Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code
- March 27, 2006 14:18 PM PST
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Sony gives PSP owners another dose of Untold Legends, but does this sequel move the fledgling franchise in the right direction?
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Choose Wisely
Just as in the first game, you're Untold Legends experience begins by picking a character to play as. This time around, there are some new classes to choose from, including the portly Disciple and the tiny Scout. Logically, each character class has their own unique strengths and weaknesses. The Guardian, for example, excels in melee combat, but his huge size makes him extremely slow and highly inept at using magic. The Scout, however, is fast and agile and instead relies on her speed to dispatch foes, rather than her strength. Anyone familiar with class-based RPGs will no doubt find the system in Warriors Code easy to contend with. But, like in other games using this system, you really have to be sure of which class you're picking. Some classes are a bit too weak compared to their counterparts, creating either a truly challenging gameplay experience for experts, or a nightmarish foray in to futility for rookies.
It All Starts Somewhere
While the first Untold Legends game floundered when it came to having an actually discernible plot, Warriors Code more than makes up for its predecessor's failings with a fairly impressive story. It seems that a once great kingdom has fallen in to the evil hands of a rogue emperor, who has quickly filled his realm with nasty creatures who hunt down all opposition to him. A few loyalists still remain and constantly wage war against the emperor, although their numbers are starting to dwindle. As expected, the fate of the entire kingdom pretty much comes down to you single-handedly wiping out the emperor and his forces, but you probably expected that, right?
Just as in the last game, character classes utilize their own unique weapons and armor types. The Mercenary, for example, swings an enormous scythe-like blade, while the Scout makes do with daggers and other small bladed weapons (the same goes for armor - big brutes wear heavy armor, small characters use light armor). This time around, however, I found the new weapon and armor menu screens to be entirely disappointing. The last Untold Legends title featured an open box menu for all your weapons and items. By dragging your cursor over a weapon, piece or armor, or item, you could instantly see its stats and power. That quick system of assessing inventory is gone, and has been replaced with a more modular inventory system. Instead of having a large open box where all your weapons and armor reside, they're housed in a menu that features different slots. In your main weapon menu, you have three different categories - melee, ranged, and ranged ammunition. If you pick up any weapons in those categories, they'll fall in to a slot next to the one that you have equipped. The problem is, however, that in order to view their vital stats, you have to press the Square button after selecting it to toggle on that information.
The visual appeal of the old menu, while not having any real affect on gameplay, gave each weapon and piece of armor a bit more flair and personality. If you got a mean looking sword, you knew so right away, because it look formidable when you popped up your menu and took a gander at it. Now, those kick ass items are tiny little icons that lack any sort of visual appeal or originality, and in essence, make the entire menu system itself cumbersome and annoying.
Hack N' Slash Shenanigans
To keep things interesting, SOE has implemented a few new attack types to help even the odds against the hordes of enemies you'll face off against. You can now use a charged attack by holding down the attack button for a second or two. While slow to charge up, the resulting attack is usually around double the strength of a normal quick attack. You can also now unleash a special Attack of Opportunity against tougher foes. Some larger enemies will attack you with very strong attacks. In the event that they miss, however, you'll be able to press and hold the Square button, charging up your Attack of Opportunity. These special attacks not only deal a great amount of damage, but they also usually result in a knockdown, thus stunning the enemy and allowing you to get in a few cheap hits while they recover.
While ranged weapons were part of the first Untold Legends game, Warriors Code sees the advent of having each character class able to wield both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. While you can't utilize both at the same time, each class of character can utilize their own unique ranged weapon and ammo. The Disciple wields a deadly shotgun, while the Mercenary totes around a buzz-saw shooting tool that can tear up foes from quite a long distance.
As you take down foes, you'll be awarded with experience points just as you were in the last game (and every other RPG ever made). When you acquire a certain amount of experience points, you'll be able to upgrade your character in a few different areas of interest. You can increase your strength (which ups melee damage), stamina (which increase your hit points and reduces blocking damage), as well as your intelligence (increases power meter for special moves) and dexterity (increases effectiveness of ranged attacks). With each level up also comes ability points that can be used to upgrade your stable of special attacks and powers, as well as can be used to unlock new ones. If you played the first Untold Legends, this system of leveling up and upgrading shouldn't come as any sort of surprise. Thankfully the system is easy enough to grasp, so rookies to the fledgling franchise shouldn't have too much trouble figuring it out.
The Look Of A Warrior
Visually, Warriors Code is a step up from Brotherhood of the Blade, although you probably won't get much of a chance to really notice the fact. The game's camera is adjustable, allowing to you zoom quite close in to the action. But, given the nature of the game and how you fight enemies (the mob approach), you'll more than likely find yourself zooming the camera out pretty far just so you can see advancing enemies and treasure. As such, the detailed character and enemy models almost become a moot point. You'll still see some nice detail in the game's various cut-scenes, as well as some nice visual effects that accompany magic spells and attacks. But, it's still a shame that the prettied up visuals don't get much more attention than they do.
It's also tragic that while character and enemies seem to have received a nice visual makeover, levels and environments still fall prey to some wholly uninspired level design. This time around, levels are much larger than they were in the first game, essentially meaning you'll find yourself trudging around larger, more boring environments than you did in the past. While not all of the levels are bore-fests, the dungeon crawling experience isn't made any more enjoyable thanks to some confusing and downright vague mission objectives. One objective, for example, requires you to secure a temple. You might wonder "how do I secure the temple?" Well, the game isn't going to tell you, so you end up having to run around the temple trying to figure out what to do in order to push the game forward. It's annoying and boring, two cardinal sins of gaming that could potentially lose fledgling adventurers.
An Online Adventure
If you're down for some multiplayer action, Warriors Code doesn't disappoint and features a variety of ways to explore the game with friends (or strangers). Via Ad Hoc, players can battle through the game cooperatively, or via Infrastructure, you can hop online and play with other gamers around the world.
Overall Untold Legends: Warriors Code is a pretty big step up from Brotherhood of the Blade. The storyline has been upgraded and fleshed out to a nice degree, and the new attack types are fun to tinker around with and work in to your overall combat strategies. It's just the little things, like the now clunky menu, and the boring levels that really end up preventing the game from being a true success. While the online and LAN multiplayer options are a treat, Warriors Code just can't see to find its way out of its own dungeon.
