Genre: RPG
Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment
Developer: Sony Online Entertainment
Release Date: March 14, 2006

As an early adopter of the both the DS and the PSP, I have been through some hard times. I had to stoop down to Super Mario 64 DS, which made playing Lumines and Wipeout Pure – still two of the best games on the system – that much more fun.

Then the DS caught up. Kirby, Trauma Center, Phoenix Wright … and my PSP still had Lumines rotting away inside it. The PSP, once so promising, was looking drab.

I needed to justify my $250 purchase, and WP was the biggest reason I picked up a PSP. I needed something to do more reviews on! But with games trickling in at a slow pace (most of them mediocre racing titles), I didn't have much to rely on.

That's where Untold Legends comes in. It was not an especially… great release, but it did the job for the week I spent with the game. It was a by-the-numbers console dungeon crawl, following the formula created by Dark Alliance/set in stone by Champions of Norrath. Despite terrible (bad/horrible/scary/unjustifiable/etcetera) load-times, the game was a moderate diversion. Note that at the time, that meant "third-best title on the system."

That was enough to get me excited about its sequel, Warrior's Code… moderately.

The preview version is a mixed bag of great and worthless new features. Most lean in the wrong direction, though not alarmingly so; and the good things are damn good. I'll break it down for you.

It crashed my PSP every time I tried it, but like any good ARPG, an online mode is available! The original UL desperately needed something like this. Since the menu doesn't take three seconds to load (X-Men Legends II), the multiplayer is actually… playable. The bad part is that there isn't any discernable form of communication, so hopefully, voice chat will be added, justifying regretted microphone purchases by ex-Fire Team Bravo players.

The next big change is a major shift, one that many will see as an improvement although I don't entirely agree: randomly generated dungeons are out of the picture. While static environments add coherence to the game, the repeated run-throughs ARPGs demand become mundane quick enough to keep players from touching any of the new characters. Of course, I say that going by the drab, open stages in the preview copy. If the final version brings a bit more environmental variety to the table – something the first UL didn't do visually, at least – I will hopefully bury these complaints.

An awkward change is the ability to turn into a raging beast, the ARPG equivalent of a limit-break (for you Final Fantasy VII-obsessed toads to understand). Expectedly, the move-set becomes limited to the "press X to KILL" attack, and the HP meter goes through the roof. I found the transition into this mode to be a bit jarring, although not as much so as the flawed counter-attack system. Pressing circle just as a message flashes on screen allows for a sudden counter-attack, although it only seems to occur during a very short, ambiguous window of time. Something with a little more strategy to it would have been nice, and ease of use is always good, too.

I was not able to play an offline multiplayer game because I was limited to one copy and download play was not available. Given the faster action and tougher initial enemies, a little help would be appreciated in WC more so than the original!

WC looks a bit better than the first, though not by much; the initial environments are as lifeless as ever. The character designs seem more thought-out and less archetypical, though, which coincides with far more plot than any ARPG has any business getting involved in. Cut scenes run far too long, causing me to yearn for the simple, scrollable text storytelling of the original.

You can't win 'em all. Online will be the best bet for those of us who read books without titles like The Dragon Claw Goblet of Oldenshyre, unless the plot gets a lot more interesting later on. Even if it doesn't, Untold Legends: Warrior's Code will just make training alone to brag to your geeky friends that much more enjoyable.