
Ask 100 people on the streets to name a professional wrestler, and the chances are that most of those who are able to give you answer will list the likes of Hulk Hogan, the Ultimate Warrior, and Stone Cold Steve Austin rather than today's current crop of stars. Legends of Wrestlemania takes you back to the 80s and 90s, where mullets were all the rage and Dwayne Johnson was still happy to be known as The Rock.
While the idea of a game exclusively starring old-school wrestlers isn't a new idea (Acclaim released three Legends of Wrestling games during the previous console generation), this is the first time that one has had the full backing of World Wrestling Entertainment, with the developer and publisher of the Smackdown vs Raw series (Yukes and THQ respectively) on board as well.

It would have been very easy for Yukes to take the "rip-off" option and use the exact same engine as Smackdown vs Raw 2009 with a different character roster. Instead, a new engine has been created, with a focus on quick, arcade style game-play and gaming's newest, most over-used feature, the quick-time event.
In what could perhaps be seen as another nod to the old-school, controls are restricted solely to the use of the Left Stick/D-Pad and the four face buttons. Forget about your dual-analogs, triggers or bumpers, because you don't need them. Simple combinations of directions and buttons, combined with an occasional spot of mashing, will perform the moves that you need. In certain situations, you'll activate the quick-time chain segments, where you need to press the button that appears on-screen as quickly as possible to continue the series of moves (or reverse it, if your opponent initiated the chain).

Beneath your health bar is a momentum meter. Performing moves helps to fill this meter, which in turn increases the chain level positioned underneath it. Increasing this lets you perform additional, stronger moves and also opens up the ability to use taunts, which let you regain health or power up in other ways. Once your chain level gets to level 3, you'll be able to perform your finishing move, which is also executed in Quick Time Event style. Using a taunt drops your chain level by 1, while successfully executing a finisher automatically puts you down to the lowest level. Naturally, executing the chain moves will help re-build your momentum faster. Kicking out of pins requires a carefully timed hold or mash of the face buttons.