reigns supreme and its easy to order your troops about. Nicely you can really take advantage of it. I pointed at a spawn gate miles away and popped a minion fresh out of his hole. It's slowly adding features though so the gameplay could open up and get more complex. I'm only through about 15% of the world map.
IGN says:
"Collect enough of that somewhat-elusive loot though and you'll experience the game's real depth. Cash can be traded in for weapon upgrades, new armor (which changes on the actual character model), and level-ups for your minion groups. While adventuring through the world minions will also grab random objects and wear them as hats or use for weapons, and that's pretty awesome to see."
At the moment its very simple, you trudge through some nice and some not so nice looking areas, generally wafting your minions towards things with a wave of the remote and watching as they deal with things.
It's not brilliant or anything, but pleasent. One thing you can be sure of as its the same team, Silent Hill Shattered Memories is going to look pretty special visually. The darkness will mean the game will avoid the pop up and the interiors and added experience from this game means the game shouldn't chug.
Otherwise apart from the framerate all IGNs issues with camera and minion AI haven't happened to me at all.
If you're in europe and can take advantage of the super great zavvi.co.uk deal I would snap it up for £12
I played a few hours more. There are 16 sections of the map, all interconnected into one large overworld you can walk through one end to the other. I've only noticed frame rate problems that would bother you in the area directly outside the castle which is unfortunate. All the rest is okay bar an occasional hiccup. I love the visuals in this game. Ignoring the tech, the art is just beautiful to look at, the contrasting colours are perfect, the lighting as well. You play in golden light and lush greenary and then hit a section with a blue moon contrasting against blood red. The character designs too are beautiful and quirky, the building designs reminiscent of Fable and FF. It's just a pleasure to walk around and look at things.
The videos and screens online dont come close to showing how nice this game can look on an SDTV (when the frame rate is holding up). If it had a rock solid frame rate and got rid of the occasional ugly pop up, it would be up there with Metroid Prime 3 for best looking visuals on the system.
The gameplay is fine too, but it's just missing that elusive something. Its like a meal which is solid, there is nothing wrong with the meal but it lacks that spark to make it a great dish. It's just solid and pleasent.
It would be great if this game was a more traditional action platformer, I feel like Climax with some TLC and input could be another Rare. You can tell that they set out to make a proper 3rd party game and put a lot into it. They just need to solidify their engine and get some gameplay masters to help them out a bit.
The fundamentals are there but it needs to be fleshed out. I would even drop the minons and have it play more like a hack and slash action platform game.