Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code
Untold Legends dies by The Code, but not before redeeming much of what was wrong with the first game.
Published: May 2, 2006
So the story's more interesting, there's more types of attacks you can do, the button layout has been remapped (into a slightly cumbersome yet eventually quite handy setup where the L button works as a modifier, doling out power (magic) potions, toggling between ranged and melee combat, rotating the camera and triggering transformations), and the world itself is vastly more interesting. So why isn't the game as much fun as something like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance or even Sony's own Champions of Norrath?
The easy answer would just be, "well, the game's not developed by Snowblind Studios," but that's not really fair. There's enough here that the game should be fun for long spurts, but for some reason it isn't. After a couple of hours, you'll start to feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again because, well, you are. SOE tried to mix things up, and in many cases there's more variety here than in any other hack and slash seen on other systems, but escort missions or timed events, these things don't quite crop up enough to keep the game from falling into a rut, and it's a shame.
It's a bit of a case of the game being less than the sum of its parts, and some of those parts, like the visuals, are vastly improved over the last game. SOE managed to get realistic rippling water working on the PSP, so anything walking through the water creates ripples and wakes, which is really rather impressive. The texture detail is improved (and you'll see far more variety in the environments), the framerate a little more solid (though it's never perfectly smooth for longer than a few seconds), the animations overhauled and really quite nice.
The problem is that a lot of the detail in the characters, stuff like armor actually getting reflected or the 3D versions of the incredible monster designs, all of this gets lost in the top-down perspective of the game. You can pull the camera in, but then you have no situational awareness, and you can check out monsters you've encountered in the game's Beastiary, but it's not as good as appreciating it in the game.
The presentation of the storyline is improved too, though it's not quite on the level of some of the pre-rendered cutscenes I've seen on the PSP. Told through an almost Flash-level approach, the scenes are effects layered on top of the game's concept art, and while it certainly looks good, it's not terribly compelling.
Luckily, that's helped by the game's superlative voice acting. It may well be the best voice work on the PSP so far, though games like Daxter probably edge it out on the basis of pure part-for-part performance. Regardless, the storyline narrative and the major characters you talk to are all voiced very, very well.
The rest of the game's audio is just as good. Clean, bright sound effects for everything from footfalls to monster roars to weapons impacts, solid, rather bass-heavy thunks for menu confirmations and explosions, and plenty of the kind of orchestral movements you'd expect from a game like this all make for a wonderful aural experience. Seriously, this is the kind of game you want to play with headphones.
So, again, the game sounds good, it looks pleasant, and yet it just isn't terribly fun after a while. Why? Maybe I'm just getting tired of this kind of game. Maybe I'm just not admitting to myself that I'm a Snowblind whore. Whatever the reason, I'm more than happy to say that those that loved the first game will be ecstatic about this one. It's that much of an improvement. On the other hand, if you hated the first, this probably won't last you to the end. Luckily, if you didn't even bother with the first game, this is a great starting out point, and there's a good chance that you'll see it with fresh enough eyes to make it to the end.
Regardless, The Warrior's Code is worth a look. That may only be a rental, or waiting until the game drops below $20, but it should be checked out at some point. Let's just hope that the third game can keep making these kinds of strides and it might be good enough to recommend to everyone.
