Diablo 2 for the psp this game is!
The shear polish of this game is amazing. Every environment is highly detailed. There is very little repetition. I love the fact that when you explore new areas you will see cool environments, in an old taken over stronghold there was a deep well with crates being lowered into it with giant maggots in the crates moving around. There are all types of environments from forest, mountain, desert, sea, castle, crater, hell, etc... They are different. The textures are great! Sometimes you see textures that look like they are pixel shaded like from next gen hardware. I have never seen these textures effects done on ps2, yet psp? Thats amazing! A huge world map with docks for a boat, islands, and two different types of world maps: 1 is a cartographers map that is like looking at a map, the other is where you move over the land in 3d and enter certain key areas...it's not linear either.
10000's of weapons armors and gear. You can wear up to 6 pieces of armor on your body from boots, grieves, chest, helmet, gauntlets, shields, then there is gear like trinkets, amulets, cloaks wrist guards, rings, belts, etc.. and one of each (2 for rings and trinkets) can be equipped at the same time. And each item is shown on your character....Each item has been hand modeled! It really puts other games to shame in how polished this is. Weapons are in numerous types, swords aren't just swords, there is different variations of them, just like with the axes, pole arms, daggers, maces, hammers, cross-bows, knuckles, bows, glass orbs of magic, etc... There is 5 levels of rarity common, magical(green), rare magical(blue), unique magical rare(purple) and legendary (orange)....If you ever played dungeon siege or diablo you will know how this works. Each weapon is hand modeled too and have different attack animations. Your stronger magical weapons like the purples and oranges will glow or have some particle effects on them showing their power.
Enemies leave gold and or loot. There are chests of different sizes and traps throughout the dungeons. The Story is good, and each race has a different story and cutscenes. The sound quality is amazing too! Everything feels so visceral with good thunks or slashes when you hit an enemy. the particle effects and texture work is second to none on the psp(or hell the ps2 as well)
The skills are varies and there are tons of them and they give you lots and lots of skill points to use.with very good control button shortcuts. The game is smooth no fps lag, it runs like it should. The only thing bad is sometimes between regions there is a loading time of about 15-30 seconds, its not instant which is where gamespot dissed the game.... Come on I personally feel gamespot tries to compare psp games to console games when they are not the same(although this game is) they don't dis DS games as much...they just hate Sony like most of this biased pro M$ press. I hate that. This game deserves more praise, I love it and so do so many others...just look at the user reviews. 90% above 8.0
One last thing is the level system. There are 3 races each race is a different story with different cut scenes. you can choose the human battlemage, the dark elf shadow stalker, or the half-giant barbarian. These races at level 30 get to pick between 2 more advanced classes, then at level 60 there is a choice of one of 4 more classes for each class. You get things like lich, warlord, ninja, blood assasin, white wizard, archmage, arcane champion, shadow sniper..etc... plus you have multiple followers (you start out with choosing 1 from 2 followers) and you can recruit others on your quest. ! follower can be active at a time but you can switch at anytime. Each follower levels up and has there own skills you can choose. You have to buy the training though for your followers skills at town.
This review is pale in comparison to the depth of this game. Super villain made a masterpiece from this. It's the best psp ARPG and hell best for ps2 too. I really love this game. I just wish more people would of bought it as I would love a sequel!