Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade takes the simple yet addictive dungeon hack play of the Champions of Norrath games and puts it into a tight portable package for play on the PSP. Untold Legends features the same type of endless stream of enemies gameplay as found in its console cousins, but the move to a smaller system has resulted in cutbacks in the size of the game’s world and in the depth of its storyline. The result is an action-RPG that strips away most of the RPG side of the equation, leaving you with the hack and slash core of the game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as with a portable game its good to have something you can put down and pick up when needed without having to remember where you are within a complex storyline. On the other hand, if you’re really looking for a portable RPG, then you’ll more than likely find Untold Legends wanting.

Surrounded ... again.

In Untold Legends you play as a person who has just won the sparring championship of a local festival. However, the locals like to keep quiet a little detail of the champion’s responsibilities – the festival champion is responsible for defending the town in time of dire need. Lo and behold, for the first time in years such a crisis erupts and you’re pressed into service as the town’s defender. What starts out as an annoying and perplexing giant spider infestation soon turns out to be just a small part of a far greater danger, a danger which you must put an end to.

While this story provides the motivation for your slaughter of thousands, there’s not a whole lot of depth here. Basically you talk to the next key character which involves reading a few lines of text, and each of these characters invariably needs an item from the next dungeon on the list that is guarded by some boss monster. There’s not much of an overworld, so you basically clean out the dungeon, return the item, and then talk to the next person in the chain. This allows you to spend more quality time in the dungeons hacking away, but it can also make your quest seem repetitive and at times somewhat pointless.

Character selection is on the light side as well, with only four to choose from and no way to customize their look. You basically get two fighters, two casters, two males, two females, … it gives you the distinct impression that the developers were going more for a balance of characters for multiplayer gaming rather than providing very distinct classes to vary the single player experience.

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