In all RPGs, be they turn-based, action, traditional, or online-only, I always choose a middle-of-the-road character. I always feel like I’m going to be missing out on something fun or (as it rarely happens) devastatingly powerful by limiting myself to just a brute class or just a magician or just an archer – insert variants for space and non-high fantasy themed titles. But there was something about Colossus that I always dug. Maybe it’s the shiny armor, the Russian speech, the flamboyant 80s yellow and red outfit or a combination of it all but he has soft spot in my heart and would be the star of X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.

As luck would have it, there is no true hero character in X-Men Legends II. Due to the title’s team-based nature, the game has no specific design functions that causes any one character stand out above another. However, because someone realized that not everyone wants to be as hands-on with their characters’ development as the first X-Men Legends required, this game allows for a healthy amount of automation.  For instance, you can tell the AI to assign your characters’ attribute points to various categories, like to strength or speed, and to new mutant powers. Using this method, which is undoubtedly one of the unsung heroes of this version, I had automated everyone but Colossus. Why doesn’t he have a cool phrase I could end this sentence with, like The Thing’s “It’s clobberin’ time!”? Rats.

In the sequel to what I considered to be the surprisingly flawed X-Men Legends – was I the only person to fall through the ground or get stuck in the middle of invisible walls? – Apocalypse has taken over Genosia and kicked out Magneto. Professor X isn’t fond of the old mutant’s obsession with Darwinism, mainly because it involves the needless killing of mass quantities of mutants and normal humans alike.  Apocalypse’s partner in crime, the Mengele–esque Mr. Sinister, doesn’t exactly please ol’ Prof. X, either.  In order to take out this considerable threat, the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants must work together, allowing you to choose from various classic heroes from both groups.  In other words, the teaming up of Xavier’s and Magneto’s forces means that your team of four can consist of (my favorite team) Colossus, Juggernaut, Gambit, and Toad or Bishop, the Scarlet Witch, Wolverine, and Magneto, or any number of different combinations.

If you have ever enjoyed the X-Men comics at any time in your life, the amount of selectable characters is going to make you giggle. I’m just warning you.

With your team ready to go, which can be established at the nearest extraction point and doesn’t require gradually acquiring them on your journey as was the case in the original Legends, you are sent to Genosia in order to stop Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen. His Horsemen are backed up by some pretty bland henchmen and creatures that need to be dispatched. There are lots of insects and bugs, cloned soldiers, cloned mutants, and the random super villain boss or B-grade character from the X-Men universe that make appearances to either hinder or assist the squad. While I’m as sick of killing spiders and larvae as the next guy, there are some things that just have to be acceptable within a genre, and this is one of them - if I can take on countless thugs and globs of slime in Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, then I can take on soldiers and generic mutants; I’m still on the fence on the bug thing, though, as the game possesses a fairly large number of them. Due to their tendency to blend in with their surroundings and a tricky targeting system that sometimes makes them difficult to attack, they can be quite pesky, though they tend to fall fairly quickly to a well-balanced team.

Getting the right team takes time. There will be moments when a character with long-range abilities is needed to activate a switch or one of a particular group will have to unlock a password protected area.  That being said, this issue is drastically toned down from the original Legends in that more of your characters have the ability to build bridges, open doors and push blocks, and there are fewer instances where doing so is necessary.  What’s more, when you realize that you need someone who’s not on your team, you no longer have to travel through two or three entire maps to return to an extraction point; after a certain event, you’ll be able to open up a portal at will that carries you to your base and back.  This represents a careful rebalancing of some of the bigger flaws of the original Legends, and those who found themselves turned off by these rather persistent problems will likely find this sequel to be much more enjoyable. 

Team members once again have team combos, which involves two characters simultaneously using special powers on a single enemy, resulting in more damage, more points and more experience points -- the double whammy of Colossus and Juggernaut made quick work of many a boss. Going through the extended roster and trying them out is far from tedious and represents one of the game’s highlights; even characters who have been left on the backburner will still earn reduced amounts of experience, so bringing them into the fray halfway through won’t leave them overly underpowered. Those who were never enthralled with the X-Men universe will likely find much less excitement from play-testing a group, although my eyes were glossed over with the expression of a younger me walking around with a PSP, oblivious to the world.

Along the way to Apocalypse, you’ll find comic covers, comic missions, concept art, danger room missions, loading screen art (which are nice), and other goodies to discover such as an X-Men trivia game that rewards with experience points.  I really got into these, because the production of them is very good - they extend the life of the game and feature some great eye candy for the wide screen.  Once the movies are opened, they can also be viewed at later times, which is great since they are some of the best I’ve ever seen.  There are also non-playable characters and recorded messages to give more detail on the backstory, encouraging further exploration.

The high quality production values really permeate the game, with great voice-overs for nearly every character (ah, Patrick Stewart) and solid graphics. All of this does come at a price, though, as there is quite a bit of loading. The loading is indicative of a larger problem of the game, which is that the game is generally fast-paced, but often grinds to a halt by arbitrary steps, loading, the slow accessing of menus, the slow saving process (it involves four screens), and so on. I have a feeling that it’s the system itself doing this, but it’s still a drag to sit for half a minute to go through something that should take five seconds, all while you’re itching to get back in and try a newly unlocked move or team combo.

The problems are minor and seem to be the same for many titles out there, so they aren’t entirely unexpected.  Hopefully time will do away with such hassles, but X-Men Legends II provides such a solid overall package that it’s entirely possible to have a great time without fretting over the doubling-up of save menus and the like.  There is also multiplayer co-op and with this, I would say the kitchen sink was tossed in as well.

Overall: 9/10

This is the kind of game that Untold Legends should have been, and I suspect is the kind of game that many PSP owners have been waiting for.  The problems of the platform are unfortunately present: frequent loading and the contrast which makes it difficult to spot enemies. Beyond the fact that there is just about every character you could ever want to play or meet, there are great voice-overs for those characters, and the game is littered with beautiful cutscenes and art.  It also happens to be a hell of a lot of fun.  On the larger, living room consoles, this might be little more than a good release in a genre full of other great titles, but on the PSP, it’s far beyond that and is an absolute must.