Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code

PSP players will no doubt be familiar with Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade, the third best selling PSP game ever. While Brotherhood of the Blade provided interesting randomly generated dungeons, and good old hack and slash action, it unfortunately was still seen as being a touch bland, with a rather limited storyline. (The fact that the game was produced in ten months may have had something to do with this.)

The upcoming release of Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code, however, will show players some serious improvements to the old game. Fans should be delighted. The random dungeons have been eliminated, the story is now more pronounced, and the multiplayer features have been significantly expanded upon.

The core gameplay still rotates around dungeon exploration, killing monsters and plundering treasure, and takes place within a prologue and five different acts. Each act contains around six quests each, totalling over 40 quests in all.

The story is set in a kingdom which has recently been taken over by a ruthless warlord and his army of demons. You are a Changeling, a member of an old race, many of whom have refused to join the warlord’s army, and are subsequently suffering the consequences. You decide to fight back.

You can choose to play one of five different characters (up one from the last game): a Guardian, Mercenary, Disciple, Scout or Prowler. Players begin with one special attack, and you can build up to twelve special abilities. Other fighting options include charge attacks, and opportunity attacks. The latter, however, come across as being awkward to use, and general mashing of the X button seems to be the key approach at the end of the day.

The look of the game has changed considerably, with the old 3D engine thrown out and replaced with a newly-built one. In addition, the art style has changed to something more exaggerated and cartoony – almost anime, quite possibly to make the game stand out from some of the other more traditional-looking fantasy games on the market.

The real highlight of the game, however, is in the improvements which have been made to multiplayer gameplay. Now you can play against other live players, either locally or over the internet. Two player co-op matches are possible, as are four player competitive matches, which include the usual deathmatch, capture the flag, and last-man-standing games.

All in all, Untold Legends: The Warrior’s Code should provide some immersive, if at times repetitive, gameplay. Fans of multiplayer should definitely check this one out.