Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code

Rating ESRB: Teen Genre role-playing Publisher Sony Online Entertainment External Links Official Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code Website

This being my first experience with the Untold Legends franchise, I have to admit that I was not quite sure what I was getting myself into. While I cannot make any faithful comparisons to the previous game, I can offer a relatively unbiased point of view on Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code.

The most striking characteristic for me were the graphics. For the first time in months, I honestly felt like I was playing a PlayStation 2-caliber game on my handheld. Any changes in armor or weaponry are immediately noticeable on the character, either on the playing field or in the sub-screens of the menus. I love the fact that I can change the characters' boots and they will actually look different in the game. The menus themselves also look great; they are streamlined, clear, and easy to navigate. The enemies were all pretty unique, and their attack animations were well executed (especially those that shot fire - I thought it looked great). The non-enemy NPCs were also well-designed, each with unique weapons and clothing. On top of that, the different areas were fairly detailed and included interactive items that were fun to destroy (and often contained items and money).

As a musician by trade, I was relatively impressed with the sound. Even though it was coming out of tiny little speakers, the background music and sound effects were clear and well-timed. My only beef is that the background music can sometimes throw you for a loop. I found myself exploring an area with no enemies in sight, yet for some reason, the music would intensify and build up like a huge enemy was approaching. But no, it was just the looping of the track. The repetition of the same music in multiple areas of a chapter was a bit disappointing, but I was too busy chopping up bad guys to really care too much. The counterbalance of that is the excellent character voicing. The NPCs that you run into throughout the game have great dialogue and sound very professionally done.

For my first emersion into the world of "hack and slash" gaming, the gameplay was fairly pleasing. Although the majority of your time will be spent smashing the x button repeatedly, you are given six buttons (triangle, circle, and the four directional-pad presses) to assign various magic attacks. This works out very well in battles with heaps of enemies, as the buttons are easily accessible and the response time is relatively accurate. Through gaining experience, you can level up not only yourself, but your magic attacks as well. The higher you level the attacks, the more damage they do; makes sense. And although there are five different character types to choose from, each one of them is fairly similar. There is no pure mage, pure warrior, or pure archer; so regardless of which type you choose, the gameplay and progression of events will be relatively the same. There is also an ad-hoc feature, allowing you to do multiplayer and online PvP play.

Really' my only issue with the game is the storyline itself. Here is a quick summary: there is a big bad guy in town and the only way to stop him is to destroy stuff. Yep. Luckily this game has a few other things going for it. For me, it was the collection and upgrading of weaponry and armor. Each offensive or defensive item you collect has the potential of having open slots that you can add gems to; these gems add different abilities to your character's arsenal. And luckily, the story segments were few and far between, so it will not bog down your playing time too much.

Despite some repetitive gameplay, Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code is worth a look. The lack of story is made up for with responsive gameplay and enjoyable ad-hoc features. If you're looking for a game that takes more button mashing than thought, this one is for you.