Lode Runner Legacy is a puzzle platformer by Tozai Games, and a remastering of Doug Smith’s original Lode Runner. The core gameplay loop has the player collecting gold on a level while often being harassed by bad guys before they have to escape by climbing a ladder.
As someone who had never heard of the original Lode Runner, I struggle to call this game a puzzle platformer, because the emphasis is placed on puzzle rather than platformer. Yes, you do run around and collect gold in a sort of top-down Marioesque way, except there is no jumping. Instead of jumping, you delete bricks to carve yourself a path to the gold beneath you, or to trap the enemies who chase you. The game is more like a hybrid between Pacman and Dig Dug.
While the core gameplay is simple, the nuances for the how the rules in Lode Runner Legacy are finicky. You can delete blocks to your left and right, but only if they aren’t covered by anything, whether it be another brick, a bad guy, or if the brick is connected to a ladder. You can collect gold by simply running over it, but if it is floating near a ladder or over a ledge, you can’t get it by just falling to the side. You have to be directly above it. You can also stand on the heads of certain bad guys, but only in specific cases, like if they are dazed from just having fallen into a pit that you dug.
Adventure mode quickly becomes a nightmarish laundry list of rules, which I found to be surprising considering how simplistic and childlike the graphics were. At first glance, I thought the game was some sort of Minecraft reskin, except with even more ugly cubes that are meant to prey upon the minds of geometry-obsessed toddlers.
As far as puzzles were concerned, Adventure mode is an imperfect game. Not imperfect as in deeply flawed, but imperfect as in the player is missing information. There are sometimes dummy blocks, which appear to be normal blocks, but are hollow and cause the player to fall through. Some blocks also contain special golden enemies which do not spawn consistently, and are not mandatory to completing the level but can help boost your score. Finally, the CPU of the enemies is strange, and does not consistently chase you. Instead, depending on where you stand, it will sometimes run to an obscure corner of the level that offers it no tactical advantage whatsoever. This is especially frustrating when there are certain puzzles that require you to trick the enemies into helping you. Even when you beat the level, you don’t particularly feel clever or victorious, just relieved that you don’t have to blindly feel your way through an abstract pattern anymore.
It was only after I unlocked Classic mode, where the original 150 levels were recreated and given a 3-D facelift, that I actually started to like the game. There were no dirty tricks or silly gimmicks, and rather than having to simply memorize the best course of action, you had to think tactically and use your reflexes. There were even times where the CPUs were camping the ladder I needed to escape the level, and I had to restart the level so I could race them to it.
In the original Lode Runner, the player also had the option to design their own levels. This feature is still here, and you have access to all the levels uploaded by other users. Most of the levels were even more complex than those created by the developers for Adventure mode, and it left me with the impression that this game will be wildly popular with savants and people trying to get into MENSA with a game design portfolio.
Lastly, there is also a couch two-player mode, where the players work together to solve the game’s puzzles. I didn’t have a friend handy at the time, so I plugged in a second controller for the explicit purpose of being able to stand on another character’s head to get the gold I couldn’t reach. Although I did find it strange that Two-player, Classic, Puzzle, and other game modes could only be unlocked through playing Adventure, instead of being available from the start.
I disliked Lode Runner Legacy at first, but that was before I understood it to be a reiteration and expansion of previous games. Thankfully, there are multiple game modes that make smart use of the core mechanics, and I can see this being a welcome touchstone from the 80’s for nostalgic gamers.
Check Out the Lode Runner Legacy PS4 Trailer:
For more information about Lode Runner Legacy, visit: http://www.tozaigames.com/legacy/.
PlayStation 4 Review
I live and work in Portland, Oregon. I've been an achievement hunter ever since beating Mario 64 and collecting all the stars at the tender age of four. My most recent gaming achievements include getting all trophies for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and beating Dark Souls 3 without leveling up or using weapon upgrades.
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