Untold Legends

[Heath_Hindman]

http://www.pishoque.net/index.php?module=viewreview&id=165

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Advertisements currently declare that one in every six PSP owners has a copy of Untold Legends. Bummer.

Legendarily boring, Untold Legends was intended to help the PSP hit the ground running when it launched alongside the system. It "hit the ground" alright, and freaking stayed there. The game is a Western-style RPG with a gameplay formula one would normally expect from the sub-genre; that is, it feels similar to Champions of Norrath and Baldur's Gate. Players start by creating a character from one of the four archetypes of Knight, Alchemist, Druid, or Berserker. From there, they'll begin the game by getting introduced to the paper-thin, generic story. Said story boils down to simply the classic "Oh crap, here comes evil. Oh crap, no one knows how to kill it. Oh crap, can you stop it!?" Whatever. This is somewhat forgivable, because really, no one expected a story from Untold Legends to begin with, but it's hard to believe there was even a script staff here. It's that bad.

Now is when the game really starts to suck: actually playing it. After a short period of getting used to each character class, gamers shouldn't expect much variety in the combat. It will be very much a constant repetition of the same strategy, same attack pattern, etc., over and over again, for pretty much every foe. Using a magic class is particularly frustrating because of the sucktastic spell-casting interface. Who the hell wants to get the flow of a combo going, only to have to open the menu and edit the button/cast assignments in order to finish it? Lame. The relatively low difficulty in most places also contributes to the overall boredom in this game.

Oh, it gets worse. Not only will players be bored with combat, but the enemies are never truly erased from an area. Every time a player goes back, the bad guys will be there waiting, and have a strength level that increases with the character's. Now add in the fact that in order to get to new places, the old ones must be traversed numerous times and more pointless story segments slow the process, and we've got all the ingredients to cook up something that tastes like ass.

Where the game can be a bit fun is with multiplayer. Using the PSP's ad hoc system, up to four players can participate in a single game session, and co-op gameplay always has a certain appeal about it. Untold Legends does this okay, but the strength of the enemies doesn't go up from what it is in the single-player game, meaning most of the play will be overly easy. It's not exactly something people will want to do every weekend and certainly won't be the highlight of any gaming party.

The game's graphics are definitely impressive. The PSP is a powerful machine, but even with that in mind, this reviewer wasn't expecting visuals as detailed as those of Untold Legends. All of the areas and characters look great. This does come at a cost, though, as the game suffers intense loading times. A player can be kept waiting for 30 seconds at times. The sound is nowhere near as good as the graphics. All sound effects sound like they've been used in other games, and music tracks are recycled over and over again. None of the music is memorable, while 100% of it is dull and uninspired.

Nothing about Untold Legends makes it worth more than a one-weekend rental. Even though the game is over 20 hours long, the patience struggle involved with playing that much of this game is far beyond that of a normal person. Some legends were untold for a reason....

[Dracos]

Heh.  Sounds ewwful.

What do you mean with the enemies never leave?  A sort of respawning dealie?

Sounds like it was made by a bunch of folks who have no handheld experience.

Dracos

[Dexie Oblivion]

Is this the first or the second?

For the matter, is the second one out yet? *Too lazy to check.* :P

[Heath_Hindman]

It's the first.  The title would have had a "2" in it or I'd have mentioned the earlier game if this were the sequel ^_^  But I guess not all reviewers would have, so I shouldn't get on you for asking.

The second one isn't out yet, but I think it happens later this month.  My new band member wrote a decent preview here

[Heath_Hindman]

What do you mean with the enemies never leave?  A sort of respawning dealie?

Yeah.  It may not be the very next time you're in an area, but at some point, monsters will regenerate.  Their AI will still be lame and the fight will still be easy, but they level up with the character, so they still take a few good wacks to kill again -_-

This wouldn't be so bad if there weren't so many areas that players are forced to revisit ONLY because it's part of a travel route.  The system is flawed.

Sounds like it was made by a bunch of folks who have no handheld experience.

Sony Online Entertainment.  That pretty much says it all ^_^  Their previous handheld experience is like...EverQuest mobile.  This had disaster written all over it from the start.

[Dracos]

Oh god, that sounds horrible @_@

Dracos
Glad he doesn't own a PSP =D