This collection includes two games which are Legend and Iron Commando. These are arcade-style games that don’t have much story outside of character dialogue occasionally that comes on screen in the form of captions. These captions are often inner monologues or a description of their environment or situation.
Gameplay:
Iron Commando has you using both melee attacks and weapons to dispatch your enemies. In addition to this, you also have a grenade attack you can use. Despite the amount of options that you have at your disposal, none of them really matter. The reason I say this is because the enemy AI is just unfair and extremely difficult. It will take a couple of enemies that use ranged weapons to attack you and then take another two or three that come at you using melee attacks. What this does is force you to either use your grenades or rely on ranged weapons to take them out.
Both grenades and ranged weapons have limited use and you get more by picking them up if dropped by enemies. This brings up another issue of the fact there is a dedicated button for item pickups instead of having you pick them up automatically when walking over them or using the attack button to pick them up when walking over them. Another issue with the controls is that the grenade can only be used if you jump in the air first and then use the grenade button. This should have replaced the pickup button and used as its own button binding. With the limits of weapons and the ineffectiveness of melee weapons, you’re often left jumping around and trying to use aerial attacks instead.
Iron Commando features a timer that starts when you enter the stage and starts at ten minutes while playing on easy. This isn’t an issue, as I can understand there being a timer as it’s designed in the style of an arcade game, but what I don’t understand is why it disappears shortly after it comes up. Yeah, it just up and leaves the screen shortly after starting and it then comes back when you have less than three minutes left. Once the timer ends, it’s game over regardless of how many lives or life you have left on your life bar. This mechanic is the most abusive timer mechanic I have ever seen in a video game, ever.
Legend is the stand-out in this collection with it being a much better experience but not without its own issues with gameplay. The major issue I have with Legend is how slow your character moves compared to the enemies. Though the enemies do move faster than you do, it doesn’t hinder the gameplay. due to the fact you have a ranged attack, and the enemies use primarily melee weapons that have a rather short range. Another issue with the game is the fact that you have a magic attack that is mapped to the “Y” button with it being unresponsive about ninety percent of the time when pressed despite showing that you have one to use. Unlike Iron Commando, items are automatically picked up when you walk over them which is how a game like this should be.
Graphics and Performance:
Iron Commando’s graphics are nice looking, and both your character sprite and enemy sprites are large and detailed. Set pieces are detailed with good use of foreground and background objects. Colors aren’t as dark and drab despite being urban with lots of dark colors and instead really pop and look good while playing. The performance of Iron Commando is pretty decent with there being no slowdown or flickering of any kind and instead plays very smoothly.
Legends graphics are just as beautiful as Iron Commando with large sprites and detailed set pieces. Legend is set in medieval times with great environments and even weather effects that make the game feel immersive and help to draw you in and want to play more to see what comes next. As with Iron Commando, the performance of Legend is just as smooth with no flickering or slow down to speak of.
With as good as both games look and perform, both should be played using either original or fit aspect ratios. Using the stretched aspect ratio, it makes the game look skewed and extremely blurry and making the games that much more difficult to play.
Sound:
Iron Commando has some great background music that features grungey techno tracks that fit the futuristic time period of the game. The sound effects in the game don’t sound terrible and fit the game well except for your character’s jump. Whenever you land their jump, a thud sound is heard, that gives the impression that your character weighs a couple of tons. This would be okay if enemies weren’t able to knock you down as if you were of the average weight of a normal human. The jump sound feels out of place in the game despite the game’s name and it shouldn’t have been included. Sounds that the guns make feel satisfying when used and don’t sound like pea shooters which is more than I initially expected going into the game.
Legend as with Iron Commando has great background music that makes the medieval world you’re roaming around in have the feel of the times and gives a good fantasy feel to the game. The sound of your weapon hitting enemies is extremely satisfying. It gives weight to making the enemies fly back and gives the game a microscopic sense of realism. Background music, weapon sounds, and environmental sounds all come together to make Legend a very enjoyable game that has a lot of life in it.
Conclusion:
What you’re paying for with this collection feels like you’re paying ten bucks for Legend and getting Iron Commando as a freebie, which I am totally ok with. Legend is a phenomenal game and I am glad that it’s included in this collection. I can’t say the same for Iron Commando, it just has too many issues and isn’t an enjoyable game to play at all in my opinion. If both of these games were offered in the eShop at five each, I would say avoid Iron Commando and pick up Legend.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.