A Legend worth hearing.
The story is simple yet elegant. Kay is a cat living in a fictional ancient Chinese-like setting that has recently been conquered by an invading army of Rats and Gorillas. His hometown under oppression and his Martial Arts school recently closed down by the invaders, Kay runs away to join a rebellion in hopes ending their tyranny and restore harmony amongst the races of his land. The plot stays fairly intriguing with motive clearly recognizable and solid characterization but most importantly the well defined ancient Chinese setting. The story feels as if it's told like a sort of folktale, a welcome change from typical storytelling.
The atmospheric presentation is also solid, adding a bit of wonder and believability to the various locales Kay visits on his journey. Cities are realistically sectioned, swamps are dank, dark, wide, and wet, and the maze-like forests and temples of the game are an example of level design at its best. Combat animations rival Kung-fu film fight choreography and despite the somewhat lazy comic book panel cutscenes, Legend of Kay is a game that is rich in graphical detail and is simply, from top to bottom, gorgeous.
I only wish that audio was of the same quality as visual. The music is decent but where Legend of Kay really slips up is its god awful voice acting. Every time a character opens their mouth, you may find yourself reaching for the mute button on your TV once too often. Now I'm not asking for award winning performances but this would be embarrassing in a Saturday morning cartoon.
Fortunately, Kay hits hard in the one department where it needs to. The melee combat system has provided for some of the most addictive fights I've played through in a long while. The 3 weapons at the player's disposal are varied with the same number of setbacks and advantages. They can be swapped out with the quick press of a button and are always handy in different scenarios. Reaction time for the controls is spot-on highlighting one of the games most unique features, a nifty dash technique that allows you to jump, roll, or flip to the enemy in the direction of your choosing to strike them fast and hard before they can get their guard up against your attack. This keeps the battles fast and lively but never repetitive. Exploration of the different environments is kept simple thanks to the brilliant level design but the battles are the one thing that will stick in my head long after I pack it away.
Now with all due respect, this is far from a perfect game. A few of the platforming segments can feel a tad wonky and overall it's definitely nothing that's trying to break new ground. Yet at the end of the day, Legend of Kay is the purest game I've played in a long while. It doesn't raise too many questions, it asks but doesn't demand your attention to look into every detail, and above all, through the piss-poor voice acting and slightly mediocre dialogue, whenever the controller is in your hand, you're never bored. And fortunately, it rarely, if ever, leaves your hand.