Published by Firenut Games and developed by Saga Legends Dev, Legends BMX is a BMX-themed game that puts players in the shoes of a BMX rider and allows them to perform tricks to get the highest score. BMX has a long history in video games, and Legends BMX aims to bring the same thrills and spills to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4|5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Legends BMX doesn’t have a plot or much of anything, really. The main focus is to simply enter Time Trials, which are like competitions, even though you’re not competing against anyone, and score as many points within the time limit to unlock more stages, riders and bikes. Your score will also be entered into an online leaderboard to see how you compare with the rest of the world, which gives players a nice incentive to aim for high scores.

The overall gameplay is simple and easy to pick up and play. Performing tricks and combos is simple and satisfying to land. The game has a fixed camera angle that cannot be changed. This can make it difficult to see exactly where you’re gonna land back in the skate bowl or the halfpipe, and to time your tricks properly. Most other modern BMX games have the camera positioned behind the rider, allowing players to see their surroundings and plan their tricks better.

Even older BMX games in 2D graphics had a fixed camera angle, but even those still made it clearer when you were about to land, so you could plan your tricks properly. Legends BMX feels like it’s mixing the gameplay from the 3D games and the perspective from the 2D games, and ends up stacking the combo.

The game can be played by riding freely in each stage to practice your tricks, and at the press of a button, you can jump straight into a Time Trial to compete for points and unlock more stages, riders, and bikes. Unlocking everything is much easier than it should be, no matter your skill level. As long as you land your tricks, you’ll build up your total score to reach levels, and certain levels will unlock certain more stages, riders and bikes. There’s no penalty at all, and everything can be unlocked within an hour or two.

The stages are different skate bowls, and the last stage is a full halfpipe, which is actually the easiest stage to play on with the fixed camera angle, which might be why they kept it for last. The skate bowls simply don’t mix well with the fixed camera angle. As you jump and curve at different angles, your point of view makes it hard to see and gauge your landing. You can also grind on the edges, which is also easy since you don’t have to worry about balancing.

The different riders have simple designs, and nothing about them really stands out. Some of the unlockable riders wear amusing animal costumes, but the novelty wears off quickly. There are more bikes than anything else to unlock and come in a nice variety of colours. Other than appearances, there isn’t anything different between the riders and bikes, as they all play the same way with stats to add or adjust. The game’s official description states there is customisation, but it’s nowhere to be found, and it feels like the developer doesn’t understand what that word actually means.

The overall style and presentation have that urban feel you’d expect from a BMX game. The stages themselves look good and are what you’d expect to see at an extreme sports event. They change from day to night when starting a Time Trial, and more seats in the audience fill, though many remain empty. You’d expect the later stages and especially the final stage to have more seats filled, but there are still plenty of empty seats, as if the in-game audience doesn’t find this game exciting either.

The bikes look good, but their plain design doesn’t make them exciting. Even if they couldn’t display real-life brands on the bikes, made-up brands with decent logo designs or just any design at all would’ve made them pop more. The riders, even with the animal costumes on, there isn’t much to say about them. The overall game does have some style and personality, but for the most part, it feels minimal and generic.

The continuous urban music suits the style of the game, but that’s all there is to it. The sound effects are decent, and hearing the audience react to you landing your tricks or stacking adds to the atmosphere and somewhat recreates the excitement of a real event, but not enough to keep you coming back for more.

One sound effect in particular feels like it was taken directly from a Mario Kart game, specifically the Nintendo Wii version. When starting a Time Trial, a beeping sound can be heard during the countdown to begin your run, and it sounds exactly like it’s from Mario Kart. It’s a very distinctive and recognisable sound that any Mario Kart fan or even casual players will immediately notice. Real-life BMX events don’t even use this sound, so it’s a wonder why this game chose to use it at all when any other beeping or buzzer sound could’ve been used instead.

There are many fun BMX-themed games out there, but Legends BMX isn’t one of them. It can be fun to play for a short period, but there’s nothing about that that will have players coming back for more. Everything can be collected within an hour or two; the overall design looks decent but generic, and the gameplay is simple, but the fixed camera angle lets it down. Legends BMX doesn’t live up to its name at all. 

Written by: Sammy Hanson