Brütal Legend - Reception

Reception

Brütal Legend received positive response from gaming journalists, with reviewers praising the story and characters of the game, driven vocal performances of the voice actors, particularly Black and Osbourne. Daemon Hatfield of IGN felt Black was "completely committed" to the role of Riggs, while Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis found it relieving that Black reined in his typical "loud-talking heavy-metal goofball" act that he is known for and instead performed well, "bringing just the right amount of working-man's matter-of-fact-ness to the role". Osbourne's role was considered "amazing (and surprisingly coherent)" by Gamespot's Giancarlo Varanini and "played brilliantly" by Computer and Video Games' Andrew Kelly. The full cast was commended for their roles; the heavy metal musicians were effective at playing themselves in the game, while the other voice talent performed well and " their part to balance out the star power" in the game. The strength of the characters was considered to be enhanced by the quality of writing of the story, and the use of facial animation. Eurogamer's Christian Donlan considered the characters of Brütal Legend to be the strongest aspect to the game, distancing the title from other video games due to "rounded, personable leads who are distinctly superior to the usual throngs of cybermen and super-vixens", and a facet of Schafer's signature work. Wired's Chris Kohler further attested the strength of the game's story to Schafer's skill, considering that "After Brütal Legend, he should be considered one of the best storytellers in gaming, period." 1UP.com's Justin Haywald noted that the game lacks the ability to review cutscenes, forcing the player to restart the story if they wanted to see these again.

The heavy metal-inspired world of Brütal Legend was also well received, and considered to show a clear reverence for the genre. Gerald Villoria of Gamespy considered the game to be "dedicated to an unabashed love of metal" and "heavy metal fan-service to the highest degree". Davis believed that the juxtaposition of all the elements that made up the heavy metal fantasy world were the game's greatest strength, often being "both giddily ridiculous and fist-pumpingly badass" at the same time. Critics found that while the graphics for the game may not be the most sophisticated for the current console generation, the detailed art aspects of the world were impressive; Varanini considered that "no matter where you are in the world, there's always some cool object to look at", while Donlan considered the world to be a "constant unfolding delight". The incorporation of heavy metal music into the game also benefited the game. Both Kelly and Villoria considered the soundtrack essential to the game, and praised the moments where specific songs, such as Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" would be used as background music during specific game sequences. Kelly further praised the game for using the songs to define the action of the game instead of relegated to random background music. Villoria also considered the soundtrack to have "enormous breadth of sound and diversity", introducing the player to heavy metal genres they may not have known even existed. G4TV's Jake Gaskill considered listening to the soundtrack to be the equivalent of "taking a class in heavy metal appreciation."

The actual gameplay was seen as Brütal Legend's largest weakness. Many reviewers were critical of the incorporation of real-time strategy (RTS) elements into the game, a fact that was not well advertised prior to the game's release and does not become apparent to the player in the first hours of the game. Though Schafer had set out to make the console-based game like an RTS from the start, they were warned by both Vivendi and Electronic Arts that "RTS" was "a naughty word in the console space", and instead marketed it as an action game. Despite this, reviewers found that the game was still difficult to play on a console due to the selected controls that made it difficult to target objectives or troops, the lack of a mini-map to track friends and foes, and the frantic pace of battle.

Critics did appreciate the slow introduction to the various aspects of the game as part of the single player game, but felt the game did not adequately introduce or explain all of the game's RTS features, such as the ability to mount a final stand on one's stage. Some also considered the single-player campaign Stage Battles to be too easy, winnable by brute force, and that more advanced tactics would only become apparent as one played in multiplayer games, including learning the abilities and advantages of the other units of the factions other than Ironheade. The mix of gaming genres between the RTS and third-person action was found particularly confusing; Kohler commented that the handling of the individual genres was accomplished well, leading to "an astoundingly complex design instead of a simple one" that diminished the enjoyment of the game, while Davis considered that "perhaps there wasn't enough confidence in any one piece to let it carry the whole game". However, some felt that the various genres helped to create "a variety of gameplay opportunities", and made for "rather elegant" Stage Battles. In retrospect, Schafer lamented the fact that they did not include enough tutorials in the game to guide the player as to "naturally how to play the strategy part a bit better", as they had come to accept over the years of development, and tried to use the Double Fine blog to explain some of these aspects. Schafer would later jokingly refer to the RTS elements of Brütal Legend; during the fundraising for the Double Fine Adventure, Schafer teasingly threatened to add RTS elements to the point-and-click if the funding had reached certain levels.

Gameplay outside of the Stage Battles was also met with mixed impressions. Most considered the side missions highly repetitive, which included mission types that are generally disliked by gamers, such as escort missions. The lack of a mini-map, replaced by either following a glowing light from the sky illuminating the player's target or by navigating based on the Deuce's turn signals was criticized for making it difficult to explore the game's world. The information about the world that players can access in the game's pause menu was also found to be lacking, showing neither the collectible elements of the game on the main map, nor easily identifying the alliance of the various troops in the in-game guidebook. Though Eddie gains the ability to fly during Stage Battles, the inability to use this or to make the character jump led to reviewers getting the character stuck on the landscape at times when exploring. Some reviewers found the number of progress checkpoints in the game to be lacking, requiring the player to repeat a long mission if they should die before reaching one. The single-player game was also considered to be short, lasting as little as four hours if one only completed the main story missions.

According to the NPD Group, Brütal Legend sold approximately 215,000 copies in the United States in the month of October 2009, with about 150,000 copies being for the Xbox 360 platform, making it the 12th top selling game in that month. These numbers were not considered to be strong, and was attributed to the difficult marketing of the game, which emphasized Jack Black's involvement and the heavy metal nature of the game, but did not assert what the gameplay would actually be like, with the possibility that the mention of the RTS elements of the game would have possibly driven more players away from the game. In an interview in February 2011, Schafer claimed that the game has sold over 1.4 million copies. According to data collected through Nielsen SoundScan, some songs contained within Brütal Legend's soundtrack saw digital sales increases of up to 700% following the game's release, similar to the effects of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, though impact on overall sales of these songs were rather small.

Black was given the Best Voice award at the Spike Video Game Awards 2009. Brütal Legend won the "Best Strategy/Simulation Game" and "Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack" awards in the 13th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, and was nominated for "Outstanding Character Performance" (for Eddie Riggs), "Outstanding Achievement in Original Story", and "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction". The game was also nominated for the Game Developers Choice Awards for "Best Writing" and "Best Audio".