When I first watched the movie, Tron Legacy, I felt terribly disappointed. I did not expect to play a single game associated with the movie and wanted nothing to do with Tron. To my chagrin, I started playing this game only a few weeks later, when I received it as a gift.

Now, I’ll examine the game, looking deeply for analytical criticism to help you decide whether this is one that you’ll want to add to your collection.

Released in 2010, Tron: Evolution for DS lets you re-enter the grid. You play as a program that you get to customize, who serves as the game’s protagonist. Even if you don’t try the story mode, several mini games can keep you interested.

So without further ado, let’s jump in!

Graphics: 9 / 10
A strength of the game, the graphics have quality. With detailed 3D objects and impressive use of colors, the game has high aesthetic value.

The graphics of the dialogue are particularly impressive. Your program appears in the dialogue, displayed in quality 3D. Thin, clear lines of text predominate in the game and is no different in the dialogue; It’s simple and easy to read.

My only annoyance was the blending of darker enemy characters with the dark blue color of the floors. Since the characters display very small, similar colors with them and the room make them harder to see and they often evaded my attention until they had already started to do damage.

Both luminescence and reflection make an appearance in the game. The luminescence from the lines of the bikes and from characters, including you, allies, and enemies, give the unnatural technology-centered feel of the game. Reflection off of surfaces helps the courses look sleek.

While negligible problems prevented the game from reaching a perfect score, the graphics still score a 9 / 10.  

Sound / Music: 4 / 10
While I did not enjoy the music tracks, they did fit with the nature of the game. Its electronic beats and traditional synthesized music reminds me of the movie and fits well with the mini games.

On the other hand, I found some of the tracks repetitive and annoying, often making me play mute the sound within a short time of playing.
The sound effects are electronic and have little variation. I disliked attacking for longer periods of time for this reason. The constant repeat of the synthesized sounds for electric discharge were too much to handle. Making matters worse, they not work well with the music.

While you do have the option to change the volume of the sound effects with respect to the music, leaving them both at the same sound level lets the music to overpower the sound effects. Since you cannot adjust this setting without exiting levels or mini-games, they get annoying.

While the music tracks and the sound effects did not work well together, they did provide a relevant atmosphere for the game.
Optimally, music tracks without repetition would have been included. Also, better default settings for the loudness of music tracks and sound effects would have been in place.

Needless to say, this category was a weakness.

4 / 10.

Addictiveness: 4 / 10

With both the story-mode and the various mini-games, there is variety. However, the difficulty of both hurt the addictiveness of the game, since you’re likely to quickly get tired of playing.

It’s that you’ll get stuck in a few places during the story-line. I would often find difficulty reaching objectives when several enemies approached at once. Alone, they’re easy to beat, but in packs they quickly diminish your health. I would quickly die within thirty seconds and have to replay through two minutes of dialogue to get back to playing the same part, which I lost many, many more times.

This annoying set-up of dialogue before game-play will likely tire you out very quickly. In these cases, the best idea is to come back to it later. When I first encountered hard parts, I would stop playing for a few days. Clearly, the difficulty makes the game one that’s played only once in a while and not every day.

On the other hand, multiplayer allows you to play against friends on several unique maps. If I had someone to face against, we’d both be struggling with controls and our individual difficulty issues would offset each other. It comes as no surprise that the opportunity for multiplayer helps this category.

While there is variety in the mini games, a lengthy story, and opportunities for multiplayer play, the addictiveness suffers large drops from the difficulty of the game.

4 / 10.

Story: 7 / 10

While your ultimate goal is to win the grid games, that’s not the entirety of the plot. Sub-plots, including the kidnapping of Quorra, make for interesting gameplay. As one who often skips through unnecessary dialogues, I found myself reading intently, trying to have a clear picture of what was happening.

That’s not to say that the story was immersive. With music playing during dialogue and several messages back and forth, you might be enticed to skip through the dialogue. While you might get by with looking at the objectives, it’s much harder to keep up with the plot.
Note : As an older player, I found difficulty remaining focused when reading particularly childish lines.

With a well designed plot with various sub-plots, the score only lowers from the difficulty of the player to keep up with it. The category rates an impressive 7 / 10.

Depth: 7 / 10

With many options for mini games, a multiplayer mode, and a story mode, the game has decent depth. On the other hand, the story mode has very limited game-play, with one objective solved at a time.

The mini games separate into four types: Tanks, Light Cycles, Disc Combat, and Recognizer Run. Each of these four have up to three different game-types, including deathmatch, capture the flag, and last man standing. With other settings that you can tweak, the many options allow for hours upon hours of unique gameplay.

The option for multiplayer adds depth as competitive matches allow you to play for hours without boredom. On the other hand, many games are likely to end from frustration over controls that contributed to losses.

While the story-mode is highly limited, the mini games increase the score to a respectable 7 / 10.

Difficulty: 8 / 10

From the start, difficulty over controls poses an issue. Fighting enemies requires precision use of the stylus in conjunction with the movement of the player. It’s easy to throw discs at the wrong player and precious seconds are lost when there’s no quick response to clicking on a player to attack.

Slow attacks make packs of enemies difficult to manage in story-mode and have caused me to repeat sections numerous times. On the other hand, the enemy quickly hand out damages that while causing little damages, incrementally end up with deaths as several attack at once. Once hit, the play falls down, losing more time and health.

One of my favorite mini games, light cycle has problems with the jumping capabilities. While my test jumps worked perfectly, attempting them over enemy walls often ended with death. In many of those attempts, the screen clearly showed that I gauged the time correctly.

Optimally, options for different view-points would have let me see whether the fault was that of the game or of my own timing.

During story-mode, difficulties from opponents blending in with surroundings arose. While I would try to destroy one at a time to prevent them from grouping up, I would inevitably miss one and face two at a time and eventually suffer a death. In comparison with the screen, the characters are tiny and you must concentrate to see the entire scene.

With difficult controls and enemies, I’ve felt the pain of wasted hours with no progress. Since the difficulty hurts gameplay, it scores 9 / 10.

Overall: 6.6 / 10

Graphics : 9 *  25% = 2.25
Sound / Music : 4 *  10% = 0.4
Addictiveness : 4 * 25% = 1
Story : 7 * 15% = 1.05
Depth : 7 * 15% = 1.05
Difficulty : 8 * 10% = 0.8

Sum = Overall Score = 6.6 / 10

This mathematical comparison of important categories leads to a respectable overall score of 6.6 / 10.

While the game had impressive aspects, such as the story, depth, and graphics, the mediocrity in the other categories brought the score down. Had the designers focused more on gameplay than graphics, the score would have risen across the board.  While there were fun parts, I would not recommend it for everyone.

However, you might buy it if you:
1. relish difficulty and want to prove your video gaming superiority

2. actually liked the movie and want to see a game based on it

3. hated the movie but want to see a decent game based on it

For these three specific scenarios, I recommend the game. I’d love to hear from you if you’ve played it, please share! And other comments are appreciated, as well!

Thank you for reading!

EideticMemory : Wow man, your reviews just can't get any better than they already are. Another great job! You explained everything that was necessary or just enough to make it interesting for others to read.