Legend of Kay was originally released on the PS2 in 2005 around the time that the Xbox 360 was going to hit the market. Critics deemed it a rather average platforming adventure game while fans who were already flooded with these types of games in the PS2 era were looking toward games and genres on the upcoming platforms. For the most part, it was forgotten, and a re-release five years later on the Nintendo DS did little to rekindle interest. It is somewhat curious to see the game be remastered for its 10th anniversary and get a much wider release on PC, PS4 and Wii U. Sadly, time hasn't been kind to the title, and the remastering does little to hide the very dated gameplay mechanics.

In the land of Yenching, which is filled with anthropomorphic cats, frogs, pandas and rabbits, everyone lived in harmony according to The Way and drank life-giving waters from wells that were provided by these spiritual teachings. As time went on, generations started to forget about those teachings, letting the wells dry up and giving an opportunity for the invading gorillas to take over. With the help of the rats, the simians took over and built walls to separate the animals from one another under the guise of peace. You play the role of Kay, the student of a once-great warrior. After his master's school closes thanks to the gorillas and rats, Kay takes it upon himself to stop their rule and free everyone in the process.

Usually, a generic story such as this would get a pass because the world is interesting tidbits or has fascinating characters. Sadly, what you'll find here are rather one-note characters inhabiting a world with the only remarkable trait being its Chinese influence. You've got the freedom fighter trying to convince people to go back to The Way, a few people who are extremely loyal to the new regime, and a drunken master who seems content to give up when faced with adversity. Throughout the course of the game, none of these characters change, but the biggest offender is Kay. He starts off as brash and edgy but without an opening reason for it. As the game goes on, he maintains that surliness without any character growth. He starts off unlikeable and stays there, not exactly a trait that players want from their protagonists.

Legend of Kay: Anniversary is a good example of what the 3-D platformers of the time tried to accomplish; it throws in bits and pieces of several different mechanics to come up with a diverse adventure. Though the game is linear, the levels are somewhat open in nature as you traverse back and forth between areas to explore everything it has to offer. You can double-jump to reach areas and have ropes and zip lines are at your disposal, and you can also swim for a limited amount of time. You've got a decent combat system in place, and you have the ability to block moves and use magic techniques to defeat foes. There are puzzles to solve, secret areas to uncover, and even a few sections where you ride boars or pilot a boat in explosive-filled waters. The pacing for these activities is done well, and the game length easily hits double digits even if you aren't hunting for secrets.

This sounds fine on paper, and the execution is good, even if it doesn't do anything extraordinary. Save for a few areas where the collision doesn't make contact, the platforming is solid enough but doesn't feel extraordinary. The combat system lets you unleash a few combos and moves and feels good, but some of the attacks take so long to administer that you're better off sticking with the basics unless you want to get hit. The game also lacks a lock-on system, and the homing attacks aren't entirely dependable, leaving you to manually aim at your enemy or flail around in hopes of getting in a lucky hit.

The biggest gameplay issue plaguing the title is the camera, which affected the original release as well. As a whole, it never wants to cooperate with the user's wishes, something that is evident when you realize that the default manual camera panning speed is painfully slow. The default angle is placed behind but a little above Kay, giving you a decent view of what's in front of him but very little chance to see what's behind him. This wouldn't be much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that enemies tend to surround you in a fight, and having this blocked leaves you unnecessarily open for free hits. The camera also does a bad job of tracking enemies, so most of the time, you'll hit buttons blindly in hopes of hitting something.

For platforming, the camera works fine until it decides to change angles for no reason, and it often gets stuck in geometry, so many jumps are blind guesses. You can still work with what's here to some degree, and the title is still playable, but fixing this one thing would've gone a long way to making the game more enjoyable (even if this was a common thing that platforming fans had to deal with at the time).

Like most remastering jobs, the bulk of the work was spent on the graphics, and unless you remember the original PS2 release vividly, you'll be impressed with what's on display here. Things like reflections and water behavior are well done. There's also plenty of vegetation on display on the ground, so you immediately get the idea that there was a ton of work done to spruce it up. It isn't until you start looking at old screenshots that you realize that all of this was already present in the original PS2 version, making the changes much less impressive. Elsewhere, the textures were cleaned up a bit, but the geometry for almost all objects remains the same, so usually round things like windows and logs appear more angular than expected. Characters also have a shine that makes them look more plastic or oily. At the very least, the game runs at a solid frame rate under any resolution.

The audio received less attention than the graphics, but it works well enough. That's what can be said for the music, which mixes traditional Chinese instruments with a standard adventure game score, resulting in a soundtrack that sounds pleasant. The effects are also good but nothing special. The voices, however, are bad. Part of that blame can be placed on the dialogue, which is serviceable but nothing more. The other part of the blame has to do with the performances, which rely too much on broken English, speech impediments, and out of place accents to differentiate the different characters in bad ways. This is especially true of Kay, who sounds annoyed and bored all of the time. For a hero trying to save everyone from tyranny, he doesn't sound too excited about it, further cementing him as a hero no one can or would want to relate to.

Legend of Kay: Anniversary is a below-average adventure platforming game. The platforming and combat have flaws but are otherwise fine, while the camera makes bad situations seem worse. The presentation has been buffed up a bit, but the terrible voice acting drags down any excitement one may have from the simple story. For those who don't mind such things, the game is acceptable, and there's lots of content to provide some playtime. Otherwise, you should tackle other 3-D platformers first before considering this one.

Score: 6.0/10