Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade

It's a conventional Champions clone brought over from the PS2, but the multiplayer functionality imbues more life into the genre.

For a launch title, Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade does a fair job of showing off the PSP's technical prowess. As a fairly straightforward hack-and-slash RPG, Untold Legends fits the bill. Just don't expect it to match the bliss that is Diablo II.

Legends of the Maul
Untold Legends gives the PSP's visual processor a solid workout, rendering detailed 3D characters and sparkling special effects including real-time snow and rain. You'll slog through highly detailed but repetitious variations on dungeons, forests, and deserts. The environments are randomly generated on each playthrough, but sadly this doesn't do much to alleviate the feeling that you're basically a mouse trapped in a gigantic maze. You'll chop down the usual collection of spiders, skeletons, and ice witches; with a lion-headed scorpion and some giant floating eyeballs thrown in for good measure. All in a day's work! At least the boss battles add some flair--the massive, bulbous Spider Queen is a particular standout. But save some battery life and shut off the

Party of Four
Otherwise, you can expect the usual gameplay formula from Untold Legends: hack up enemies, snatch their magical items, and chug healing potions. The controls perform well, especially when you consider that they're burdened with a ton of commands.

Although Untold Legends is basically a by-the-book handheld clone of the PS2 Champions games, it does bring one unique feature to the PSP: wireless multiplayer games. If you're a diehard fan of the Champions series, this feature alone may be reason enough to invest. The four different character classes (including brawny Knights, speedy Berserkers, minion-summoning Druids and spell-slinging Alchemists) compliment each other quite nicely, and it's always more fun to slice through enemy legions with real-life friends by your side. You know what they say--butchery loves company.

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