for desperate fans of mulit-player action RPGs
Let me start by saying my wife and I love to play video games, but when we play solo, we tend to go for different experiences - she likes straight up RPGs, puzzle games, & platformers, whereas I go for third person action games, fighters, and sandboxes. Action RPG is one of the only areas we overlap, so we tend to play as many of them as possible. We try them all, and we'll replay ones we like if there are new characters or levels to explore. We tend to finish even the bad or mediocre ones, and anxiously await new releases.
Imagine my disappoinment with the selection of such games on the PS3. We rented ULDK, and had at it. First we noticed it had most of the elements we like: hack & slash, spells, single screen top down view for co-op, drop in co-op, easy save system, and customizable characters. Perfect.
As we played on, disappointments added up, but did not curtail us. A bad camera, which often shifts at really inopportune times, was our first major complaint. Spells and abilities were cool, but there weren't enough of them that were interesting, and the ones we like couldn't be expanded enough - by the end of the game we ended up putting points onto things we knew we'd never use. Weapons weren't really changed, you added different "orbs" and their look changed, but it wasn't like you could go into an armory and buy a battle axe. As a matter of fact, the entire time we played the game, I don't think we ever paid to upgrade our armor or weapons. Armor class, hit points, and magic points information was on a different screen from the inventory. Sometimes the camera would go to a fixed position - not cool. Jumping tasks were really lame. The storyline was cliched and completely uninspired. Voice acting was subpar. Boss battles we usually either too easy or too hard. The monsters were extremely repetitive.
But we played i all the way through, and had a decent enough time. We never played it more than 2 hours a night, usually less than an hour and a half, and we were finished within 10 days or so. As usual, we were a little disappointed when it ended, because we knew it might be awhile until we found the next game like this to play together. But we felt no compulsion to play it again. Since there were only three characters to choose from, one of us would have to play with a character we'd already used -yawn. And there weren't any new levels unlocked or anything, so why bother? I returned the rental the next day, satisfied.