I don’t know about you, but I am extremely excited about the launch of the PSP here in a little over a week. There has never been a handheld that I knew I just had to have; PSP does that for me. Of the two dozen games available for PSP on launch day there are very few original titles in the line up. It just so happens that Sony Online Entertainment, of EverQuest fame, is releasing an original IP and on top of that, it is the only multiplayer action role playing game that will be within your reach on PSP launch day. Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade bears a striking resemblance to the Champions series, but you will soon notice that the game has no ties to the PS2 series.

Like many other games in the genre, Untold Legends enables you to embark on a journey to save the world from the forces of evil. Your job this time around is to save Aven, the last stronghold city for the forces of good. With the evil forces gaining strength day by day, warriors have been called into action to form the Brotherhood of the Blade.

When starting a game in Untold Legends you can choose between four character classes: Knight, Alchemist, Druid, or Berserker. There is also a bit of customization that you can do to your avatar. You get a number of points to spend on different characteristics such as strength and other traits that will allow you to shape whatever character class you choose into something more in line with how you want to play. This is just the beginning of how Untold Legends gives you the tools to make your character completely unique. As you would expect, each character class has its own unique fighting abilities and magical spells. Knights as usual have the most defense and strength but do not excel as well in the magical arts, where as the Berserker has decent strength but has increased speed. It is obvious that a lot of planning has been put into the game to make the various character classes more balanced.

When playing games in this genre, there are times when things tend to get a bit monotonous; especially if you keep getting your butt handed to you by a particularly tough boss. To alleviate some of the monotony, many of the environments are randomly generated, making for a unique play experience almost every time. Coupled with the changing of the environments, the flora and fauna, as well as the types of adversaries are also generated at random. By the time you are done with the game you will have played through more than 100 equally diverse levels that are all beautifully rendered. There will be times that you almost forget that the action you are seeing on screen is on a handheld system.

Untold Legends also has a robust list of items and artifacts that can be found in the various environments. There are literally hundreds of items, equipment, and rare magical artifacts that will help you in your quest to save Aven. The amount of various artifacts gives the player some added incentive to delve deeper into the world of Unataca.

What is a hack and slash adventure without someone to share the tale with?? Untold Legends supports up to four players through wireless multiplayer. It is the only title at PSP launch that supports co-op multiplayer. The multiplayer feature is one of the biggest selling points in my opinion. How often can you say that you played a quick match of any game while riding the bus or subway—Not very often, huh…With the PSP, this and more is within your gaming grasp.

It is good to see that many of the top developers have jumped in to give PSP the support it needs. On day one, there will be many games floating around bidding for the love of the gamer (or the love of their wallets?); Untold Legends is one of those games that I think every PSP owner should have in there library.