18. Untold Legends: Brotherhood Of The Blade

Publisher: Sony
Number of players: 1 to 4

Another Sony title, another genre. With Untold Legends, the publisher moves to the category of action-and-adventure RPGs, in the tradition of classics like Diablo or Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. The title relies on a fantastic medieval universe and a well-proven play system. First the player creates a character chosen from among four classes - Knight, Alchemist, Druid, and Berserker - who are more or less gifted for combat or for magic. He or she can then personalize the character by choosing a skin color, hair color, and hair style; the choice is limited to four possibilities for each setting, however. Then you assign a total of 10 points to the four characteristics that define the character: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Endurance. All of this is very simple.

Once things really get going, Untold Legends comes up in 3D and offers a view that resembles isometric 3D a little, except that here you have three levels of zoom available, and you can move the camera 360°. Play is quite detailed graphically, with superb environments and beautiful lighting effects, but numerous bugs are visible in the display.

The character you control can be moved only with your thumb on the PSP's analog stick, and again, its placement requires you to bend your thumb too much, which quickly becomes painful. Apart from this drawback, gameplay is extremely traditional - and fairly linear - despite the odd randomly-generated castle tower. In fact, that's the major fault of this game: you have to go where non-playing characters tell you, and kill all the monsters you meet. This lets you earn money, objects, and experience, all of which of course lets you do business with the merchants you meet and improve your character's skills. In multiplayer mode, Untold Legends also offers the possibility of playing with four players in cooperative mode.