Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade
There’s a reason why some legends aren’t told; they can be kinda boring.
Published: April 4, 2005
While much as been made of the game’s visuals, this isn’t exactly on par with something you’d see in one of Snowblind Studios’ console hack and slashers. It’s not bad, mind you, but the extensive lighting effects and exquisite texture detail aren’t anywhere near as lavish on the scaled-down PSP. This was probably done for a handful of reasons, not the least of which was hardware demands, but I suspect that the console versions’ constant streaming from the disc ruled out any high-res tile-based graphics.
What’s in place is certainly decent, though, it’s just that you’ll see a lot of the same basic layouts in the dungeons, even if the actual placement of the narrow corridors, pools of water and inky black pits gets shuffled around a bit. There’s also a relatively low level of interaction with objects. There are a few choice mounds of crap or chests to open in a given level, but most of the other stuff will block your progress yet offer no resistance to a weapon swing. It’s a little annoying, especially because as the levels change, so too do the things you can open as if there were chests or smash as if they were barrels.
Most of the particle-driven spell effects that offered so much visual punch on consoles don’t really have the same level of panache here, instead feeling like something a little softer and more subdued, despite developers’ comments of the PSP being better at handling particles than the venerable PS2. It’s a very minor gripe that falls in line with most of the other complaints
The audio’s probably the weakest part of the game. The growls and snarls are fair enough, and the weapon swinging sounds and spell effects have plenty of aural pop when headphones are one, but the music is both infrequent, and can be downright annoying at times. The music that cycles through Aven, which I’ll remind is the hub of the entire game and where you’ll probably spend the most time, at least early on, is like a calliope or music box gone horribly wrong. The note assault your ears over and over in a simplistic pattern the drones on and forces you back out into the wilds rather than welcoming you back to your place of refuge.
So, what’s a fair score for a game that basically distills an already simplistic experience into something that’s lengthy, but doesn’t offer excessive amounts of character customization, compelling story or non-player characters to converse with and offers basic interaction with environment at best? This is a nicely polished game for what it is, pulls of the basic combat and controls well for the PSP and even manages to showcase the hardware a few times. It’s a good week or two’s worth of casual play available at any time any place, and feels just right for those proposed 15 minute gaming sessions that Sony seems to think gamers will be taking part in with their PSPs (mine have been somewhere around 2 hours or so, but then I’ve been reviewing for the most part).
What’s here is good, so long as you aren’t looking for a direct translation of the finer parts of the console Champions, and if you dig these games, you’re going to get a kick out of all the different nooks and crannies you can explore. It really does offer all the plusses of a console hack and slash without the bullshit, but it’ll come down to how much bullshit you really want with your dungeon crawl.