Over the three-day weekend I picked up Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade for the PSP. The game is basically Champions of Norrath without the Everquest license; no official character types, races, monster names, etc. The mechanics of Brotherhood are the same as Norrath. I was going to same the same with a few exceptions, but there are so few that I would be hard pressed to think of any. To enter a new area you hold down the square button for a couple of seconds while a meter/gauge fills up. Does that count as a difference? The controls are also different since the PSP only has two shoulder buttons compared to four on the standard Dual Shock controller.
The character menu is the same as Norrath – four icons consisting of a sword, armor, potion, heart, and some other thing. Obvious stuff follows. The sword icon for weapons, while the armor icon for various pieces of armor, and the potion icon is for miscellaneous items such as health and power potions, rings, pendants, and even items to upgrade your weapons and armor (you guessed it, just like Norrath). The heart icon is for character info – health, weapon damage, attribute info, etc. There is even a book icon for current quest info, and the final tree type icon is for what else, the ability tree.
I can go into the backdrop story later; who cares about stories anyway in a hack-n-slash adventure? Right now I have a six level Druid, I have just left the city, and I have some sort of “sting” magic bolt that does a good deal of damage.
If you are into Norrath and Baldur’s Gate type games, then this one is a slam dunk. I am having a blast with it right now, and highly recommend Brotherhood until something happens (i.e. more time to uncover issues/flaws).
