Overlord: Dark Legend is a 2009 third-person Action-Adventure game developed by Climax Studios and published by Codemasters for the Nintendo Wii. The game was released on 23 June 2009 in North America, 26 June in Europe, and 2 July in Australia. Dark Legend is a spinoff of the 2007 video game Overlord, and is set as a prequel. The gameplay is similar to Overlord, but simplified and missing several features of the original game.
Reviews of the game are mixed: praising the humour, story, and controls of the game, but finding problems with the animation, short game length, and lack of complexity or difficulty.
Overlord: Dark Legend contains examples of the following tropes:
- Affably Evil: Lord Gromgard in Dark Legend is a Spikes of Villainy-wearing, BFS/Giant Axe-swinging, Tin Tyrant...Who treats his servants like actual people, and is regarded as far, far more competent than his supposedly good-aligned siblings.
- Ambiguously Gay: Lord Grenville Gromgard seems to have a rather close relationship with the Elf Erasmus.
- Big Bad: Surprisingly none. Unless you qualify.
- The Big Bad Wolf: The tale of Little Red Riding Hood takes a slightly different turn.
- Bread and Circuses: Lord Gromgard's servants love him; although he's evil, he keeps them safe and well-fed.
- Camera Centering
- Camp Gay: Which is the way Lord Grenville acts at certain times. It's debatable whether or not he's meant to actually be gay, however.
- Dangerous 16th Birthday: Lord Gromgard was awakened to his Overlord powers at his sixteenth birthday.
- Dirty Business: Subverted again. Lord Gromgard's murder of bandits, elves, dwarves, and witches results in him rising ever higher in the locals' eyes.
- The Dragon: Grenville and Gerda serve as this for Erasmus and Widget respectively.
- Elves vs. Dwarves: Gnarl masterminds a war between the Dwarves and the Elves where Gromgard kills off their leaders and convinces his brother and sister (who are close to the Elven and Dwarven rulers respectively) that the other was responsible.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: With Little Red Riding Hood and the Hansel and Gretel story being used as part of the Overlord's story.
- Freudian Excuse: The overshadowed younger sibling who is ignored by everyone decides to take his destiny into his own hands.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Lord Gromgard's story is basically this.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Grenville and Gerda.
- Karma Houdini: The Gingerbread Witch.
- Necessarily Evil: Subverted in that Lord Gromgard gleefully embraces his Card-Carrying Villain status as a way to escape his sibling's shadow. Except, his method of being evil (to brutally slaughter everyone who threatens his domiciles) is welcomed due to the incredible incompetence displayed by everyone else.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Inverted in that Lord Gromgard is the only protagonist of the series to have an actual name rather than simply the Overlord or some other title.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The Minions make pretty good Dwarves, being the right height and all, but nobody could seriously mistake one for an Elf. Except possibly real elves, which are really stupid.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Widget, King of the Dwarves and his childish obsession with his machines.
- Reality Warper: Some of the Spell Relics - e.g., Slow/Petrify and Transmogrify - let you screw with enemies' physics.
- Villain Protagonist: Lord Gromgard.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Lord Gromgard is well-liked by his subjects to the point that they don't actually seem to realize he's a villain — initially not realizing he's evil, and later seemingly writing it off as little more than an amusing quirk. His ancestor the Black Baron seems to have been viewed similarly.
- One of the villagers says this about the Black Baron (paraphrased): "Sure, he was evil, but we always had enough to eat!"
- We Have Reserves: You throttle minions to turn them into suicide bombers.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Inverted. He sets out to do horrible things and pretty much manages to save the kingdom from anarchy.
