Dungeon Siege Throne of Agony
Rating:  -
the game was mainly a hack-n-slash game. a lot of mindless fun hacking your way through levels, leveling up, grabbing items and doing quests. Graphics not the greatest, but still kinda fun at times if nothing else left to play.
Rating:  -
I have been an avid fan of RPG games since the mid-1970s, and the Dungeon Siege titles are usually great. I've read some of the reviews on this title, Throne of Agony, and nobody seems to remark about how fully the name sums up this game.
It's agony.
Oh, not really the game itself. The graphics are superb. The D&D knock-off gameplay is easy enough to play without any time wasted reading the instructions for experienced RPG players. And some of the effects are visually impressive for a handheld gaming system.
Unfortunately, that's all of the good things about this game. The plot is pretty much absent, and the game is extremely linear. Oh, you can get into some of the dungeons out of sequence, but you'll just have to do those dungeons twice. If you complete a dungeon before you are assigned the relevant quest, you can't obtain the quest item (even if it's just to kill the dungeon "Boss" - you have to go back and do it again). There is no interaction with your NPC, and no in-game help if you get stuck (like by talking with the characters in town, or the one who assigned your quest). Some of the quests are positively cryptic, and the quest decription failed to direct me in any useful way. I found myself going to online gaming sites for clues after wasting hours doing every dungeon in an area over and over, without any idea how to proceed.
Which leads me to my next complaint. There is no strategy guide or game guide available for this game. I like strategy guides. I don't need to be spoonfed, but I like to choose my character with some information about what kind of talents and skills each class brings to the game. I like maps. I like to understand the game mechanics. There is no information whatsoever provided about class skills in the instruction pamphlet. There are Hero and Legendary Classes opened for each character at levels 30 and 60, respectively, but again, I had no idea which would be fun to play for my game style. I had to save, pick a class upgrade, try it, then reload and try the other choice (only two choices for class upgrades at each level).
I was tired of hack-and-slash, so I tried the Wizard. Mistake. You need to put almost all of your available points into Strength if you want to be able to carry any inventory ("Loot") at all, so I ended up with a weak mage who hacked and slashed his way through the game. Additionally, the descriptions of some of the skills were absolutely inaccurate. For example, the Animate Dead skill was supposed to give a 10% chance of animating defeated enemies (up to a maximum of three "dead" henchmen can be obtained at one tome). However, I completed three full dungeons without a single henchman generating (over 500 enemies defeated, as I was leveling up my character and going back and forth between levels). On the average, I estimate that less than 1% of my enemies became undead henchmen. And "enemies" include broken barrels, by the way. The broken barrels may be reanimated as skeleton henchmen. Go figure.
Still, the game was pretty easy to get through, as long as I wasn't too stubborn to check online when I couldn't luck into a solution within a few hours. In fact, the game is too easy. The first of the three Acts is a reasonable length, the second is very long, and the third - didn't occur. One moment I was finishing the last Boss in the second Act (it took exactly two hits with my sword to finish this Boss - both the Boss and my character were at level 60), then I pushed the Interact button after the fight, was offered the option to save, and the game... Ended. The third Act was supposedly two Quests, both of which were completed by interacting with the dead Boss' throne (which meant pushing the "square" exactly one time after defeating the Boss). Major letdown. Weak Boss fights, no strategy, and no proper end.
The cutscenes aren't even movies. They're a single poorly-depicted scene with a voice-over. The game graphics are great, and the cutscene graphics could have been generated on my Commodore PET in the early 1980's.
Despite all of these problems, I still haven't mentioned the biggest flaw in this game. The load times are ridiculous. Every time you go into town (or out), into or out of a dungeon, access the map (which you can only do if you're on the overworld, not in a dungeon or town), look at a teleport station, the load time may be anywhere from 90 seconds to three minutes. Several times I found that my PSP screen saver timed out before the game loaded the next area.
Overall, the game was pretty weak, but I gave it a fair try - I played through to the end and even tried the Elite level (same game, but all of the monsters are 50 levels higher than on normal mode). I didn't want to write a bad review unfairly. The load times alone, though, make this game truly the Throne of Agony.
Save yourself the Agony. If you must play this game, make certain you have something else to do at the same time, so that you won't fall asleep waiting for the next area to load. I played in front of the television, and on the euphemistic "Throne." Which is where this game belongs.
Rating:  -
Before I met God of War, it was my favorite game! Nice graphics, nice adventure, I love it.
Rating:  -
I've been an avid fan of console action-rpgs for a while now ever since Phantasy Star Online hit the Gamecube several years back, so I have a pretty good reference when rating Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony (ToA). This review is mostly for gameplay since I tend to not mind graphics and audio so much.
First off, let me emphasize that ToA is a traditional hach'n'slash game. Its greatest appeal will be towards gamers who enjoy mindlessly destroying hordes of baddies, level grind, and item micromanagement. It's most similar to Baldur's Gate on consoles, Diablo on computers, and Untold Legends on the portable front.
Like the afformentioned games, ToA has players select thier avatars--the warrior, mage, and archer archetypes--in the beginning. The three characters already have names, and players can neither customize their avatar's physical featurs such as hair and height nor their initial parameters (stamina, power, intelligence, etc.). This lack of customization is really superficial though; equiping new items will drastically change an avatar's appearance and players can still customize parameters upon leveling up. Also, depending on which character you choose, you can select one pet/follower ranging from a fire elemental to a baby dragon that will fight and level up right beside your character, and many more choices become available as the game progresses.
Characters aren't limited to one class either. Once your avatar is raised to a certain level, you may choose one of two hero classes, and at even higher levels, you may choose one of four legendary classes. For example, Allister starts out as a battle mage, but he may become a vile wizard or white wizard. Later on, depending on which hero class you choose, Allister may become a lich, death kight, archmage, or arcane champion; each class has skills unique to them.
Deciding on which parameters to level up isn't as much of a painstaking choice either; for example, the stamina parameter not only raises hit points (how much damage an avatar can take) and hit point regeneration, but mana regeneration as well (which helps in deciding how often a character can use skills and magic). Likewise, the power paramter not only raises strength (decides melee damage) and carrying capacity, but a bit of defense as well. Because of this, characters have greater flexibility in how they are raised; a mage doesn't always have to be a spellcaster and a warrior doesn't always have to be a frontliner. This is reflected in the character class progression--in Allister's case, even though he starts off as a spellcaster, the Death Knight and Arcane Champion are geared towards melee
As far as the adventure goes, you're basically relegated to fetch and extermination quests with a few variations thrown in. You press the x button to use your weapon and a combination of buttons to use your magic. The game is very linear making progress a matter of how fast your avatar can kill the enemies--don't expect a God of War action game here. The option of going through the story with a friend does make the game more enjoyable. Even without a friend, ToA is quite easy except for those unexpected mob rushes and high level grunts. That ease is further exaggerated since gold and rare items are easy finds. However, for someone like myself, this makes it appear that you're actually accomplishing something. In another action-rpg, Phantasy Star Online, you might have to spend days searching for the high end rares--something that really irritated me after failure after failure.
User interface is also very friendly. ToA minimizes the arduousness of opening and cycling through the menu. Instead, you can access all of your consumable items, the map, and equipped weopons using the d-pad; Any item drops can be viewed and compared with your current items without having to pick them up; there is no camera control, but rarely do in-game structures obstruct your view. In effect, the game continuously flows except for when you need to equip and re-equip weapons and armors.
The biggest letdown in ToA is probably the loading times. It takes about 30 seconds to enter an area, which really dampens gameplay. The overworld map itself also takes 10+ seconds to load. Even in the main menu, going from screen to screen isn't instantaneous, and this is all happening on a PSP Lite/2000 so load times are probably even longer and unbearable on the old PSP. Also, another complaint that I have is the inability to trade items between characters. If your warrior finds a powerful wand, you won't be able to give it to your mage. Even in multiplayer mode you can't drop items so that your friend can take it. There are also some glitches where the game may freeze or become otherwise unplayable; make sure you save often so you can restart when a bug rears it ugly head!!! One last complaint, although minor, is that teleporting from a dungeon and back will take you back to the last entrance you entered instead of where you teleported from.
If it weren't for the loading times and bugs, I would have given the game a 5. ToA is still more than playable however. Loading times are a drag, but it doesn't hinder combat; glitches can be overcome if you have multiple save files and if you save often. Leveling up, learning new skills, finding rare items, and questing with a friend is just as addictive as ever if not familiar. ToA provides a qualtiy, full scale action-rpg in portable form--highly recommended.
Rating: -
This is a great game. It's not hard to play straight from the box. Learning curve is very low if you have played the pc model. And not to hard if you haven't
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