Ah, the acquisition of stuff. It's the driving force behind virtually all video games, whether that stuff be rings, coins, Pokemon, points, cars, land, or playable characters, gamers will happily whittle away hour after hour just to acquire more virtual stuff. This is most evidently true in franchises like Baldur's Gate (the console version, not the classic PC RPG) and Champions of Norrath, which offer coffers and dungeons filled to the brim with loot as compensation for shockingly underdeveloped storylines and characters. Honestly, though, who really cares about plotlines when there are Pauldrons of Frostbitten Might to find? Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade carries on the hack and slash tradition without straying too far from the genre's well-established conventions, and delivers a gaming experience that offers little by way of innovation. But, oh, ye gods, is it a lot of fun.

Love it or Hate it

Anyone who's played even a single level of Dark Alliance or Dungeons and Dragons Heroes already knows what to expect from Legends. Players choose from amongst a handful of character classes, assemble a good enough kit of armor and weapons, then slog waist-deep into dungeons filled with ghosties, ghoulies, long-legged beasties, and traps that go "boom" in the night. Enter a room, kill everything that moves, pick up the loot, move on. Lather, rinse, repeat. Hack and slash gameplay is mind-bogglingly repetitious, and accordingly some folks find it just plain boring. Legends is not going to change the minds of anyone who's not already a fan of the genre, that's for sure. It follows the same lead laid down by Diablo way back in the day, without really bringing anything new to the table. So folks who don't find searching each and every last nook and cranny of a dungeon for a Level 52 bone shield can stop reading right now, because Legends has nothing to offer them.

Ok, now that those killjoys are gone, we can get on with talking about what a hoot Legends is to play. The story is the sort of barebones narrative that's typical of the genre: a local girl's been kidnapped, blah, blah, who will rescue her, so on, so forth, oh, now our leader's been poisoned, whatever. What little plot points exist are little more than thinly veiled excuses for sending players into dungeons, forests, castles, inns, and other locations crawling with evil creatures of various shapes and sizes. Each campaign has a basic mission at its core, whether that's killing a spider the size of a Buick to recover its venom, or killing off evil shaman who are putting the whammy on the good guys. Objectives are always simple to understand and progression through the game is linear enough so that players aren't ever left wondering what they should do next. Non-linear gameplay is all the rage these days, but in a game with a scope as big as Legends, it's nice to have at least a little push in the right direction.

And mom said my degree in Woodland Folklore would never do me any good

At the beginning of the game, players must first create a character, choosing from Knight, Alchemist, Druid, and Berserker character classes. As can be expected, each class offers different strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. The Knight is the big bad fighter, the Druid calls upon the power of nature for magic, the Berserker is somewhat of a blending of the Druid and the Knight, and the Alchemist (my personal favorite), uses science to create powerful spells and allies, such as golems. Each class favors a slightly different play style, be it brute strength, long range fighting or lots of spell casting. Sadly, customization of character is a bit sparse, with only a small number of skin colors, hair colors, and hair styles available. Still, given the amount of information being crammed into a portable game, it's hard to find too much fault with the fact that I can't give my Alchemist pink pigtails.

Although customization is skimpy, the character detail is still on par with Legends' big brothers on the consoles, as armor and weapons change visibly as new items are equipped. This, however, causes an unforeseen problem: the armor in Legends is seriously stupid looking. I understand that there are so many ways to make a breastplate, and that in an effort to keep all four classes looking different from one another, that different items have to be used for armor. In addition to the leather and chainmail one might expect to wear as protection when heading off to battle, there are linen shirts and silk shoes. My female Alchemist is stuck wearing lacy bodices and ribboned pantaloons. Who looks tough in ribbons? Nobody, that's who. The Berserker looks even more ridiculous, if that's possible, sporting a pseudo Native American vibe as envisioned by someone with the aesthetic subtlety of, say, Donald Trump. It's embarrassing, seriously. I swear the skeletons were laughing at me.

Miserable sartorial sense aside, the rest of Legends' visuals are well thought out and look lovely on the PSP's enormous screen. Environments, while not all that original, are enormous, with plenty of halls, chambers, treasure chests, traps, and, of course, enemies. The creatures of Legends move with surprising speed, and will close gaps with alarming alacrity, making retreat not just the better part of valor, but an absolute necessity. Despite having numerous enemies (and usually my Alchemist's remains) on screen at once, Legends never suffered from a chugging framerate or slowdown of any kind. Sound-wise, Legends fails to impress, but gets the job done well enough. Voice actors all attempt the same high fantasy accent, with varying levels of success, and the background music is appropriately epic and sweeping. Swords clang, dying monsters squeal, wounded heroes grunt. Though the sounds themselves are, on the whole, shrugworthy, the overall sound quality is crisp and clean, so if Legends isn't exactly a joy to listen to, at least it isn't a pain, either.

Legends makes good use of the PSP's stubby little analog stick, as characters control well and move with fluid ease. Spells can be accessed on the fly via the D-pad, or assigned to the triangle and circle button as hotkeys. The controls are responsive and lag-free, although those controls using the right shoulder button are often awkward. Blocking is done, in theory, by hitting the R button and the circle button at the same time, but it's devilishly hard to pull off in the heat of battle. Players are better off running away or using armor buffs than trying to block effectively. Fortunately, unlike similar games on larger consoles, Legends allows players to save at any time, without collecting save runes or scrolls, or anything annoying like that, and without losing any progress throughout the level, so dying isn't too much of a drag. Also, players can nip back to the town of Aven whenever necessary, to stock up on health potions or sell off extra swag. It's a nice design nod to the temporary gaming nature of handhelds and I, for one, appreciated it. Loading times are lengthy, but kept to a relative minimum, occurring only when a player enters a completely new area. Given how huge the areas are, that's plenty of playtime between loading-induced pauses.

With friends like this, who needs earrings of invincibility?

Sure, the loot is great, and slicing and dicing one's way through treasure-laden hallways is fun, but the real draw of Legends is its multiplayer mode. Up to four players can join in on the dungeon crawling, though only the player actually "hosting" the game needs to have a copy of Legends. Getting a game going with friends is easily done simply by choosing the "Host Multiplayer" option from the main menu. Non-hosts join in by selecting, you guessed it, "Join Multiplayer" from the main menu. It just doesn't get any simpler or more inviting than that. There's an option to split any gold found equally between players, but other items will have to be divvied up the old fashioned way. At least this time, item hogs will be close enough to punch in the arm if they won't share the wealth.

Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade certainly isn't innovative or groundbreaking. What it is, though, is a good, old-fashioned, hacking, slashing, dungeon-crawling, collection fest sure to satisfy those yearning for a bit of mindless fun. Easy on the eyes and simple to the control, it's the very definition of "pick up and play" gaming. PSP-owning fans of the genre should definitely add it to their "must have" list, and those who are unfamiliar with the type will find it to be an excellent introduction.