Now that they have both dropped into a price range that I can afford which would you recommend, one, the other, or both?

Sometimes when a part 2 of a game series comes out it makes the predecessors obsolete. In other words you really wouldn't want to go back and play part 1 after you have played part 2 because of all of the improvements. Is this series similar? Should I even bother with getting the original?

6/26/2006 2:14:41 PM

I still like the original more. The second one is fun, but kind of "tweaks" the parts of the first one I liked the most until it's not as much fun.

I recommend them both, but I find the first one to be vastly superior.

6/26/2006 2:26:45 PM

What specifically did it tweak? The only real tangible difference that I read was the way it handles experience sharing. Correct me where I'm wrong but I think the first one shares xp among all characters - even the ones you don't use - while the second only gives experience to the members of the party that earned it.

So in part 1 I could break out an unused character at the end of the game, spend some time doling out the stat points, and they would be up to speed. In the second one if I broke out an unused character at the end I'd have to start leveling them from lvl1. That correct?

6/26/2006 2:40:43 PM

The whole leveling up deal was turned up a notch or two for the second one. I just found the first one to be more managable. The second will give you the option of automatically managing such things, but I prefer to micro-manage.

Exp in the first one is given out in fractions, but not in full, to characters you don't use. I switched party members so frequently in the second one that I'm not entirely sure how that worked.

6/26/2006 3:52:12 PM

in II the characters you don't use level up but not quite as fast

6/26/2006 4:55:24 PM

Just get both. They're worth it.

6/26/2006 5:47:31 PM

They both play fairly similar, albeit with small differences. I know that's vague. All I'll really say is that the first one is more constricting and linear in terms of gameplay whereas the second one allows for a lot of backtracking, so if you miss something in the second one you can go back and look for it. You could not do this in the first one, at least not without starting a whole new game. The other thing I liked about the second one over the first one was that you get four stat points instead of one, so you can either build up all four of your stats equally or build one of them up really fast.

My only real gripe about the second one as compared to the first one is that there's too much to choose from with regards to skills. In the first one, you got three major powers, one Xtreme power, and then a couple of passive skills that you could upgrade (eg health, mutant power, etc). Each skill had anywhere from 6 to 14 slots you could allocated points to, and you earned one skill point for advancing to the next level, plus a second point for advancing to every fifth level. At the highest skill level possible (45), you could have up to a maximum of 54 points to allocate, but the average number of slots for any given character is around 60 or so. Even at the highest skill level you couldn't max every last skill out, but you could come pretty damn close.

In the second one, however, you might have as many as ten mutant mutant powers, two or three Xtreme powers, and about the same number of passive skills as the first game if not more. And each skill in the second game has anywhere from 15 to 20 or so slots to assign skill points, so maxing out a character's powers takes longer. The maximum skill level in the second one is 99, and you earn one skill point for advancing to the next level, and so the maximum number of skill points you can gain is 99 (although you can earn more for doing the danger room simulations). But now characters might have as many as 250 potential slots (an estimate, I didn't actually count), so you're forced to either give a character a small but very powerful arsenal of mutant powers, or give them many powers to choose from but they're all weak. Even if you consider that a lot of the powers are next to worthless, it's still too easy to spread yourself thin.

The best example is Storm. In the first game, Storm pwnt all. You had a lightening strike, a tornado attack, some sort of shield buff, and the Xtreme power. But the point is that you could have both the electric attack and the wind attack, and make both of them pretty damn powerful. In the second game, however, you have to decide upfront whether or not Storm is a primarily electric attacker or an elemental attacker. You just don't have enough skill points to make Storm pwn with both lightening and wind. You can do one or the other, or do both but make them watered down.

In short, the thing that bothered me about both games was that I couldn't max out everything completely. I guess that this forces the player to make choices about what sorts of strategies they will use and what skills will make these strategies work (I, for example, prefer to just let my characters have attack powers and ignore any buffs and team-benefit powers), but it always bothered me that you couldn't be as powerful as is completely possible.

But anyway, after such a long rant, my advice to you is to just get both. They're both good games, and I recommend them both. Neither is better than the other, they simply have their high and low points.

6/26/2006 6:26:07 PM

My 2 roommates and I beat X-Men legends 2 in like a weekend. I felt that the game was entirely too easy, we died a total of 3 times. With two of those times being the computer using Magneto and having him fly over a pit only to get hit and fall into the pit and die.

Aslo hated how you had to beat the game first before you can even play it on Hard mode. Thats entirely unnecessary. If you get 1/2 way through the game without dying their shouldnt be any reason why you couldnt start over on hard mode...it makes no sense.

Another gripe I have is that none of the bosses are that difficult not even the final boss. Just get wolverine and only give him points in strength and his eviscerate move. We had him at like 100 strength and every other stat at like 20. He would do well over 100 damage with his basic hit when the rest of our guys would only do like 20. Thats prolly what made the game too easy...but oh well

I hate to say it, but don't buy this game..rent it..or buy it like I did then return it in under a week. It may be the game for you...but I never felt that it was a challenge

6/26/2006 7:38:46 PM

^ agree with that... way too easy of a game. Really fun, but I felt there were too many opportunities to save progress, life up, blah blah. If it was more difficult, I would've had alot more fun with it.

6/26/2006 8:43:19 PM

You could always refuse to save your progress.

6/26/2006 11:04:11 PM

true, but it's hard to resist

6/26/2006 11:24:09 PM

my gripe is that both games are too easy... we run 2 human players usually and we had to continually turn up the difficulty to make it challenging at all

6/27/2006 3:04:37 AM

I like the 2nd one better. I think the storyline is way more interesting and there's a lot more you can do. There's a combat simulator type thing where you can just fight any time you want.

Another thing I liked about the 2nd one is you could end the game with a level 47 wolverine and load the stats to a new game.. true, it was incredibly easy in the early stages of the game.. but thats what it would take to max out your character in almost everything.

I would get both though. I also suggest not automatically putting the points. You don't need 20 different moves for every player.. my Wolverine in XL2 only had 3 or 4 moves and he was maxed out completely in everything.

maybe I'm just biased about the 2nd one because I beat it this weekend for like the 5th time.

6/27/2006 3:35:16 AM

Thanks for the replies. I'm leaning toward both at the moment, since you can pick up both for less than the price of one when it first came out.

One last question...

I've heard that this game is comparable to MK: Shaolin Monks and Freedom Force. How accurate is that assessment. Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich really didn't compel me to finish the game, but that game really didn't have any interesting characters.

6/27/2006 7:29:54 AM

play Legends 1

build Ice man all the way up

6/27/2006 7:52:32 AM

I actually thought Xmen Legends 2 was far better than the 1st

6/27/2006 12:18:17 PM

Storm maxxed out in the first one was pretty much unstoppable. Chain lightening like woah.

I'm playing through XL2 for the second time with my players carried over from the first time through. I've got it where Juggernaut is unstoppable. Gotta love that Crimson Destruction ultimate move or whatever it's called.

6/27/2006 5:06:28 PM

^Path of Destruction? Yeah that power fucking pwns. That is how Juggernaut should ALWAYS be.

The other really nice ability that Juggernaut has is Balanced Form. It increases his attack speed, taking him from fairly sluggish to insanely fast. Look at how Juggernaut punches without Balanced Form, then max out Balanced Form. The difference is staggering. Once you max out Balanced Form for Juggernaut, I'd be very surprised if you don't regularly include him in your party.

6/28/2006 1:06:50 AM

Word. I've pretty much got him maxxed out in everything except a few of the lame powers. All of the passive stuff is maxxed plus when you equip him with the Cytorak Gem he's off the hook.

6/29/2006 8:53:39 AM

Iceman is still my favorite

6/29/2006 10:22:41 AM

what is in easy way to do a power combo in legends 2?

i'm having a hard time doing them with any regularity to beat the danger room challenges

right now i just set errybody to do area effect and hope for some overlapping

6/29/2006 11:22:55 AM

Broke down and got part 2. I'll see how I like it and maybe pick up 1 later - though I didn't see 1 anywhere I went.

6/29/2006 11:33:07 AM

^^ If you need them try using storm, jean grey, and cyclops. Avoid players who use strikes for the moves like wolverine, colossus, etc.

6/29/2006 11:56:45 AM

i like using iceman, cyclops, wolverine, and juggernaut/colossus

6/29/2006 12:36:21 PM

when playing XL2, don't forget about the uniform combinations.

i use all Age of Apocalypse uniforms which gives me a 100% attack bonus or something similar.

6/29/2006 12:38:24 PM

yeah i forgot about that one

6/29/2006 12:39:15 PM