Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom

Rating ESRB: Teen Genre action Publisher Sony Online Entertainment External Links Official Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom

When the first screens of Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom were unveiled last March, the general reaction was negative, with many questioning if it was really representative of the next generation of gaming. Though most visual issues were addressed in the months that followed, my time with the final product has me asking a similar question: Is this really supposed to be a next generation experience?

Dark Kingdom resembles the console-exclusive Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance titles (as well as Sony Online Entertainment's own Champions of Norrath games) by presenting a fairly linear hack-and-slash dungeon crawling experience, but the gameplay is ultimately as rote and monotonous as ever. Dark Kingdom has over two-dozen environments, but the experience is always the same; if you are not hacking, you are most likely slashing. A handful of spells break up the tedium, but it's not enough. The lack of a comprehensive skill chart means you'll find little variety within the button-mashing gameplay.

Though seemingly more story-oriented than its two PSP predecessors, Dark Kingdom is entirely unremarkable throughout the creative aspects of the game. The few recurring characters exude little personality, and the story is generally forgettable up until the credits roll. What should have been a concise exercise in narrative storytelling is instead an overlong, repetitive experience at nearly ten hours in length. At least the audio/visual presentation impresses, with sharply rendered environments and an excellent original score.

But for its numerous faults, the majority of the game is not awful; just dated and uninteresting. Only the camera deserves particular admonishment, as I can clearly recall several occasions in which a quick (and unnecessary) movement sent my scout to an early grave. When it's not killing you, it just makes you blind by quickly flickering in tight spaces and disorienting you on a regular basis. The whole game seems to lack polish, as glitches and wonky platforming segments were an occasional (but unfortunate) reality. Even the online play, which lets you play through the game in teams of four (as in Phantasy Star Online), seems rather limited, as each player cannot bring his or her upgraded characters online for an extended experience.

It would seem to me that PlayStation 3 games should be much more than last-gen leftovers with sexy makeovers, but that's all that Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom seems to be. Without innovative gameplay or a compelling narrative, your enjoyment of the game will be based entirely on your interest in pummeling endless waves of skeletons and spiders. The simplistic gameplay is a welcome respite from some of the more frustrating PS3 experiences (I'm looking at you, Full Auto 2: Battlelines), but this isn't the type of game that we bought $600 consoles for.