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legend is a very complex, interesting coaster that kinda reassembles itself in my memory as a bit of a sprawling mess, but that is not to say its not great, cause it is. my issue is that it doesnt have the simple elegant smackdown of the tiny raven nextdoor, nor the epic electrical storm of the voyage down yonder - its more like a huge, oafish, brute cousin to those somewhat more balanced coasters. but i dont want this review to be a dis, because the true story is that my first ride on the legend really woke me up and injected me with plenty of adrenalin and vibratory stimulation. i found the legend to be very intense, easily as intense as a steel postive-G fest such as batman:theride. but unlike the popular, smooth vertical +Gs of a b&m invert, legend just drills the crap out of you again and again with bumpy, gruesome horizontal Gs during an endless chain of shallow, whipping dives and slams. i actually started laughing once during a circuit i took on the ride because i just found the amount of pressure pushing my torso off the right side of the train to be comically intense. it is long and wild ride, folks! the course is convoluted in the extreme, using itself, the hillside terrain and the waterpark to confuse the rider and remove any semblence of bearing on the the layout and what might lie ahead. it seems to be a series of experiments - swooping drops, tunnels, parabolic curves, flat unnatural curves, a sprinkling of airtime in choice spots, plateaus, roughness, relentless speed, weird straightaways, sprints, an eliptical undulating double helix, and every other thing but a kitchen sink. but maybe this is how legend falls a little short with me. its over-worked and top-heavy. yes its long, but there are a few dead spots and it has a sort of asthmatic, heaving rhythm to it. i have a lot of respect for this ride, and at any other park it would conquer, but holiday world has some serious genius wood going on, and thats what the rider is going to compare legend to. its inevitable that a member of a successful wood family is going to lag behind, and in this case its legend. now i love many things that are baroque, but legend takes all of the garishness of a baroque coaster design but misses out a little on negative Gs and poetic pacing. without balance baroque can seem awkward and any flaws will stand out. well i guess this review does ring more of a dis than not. but the summary: legend is what it is - a tough solid and mean wood coaster that falls slightly short of its potential.
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