Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony
Hackin' and slashin' and feelin' no pain.
Published: December 10, 2006
I thought I'd tired of the whole hack and slash action RPG genre. Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom left a sour taste in my mouth, and even Marvel: Ultimate Alliance felt a little lacking. Maybe it's just that the dungeon crawl in its current state is better suited for the current-gen PS2/PSP consoles. Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony is based largely on the trappings of the PSP Untold Legends series, which is in turn patterned after Sony Online Entertainment's experience with developer Snowblind Studios on the Champions games, which in turn are lifted part and parcel from Snowblind's work on their Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games.
It's all sort of an incestuous collection of games that haven't really pushed the style of game forward in the better part of a decade, and I felt like I was getting burned out. Turns out I just needed a game that did it all right in a slightly different setting. Don't get me wrong Throne of Agony is no more a Dungeon Siege game than Dark Alliance was a Baldur's Gate game, which is to say they share a common world, but little of the depth or storytelling of their PC big brothers.
In fact, it's probably safe to say that ToA is even more light on storytelling given how much of a dungeon crawl the PC Dungeon Siege games were. But here on the PSP, ToA scratches that itch for a fairly mindless romp through endless scads of enemies, doling out equal parts button mashing and light strategy thanks to various Followers that can be summoned to fight and support in battle. No, it's not anything that you'll have played before if you're familiar with the setting and genre, but that doesn't mean it's not a solid game either.
The game begins where Dungeon Siege II on the PC left off (right around the same time as the Broken World expansion), with three basic character classes setting off together to the same destination for different reasons; Allister the battle mage is trying to find his lost love Sedara, Mogrim the half-giant warlord is in search of salvation after his people were banished long ago, and Serin the elvin shadow stalker is trying to get to the root of her prophetic visions -- curious considering her people lost the ability to get them after the events of Dungeon Siege II. All three are on a ship which wrecks after a magical ley line shifts and sinks their ride, washing them up on the shores of the Broken Lands where they split up and the story for each starts.
What follows are a good 15 hours of NPC conversations, quests and lots and lot of leveling and monster bashing with near-constant looting (of which there are a seemingly infinite number of unique items). The storyline, such as it is, doesn't really get too heavy until a good half-dozen or so hours into the game (or at least it wasn't interesting to me), but what's there offer at least a few surprises and endless reasons to hammer on your X Button. That, incidentally, is the core of melee combat, but magic users can map the various spells (unlocked in chunks at level 30 and then again at 60) to the Square and Triangle Buttons.
So the bulk of the game, then, is just leveling up your characters as they're slowly drawn into an ages-old conflict. What could have been a fairly boring trudge through endless dungeons gets a little boost by being able to actually chance your selected character's class once you get to level 30. Your Followers also level up with you, and by speaking to someone in town, you can beef up their abilities by spending a little cash. It's a solid system, and for advancement nuts like me that dig the whole leveling process, there's a lot of immediate rewards in abilities.
All this leveling is done through the game's simple menu system. Tapping select brings up your inventory, abilities, the abilities of your Followers, quests and lore (so you can actually catch up on any story, character or location deets that you may have missed). It's all fairly speedy, which is a good thing, because the transitions between towns or dungeons and the world are painfully long. What's worse, they do that annoying thing where the loading bar zips along until the veeeeery end and then just hang there for about 30 seconds or more.
Honestly, though, that's about the only complain (beyond the fact that it's entirely familiar stuff) that I have with the game. The animations are smooth, the framerate is, fairly solid (it can get into some serious chop at times, usually when there are a lot of effects on screen), and the character models and enemies are nicely detailed. Your character updates with the various weapons and bits of armor that you throw on them, creating a constantly changing look.
Aurally, there's plenty to dig too. Though you won't have full voiceovers for your conversations, you'll get a general greeting and at times a contextual response, and these are done well. The main cutscenes are pulled off with simple layered, static images, but the voice work there is very solid (if a little theatrical). The music, a rich blend of typical fantasy fare and brassy orchestral movements, is top-notch stuff -- and that's not surprising given that it was lifted from Jeremy Soule's excellent work on Dungeon Siege II.
In the end, Throne of Agony doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen in the genre before. Luckily, it does what it does very, very well -- well enough that there isn't a better hack 'n slash on the PSP right now. If a meaty but ultimately shallow button masher is how you like to pass the time, here's proof that the genre isn't without at least a little life left in it.
It's all sort of an incestuous collection of games that haven't really pushed the style of game forward in the better part of a decade, and I felt like I was getting burned out. Turns out I just needed a game that did it all right in a slightly different setting. Don't get me wrong Throne of Agony is no more a Dungeon Siege game than Dark Alliance was a Baldur's Gate game, which is to say they share a common world, but little of the depth or storytelling of their PC big brothers.
In fact, it's probably safe to say that ToA is even more light on storytelling given how much of a dungeon crawl the PC Dungeon Siege games were. But here on the PSP, ToA scratches that itch for a fairly mindless romp through endless scads of enemies, doling out equal parts button mashing and light strategy thanks to various Followers that can be summoned to fight and support in battle. No, it's not anything that you'll have played before if you're familiar with the setting and genre, but that doesn't mean it's not a solid game either.
The game begins where Dungeon Siege II on the PC left off (right around the same time as the Broken World expansion), with three basic character classes setting off together to the same destination for different reasons; Allister the battle mage is trying to find his lost love Sedara, Mogrim the half-giant warlord is in search of salvation after his people were banished long ago, and Serin the elvin shadow stalker is trying to get to the root of her prophetic visions -- curious considering her people lost the ability to get them after the events of Dungeon Siege II. All three are on a ship which wrecks after a magical ley line shifts and sinks their ride, washing them up on the shores of the Broken Lands where they split up and the story for each starts.
What follows are a good 15 hours of NPC conversations, quests and lots and lot of leveling and monster bashing with near-constant looting (of which there are a seemingly infinite number of unique items). The storyline, such as it is, doesn't really get too heavy until a good half-dozen or so hours into the game (or at least it wasn't interesting to me), but what's there offer at least a few surprises and endless reasons to hammer on your X Button. That, incidentally, is the core of melee combat, but magic users can map the various spells (unlocked in chunks at level 30 and then again at 60) to the Square and Triangle Buttons.
So the bulk of the game, then, is just leveling up your characters as they're slowly drawn into an ages-old conflict. What could have been a fairly boring trudge through endless dungeons gets a little boost by being able to actually chance your selected character's class once you get to level 30. Your Followers also level up with you, and by speaking to someone in town, you can beef up their abilities by spending a little cash. It's a solid system, and for advancement nuts like me that dig the whole leveling process, there's a lot of immediate rewards in abilities.
All this leveling is done through the game's simple menu system. Tapping select brings up your inventory, abilities, the abilities of your Followers, quests and lore (so you can actually catch up on any story, character or location deets that you may have missed). It's all fairly speedy, which is a good thing, because the transitions between towns or dungeons and the world are painfully long. What's worse, they do that annoying thing where the loading bar zips along until the veeeeery end and then just hang there for about 30 seconds or more.
Honestly, though, that's about the only complain (beyond the fact that it's entirely familiar stuff) that I have with the game. The animations are smooth, the framerate is, fairly solid (it can get into some serious chop at times, usually when there are a lot of effects on screen), and the character models and enemies are nicely detailed. Your character updates with the various weapons and bits of armor that you throw on them, creating a constantly changing look.
Aurally, there's plenty to dig too. Though you won't have full voiceovers for your conversations, you'll get a general greeting and at times a contextual response, and these are done well. The main cutscenes are pulled off with simple layered, static images, but the voice work there is very solid (if a little theatrical). The music, a rich blend of typical fantasy fare and brassy orchestral movements, is top-notch stuff -- and that's not surprising given that it was lifted from Jeremy Soule's excellent work on Dungeon Siege II.
In the end, Throne of Agony doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen in the genre before. Luckily, it does what it does very, very well -- well enough that there isn't a better hack 'n slash on the PSP right now. If a meaty but ultimately shallow button masher is how you like to pass the time, here's proof that the genre isn't without at least a little life left in it.
