A good solid hack-N-slash romp on a portable platform.
Graphics
I’m still pretty stoked about how nice the graphics look on most of the PSP titles, this being no exception. The player character, enemy combatants, and NPCs are all rendered in nice detail. Little touches like seeing the specific weapon and/or armor that the player has equipped display gives a nice sense of emersion. Weapon’s that are imbued with magical energies will give off a satisfying particle effect (e.g. electrical magic will surround the weapon in crackling electricity) and magical spells will also produce a gratifying aura of energy as they fire from the player and strike enemies.
All of the animations for player and enemy alike are fluid and believable. I found it cool to see a giant lumbering “evil Ent” type creature plodding towards me swinging gangly branch like appendages as it attacked, then finally falling dead to the ground after delivering the killing blow.
The environments are also nicely rendered with variation from forested outdoor areas to burning volcanic landscapes and dank underground dungeons. The addition of weather effects such as rain when outside also added a nice sense of emersion.
Gameplay
This game has most of the mainstays of this genre which is obviously fairly simplistic; attack horde of monsters, pickup loot, attack another horde of monsters, pickup more loot, repeat ad nauseum. Each of the 4 playable classes has its specific skill trees that will allow the player to add skill points to specific abilities as they level. Points can also be assigned to primary attributes such as strength, intelligence, etc. depending upon which class the character has chosen (e.g. Knights will put more points into strength while Druids will put more into intelligence). The skill trees branch opening up new abilities depending upon which previous hierarchical skill was selected (e.g. dual wielding).
Players can collect different weapon and armor sets, add magical runes, skulls, or crystals to standard weapons and armor, and collect other magical items such as rings and pendants to boost the player’s attributes and abilities. This adds for virtually limitless variation in what your weapons and armor can do while allowing you to boost stats and abilities to create your own custom “god” like character.
I completed the game with a Knight using various armor pieces and single handed weapons in a dual wield build. This allowed for a pretty fast set of attacks that did good damage.
Overall
If this had been a hack-N-slash game for the PC or a normal console (e.g. XBOX) the game would have been lacking in features, but on a portable console the diversity seemed about right. There was an ancillary storyline that going on throughout the game, and for the most part I only caught bits and pieces of it (fortunately the end game Epilogue gives a recap of what actually happened). I really would have liked to have seen more then 4 classes available to play and more customizations available for each character as well (as is, you can only choose between hair style, hair color, and skin color, and only 3 selections are available for each of those choices) as this would have added tremendously to the replay value.
As is, I feel like I might start another campaign using a different class and try the game again for a little while at least, but since the game appears to start at the exact same point with little to no variation, it doesn’t make the idea of going through the game again that appealing. Seeing each class start at a different point which would give a different set of quests for your class would have been welcome (in much the way that a game like Sacred does for each of its playable classes).
Bottom line; Untold Legends: BoB is a pretty good hack-N-slash style western medieval fantasy themed action RPG that you can play for as little or as long as you want at any time. Being able to jump right into the game, massacre a brace of enemies, then turn the PSP off until later is very appealing to me. Since this appears to be the only western style RPG available for the PSP at the moment, players like myself who prefer this style of game really don’t have much in the way of choices. Here’s hoping that there will be more of this type, and deep true western style RPGs, added to the PSP lineup in the near future.