It's enough to satisfy your RPG button mashing, hack 'n' slash cravings for now.
-Generic plot line involving bad guy "breaking his bonds" and now bent on destroying the world? Check.
-Nameless hero "destined" to stop said bad guy? Check.
-Lots of mindless button mashing to level up? Check.
Of course I'm being facetious with the above points, but it just serves to illustrate that the whole concept behind UL has been done before which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a bit tiring. The only difference here being that it makes for a great game on a portable system since there will probably be only so much button mashing to be had before you say "That's enough for now." It's great for short bursts at a time when you're on the go and need a little break.
You select your character from among four distinct classes that being Knight, Druid, Berserker and Alchemist. Determining which class you select is of minor importance since it will dictate your fighting style. For example, the Alchemist is a "magic" based character and is better at casting spells from far away, while the Berserker is a great melee character. You'll also find and equip class specific armor that gives your character a certain boost or enhancement to their stats.
The story is linear and strung along together through a series of quests that you acquire from key NPCs in the world. You can also take on a number of side-quests if you don't feel like pursuing the story mode right away. These mainly serve to allow you to rack up XP points and loot from all the baddies you kill. The level cap is at fifty, and I can say that when I finished the game I was only at a level 45 - and that was taking on all available sidequests as well as completing the main story arc. So depending on your level of commitment you can finish early as I did or take some time and accrue more XP to reach the level cap. UL provides a decent story to move things along. Although it relies on some cliché RPG elements as it goes. You're a young warrior belonging to a secret group and is destined to defeat an evil force that has been released from its prison and is now tainting the land and its inhabitants. Pretty much standard fare but it gets the job done.
Weapons and armor are aplenty in the game, and you'll soon find yourself bogged down with a lot of loot. You can of course haul it all back and sell it to the local shopkeeper for gold pieces to put towards that shiny new plated chest piece or powerful sword. More often than not you'll find yourself hauling and unloading back to town more than you'd care too. There are a nice assortment of weapon types to select from, but you'll probably stick with one for a while until you find something better. Certain weapons and armor also allow for special enhancements that you can apply to give it increased abilities. You can assign ruin stones, crystals and even skulls which all have their own unique properties. For example, you can apply a ruin stone to a piece of armor which will grant you a +5 to your overall strength, or you can add that same ruin stone to a sword and get a totally different ability that's specific for that weapon. This variety of customization is pretty cool and keeps you always on the lookout for the most effective combination of armor and weapons.
I do have one minor gripe (if you can consider it a gripe at all), but it concerns the sheer amount of gold you can acquire in one game. I swear to God at the end of my game I had over 320,000 GPs. That's INSANE. I mean, it's great that you can get that much but at the same time it's a bit excessive since once I had equipped myself with the most powerful I could find and had the most effective combo of armor I had no more use for all that gold save for stocking up on health and magic potions. And I STILL had over 300,000 GPs. I found it very easy to amass a lot of gold so I was never hurting for money, and after a while I could afford everything at the local store and never had to worry about "saving" since I couldn't get rid of my gold if I wanted to. Another gripe is the selection of weapons and armor. Usually you find the best stuff from looting slain enemies, while the shopkeeper (for the most part) consistently carries crap. I made the majority of my money from looting and hauling and selling the goods back to the shopkeeper since I found a lot of great stuff from the bad guys I had killed.
The sound effects are pretty good, but generic. After all, how can you accurately mimic a giant axe cleaving an overgrown spider in two? And the music is, well, let's just say after a while you'll more than likely turn the music down/off altogether. It is highly repetitive to the point of grating on your nerves. Although if you really get into the game you'll end up blocking out the music entirely. But if you willingly make yourself conscious of it you'll likely shoot yourself after a while and that's not good.
The graphics as well are pretty good. Characters are animated nicely, as well as enemies, but there's also a lot of repetitiveness as far as enemy design with nothing really diversifying them. You'll definitely feel like you're killing mindless enemy #1,034 after a while. The ability to zoom in on your character while playing is nice, and gives you a more detailed view of what you look like as well as seeing yourself in action. Your character also will change according to which pieces of armor he/she is wearing, and it's a nice visual treat to see your appearance does change depending on what you are wearing rather than just your stats changing and you continue to wear a generic piece of armor. Likewise you're able to view each weapon as it appears along with any unique property it holds. So if the sword you're carrying does fire damage you'll be able to see an orange glow emanating from it.
The game does support multiplayer, although ad-hoc only, which I guess is a blessing in this case. It's really only good with someone who you can see is sharing your pain as you play. Just kidding. It's pretty solid, although the story mode doesn't change at all with the addition of another player the one thing I and my best friend noticed was if you have a character at a higher level than the person playing with you, that person gains XP more quickly while killing monsters. So if you have a friend that's only a level 5 and you're a level 20 and he's complaining about how you're so far ahead of him he'll never catch up *cough*like my friend was*cough* tell him to shut up and keep playing, and make him aware of how fast he's gaining XP and leveling up. He'll shut up after he realizes that and you'll probably be hard pressed to get HIM to stop playing since he's the one most benefiting from your session.
So overall a decent RPG experience for your PSP. Nothing to run out and buy tonight, but definitely worth a try once it hits the bargain bin if it hasn't already by this time. It was, after all, one of the launch titles for PSP so you should be able to find this game for cheap now. It doesn't offer any significant or innovative improvements for the genre, but for those just wanting a serviceable button mashing, hack 'n' slash title you've found your game.
-K