I played the first X-Men Legends back when I was a kid and I decided to play this game first since I always wanted to as a kid as well but never go to, might go back to the first game one of these days.
The best way of describing Rise of Apocalypse is that it is a weird precursor to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and there might be a number of comparisons between the former and the latter throughout this write up.My thoughts on this game is that it is "good" but at the same time it felt like it could've been so much more. Definately play this game if you are an X-Men fan if you aren't, the game is going to be a much harder sell.
The story is solid, but only as a video game narrative to give enough context to what you are doing more than because the story is memorable. I do think Apocalypse is portrayed pretty well, he has an awesome design and is decently acted, he at the very least is a competent villain if most his feats are mostly done off screen, I couldn't help but be reminded of Ultimate Alliance's Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil, while Legends 2 does an okay job at characterizing and making you dislike it's villains with Apocalypse defeating Beast and mind controlling him and Angel being taken and turned to Arcangel, MUA has Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil interact more often and Doom is shown in cutscenes doing more villianous acts by comparison to Apocalypse.
Legends 2's story isn't bad but it just feels like a decent game story to connect levels together, I really felt like they could've done more with the idea of the X-Men and Brotherhood teaming up. Magneto for example is a playable character but he only gets acknowledged within the story at the start and at the end of the game, outside of some optional dialogue with a villain on Genosha, Magneto spends most of the game being silent, which is pretty disappointing considering the premise.
There is a solid amount of voice acting here and most of it is pretty good minus some characters who just talk way too slowly, Patrick Stewart is even in the game much to my surprise and he gets a good amount of dialogue. The game also does a very good job at keeping you up to speed if you aren't familar with the X-Men with lots of NPCs giving background information on the plot or the various characters so if this your introduction to the franchise rather than you being apathetic towards it, this isn't the worst place to start.
Okay story aside, how is the gameplay? Much like the story, it's not bad and can be pretty good but it ultimately depends on how much of a fan of the source material you are. I generally enjoyed the gameplay on a service level and I did like how unlike X-Men the arcade game, you can use your mutant powers as much as you want all though it's on a somewhat long cooldown, however you can use energy packs to replenish your power meter, all though my strategy was to use my fists on occasion and them spam powers between the 4 playable characters untill everyone is dead. Wolverine was my major damage dealer, while Cyclops, Storm and Magneto were primarily support characters.
You can generally do this strategy throughout 95% of the game, the only major difficulty spike in the whole game was a weird boss rush of sorts where you had to fight Omega Red and Mikhail within short proxmity of each other, Omega Red can drain health packs pretty heavily if you aren't using energy packs to use your strongest moves and Mikhail has 3 very challenging phases after which is even harder than any boss afterwards. Once you get past this difficulty spike, the game never gets hard again outside of maybe on occasion one of your characters accidentally getting knocked out from exteneded damage and they hit harder faster than the auto health pack use can kick in. This is another aspect I prefer in Marvel Ultimate Alliance since it has health and energy drops rather than having limited recovery items.
The level design much like the rest of the game does an okay job at feeling like levels you can explore and the very least they don't feel like a string of scripted set pieces but at the same time, I'm rather mixed of the game having a minimap and the game telling you where to go, I was looking for a more relaxing game where I just wanted to beat people up and not think too hard and the game pulled that off. There is a few levels like Madri Temple and the Great Pyramid where you might need to backtrack, but these are mostly straightforward if jarring pace breakers compared to 85% of the game.
The bosses and some levels have some decent gimmicks to break up the pace, the part where you need to defend a SHIELD Agent from Sentinels as he is preparing bombs, the fight with Arcangel, the final fight in the Madri Temple, the boss with Beast and Sinister and the Apocalypse fight being noteworthy examples.
The music isn't as good as the first game outside of the Madri Temple theme. The game can also be a little too long for how the game doesn't have an overwhemling amount of story, I did start to feel it by the time I got to the Great Pyramid, your mileage may vary however.
Overall, Legends 2 is a good game but nothing really spectacular, if you are new to the series or an already existing fan, the game is worth checking out, but if you were already apathetic towards the franchise to begin with, best to skip this one.
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