After the original Legends of Wrestling was a “Fun experiment” that I quickly grew tired of Legends of Wrestling II came along and much to my surprise was far more playable than I was expecting, crossing over into just plain “good” thanks to the new territories-based career mode and the addition of four World of Sport era legends from the UK (in the PAL version). Does it still hold up in 2022 though? The answer may not be as straight forward as I would’ve thought!
Background:
A bloody triple threat match in the 80s? Well, half-way realistic, at least!
Legends of Wrestling II was released for the PS2, XBOX and Gamecube, as well as an entirely different game with the same name on the GBA due to obvious hardware differences (that I honestly had no idea existed!) It was released on the PS2 and GC in the US on November 26th 2002 and on the XBOX on December 5th 2002, while the PAL territories was delayed and instead released on February 7th 2003 was across all three platforms.
As for the roster, it contains a heck of Legends as it pretty much carries everyone across plus several huge names that were glaringly missing from the original line up. It features Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Roddy Piper, Animal, Hawk, Jerry Lawler, Andre the Giant, Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Superstar Billy Graham, Sid Vicious, Terry Funk, The Iron Sheik, Harley Race, Ted DiBiase, Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Bam Bam Bigelow, Greg Valentine, Brian Pillman, Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner, Rick Martel, Dynamite Kid, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Dr. Death Steve Williams, Don Muraco, George Steele, Jimmy Snuka, Tony Atlas, Nikolai Volkoff, Tito Santana, King Kong Bundy, Bob Orton, Eddie Gilbert, Koko B. Ware, Sabu, The Sheik, One Man Gang, Dory Funk Jr., Ivan Koloff, Ivan Putski, Kerry, Fritz, Kevin, Michael and David Von Erich, Brian Knobbs, Jerry Sags, Captain Lou Albano, Jimmy Hart and Mr. Fuji.
Plus the (in some cases western only) game debut of Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund, Killer Kowalski, Paul Orndorff, Abdullah the Butcher, Mil Mascaras, Baron von Raschke, and Andy Kaufman, plus if you brought the game in the UK you also got the currently (and probably forever) only official game appearance of World of Sport classics Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Mick McManus and Kendo Nagaski. This was great, especially McManus as he was apparently my grandad’s favourite wrestler, I remember my Mum reminiscing long before this game’s release about seeing her Dad watch him, so it was a fun feeling playing as a character that meant so much to my family, especially since I understandably never thought it would happen!
Gameplay:
Was this the first game to have a Cage Door meter? I think so… Either way it’s a fun idea!
Not a lot has changed between this game and its predecessor, just lots of things got added to and more polished. The gameplay is the same: you can strike and grapple and each time you do one or the other your opponent (or you if the situation is reversed!) has the ability to reverse it by observing a golf game-like swing-o-meter at the bottom of your health bar, hit the button press when the triangle is over a highlighted area and your reverse the move. Likewise if your doing the move your can win your own swing-o-meter game to chain the move into another, allowing a hiptoss into a chinlock, or a slam straight into a pin. Nothing too fancy but the combination of the chain wrestling and reversing does lead to quite a fun gameplay engine, though sadly a lot of the actual animations are quite stiff looking, and its one of those games where nearby wrestlers can get knocked down if they’re too close to a move being done, which sometimes works well but most of the time just looks silly. There are also ground moves, submissions, running attacks, top rope moves and weapons to use when you’re outside the ring, so all the usual stuff. Your health bar drains and goes from green to red to empty and each level your stunned for longer and your swing-o-meter button press window is smaller. It’s a fun system once you get into the swing of things (no pun intended, actually no pun intended but yet there it is) though it hasn’t dated very well, mostly the previously mentioned stiffness.
They’ve upped the match type variety by quite a bit, with singles having ladder matches now and an improved cage match, both requiring tapping to get the “health bar” of either the cage door or hanging belt down before you win. Then you have the returning tag match, three-way, four-way, battle royals and even six and eight man tag matches, though they tend to tank the framerate and very rarely do more than four people enter the ring. Still, nice effort! There are also the bog-standard tournaments you can run, now featuring tag tournaments as well as singles, plus blood can splatter onto the ring mat and stay there, which is a rare feature in wrestling games as a whole. You can unlock new costumes and characters by buying them in the in-game shop with coloured coins earned in the career mode or even in exhibition. In order to get the rarer coins quicker you can gamble with a coin machine thingy, which is an odd system to insert into a wrestling game, but there you go.
Something about the Northeast Promoter, therefore the Vince McMahon equivalent, being impressed HULK HOGAN managed to win some matches shows what a strange world the career mode is…
Speaking of career mode, it’s a lot of fun! You pick either an existing character or your created one and then you move around the territories of the 70s (all renamed, obviously!) and as you enter each one you get a randomly generated storyline play out (chosen via a roulette spin, which again is an odd thing to see!), with some of them actually being tailored to who your playing as, though I’ve only found the Jerry Lawler vs. Andy Kaufman storyline so far… Either way though, going from territory to territory and winning each major title will eventually allow you to enter the world circuit, become World Champion and the career mode ends. My only gripe is that sometimes you face the same people across multiple territories whereas I would’ve preferred for each promotion to have a unique selection, just to make it feel more like you’re moving around. Plus the four UK exclusive legends aren’t part of the career mode at all unless you play as one, I would’ve liked to have seem them programmed into it as there is a UK ring in the world circuit, but I guess they were just a region-exclusive bonus so they’re probably just treated as created characters. Either way though I’ve actually gone back and played LOWII a few years after it released to play through it again, just because it’s a good laugh.
There is also the returning “Create a Legend” mode but once again it’s severely lacking in almost all areas compared to its WWE-led rivals. They added a lot more moves to use but a lot of them are very modern but still appear in everyone’s moveset, so you get the odd moment of Bruno Sammartino hitting the Tiger Driver 99 on someone, or Big Daddy and Roddy Piper hitting Total Elimination on Hulk Hogan, SOMEHOW. It does fit the mood, but I guess just headlocks and bodyslams for 90% of the roster might get old rather quick… Lastly there are some interview clips and other such actual footage included in the package as well, which is a nice bonus, I guess.
Graphics and Sound:
Saved the blurriest screenshot for the Graphics section… Nice! Seriously though, I wanted to show the at-this-point-unheard-of 4 on 4 match but couldn’t find any footage of it, so this was all I could do…
The graphics aren’t much improved over the first. All the wrestlers are cartoony and exaggerated, with a plastic-like sheen to them. The lighting is okay but the arenas and especially crowd are dated even for the time, with some of the background layers being extremely pixelated and blurry.
The soundtrack is odd as Jimmy Hart has done a good job of covering a bunch of the wrestler’s entrance themes to give them a near-to-what-you-remember feeling but during actual matches then-modern songs play from the likes of Saliva and, erm, Earshot and Alien Breed, who you might have heard of… Anyway it’s very odd to hear those songs play as two legends from the 70s or 80s fight it out in the ring. Not necessarily bad, just not very fitting… plus there are only a small handful so you’ll be hearing them A LOT. The other noises such as crowd and impact thuds are perfectly fine.
Thoughts Then:
Giant Haystacks pulls people into his gravity well.
I was actually hoping to get Legends of Wrestling II for Christmas in 2002 but obviously as you can read it was delayed here in the UK until February, and that’s probably for the best as by that point I’d played SD! SYM to death and was happy to switch it up a bit. I enjoyed the roster of childhood wrestlers I loved (and plenty of pre-childhood wrestlers I’d heard about!) and really got into the Career mode. Admittedly a month or two passed, something exciting or interesting happened on WWE TV and I soon switched back to SYM for my wrestling game needs, but still it did well for itself. As mentioned a year or two later I actually returned to LOWII and had another run through career, and did so again at some point in the early 2010s. Overall it was a far better experience than its predecessor or its successor…
Thoughts Now:
Hulk Hogan, Rick Martel, Greg Valentine… Brian Knobs? One of these things is not like the other…
While obviously the graphics and animations are even rougher than ever in 2023 I will admit to still finding the game a good laugh. The control style is unique and can prove fun… sometimes, and the career mode is still enjoyable though I will admit the game got old before I finished it this time, so there is a limit to LOWII’s staying power and I’ve reached it. Overall I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who didn’t play it back in the day because it’s not going to make a good first impression in 2023, but otherwise I’d say give it a spin for a few hours, you’ll have a good laugh… then stop.
Hogan Reviews 