Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony Preview

If you thought Dungeon Siege was only a PC game, then you'll be in for a surprise later this month when Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony ships on the PlayStation Portable. The first Dungeon Siege game for a console or a handheld, Throne of Agony is set in the hack-and-slash fantasy world of Aranna, where your job is to run around and battle evil, mainly by killing as many monsters as you can. As we found out by playing a work-in-progress version of the game, this can be quite rewarding, and as you might expect, it bears little resemblance to its PC cousins.

Throne of Agony is set shortly after the events of Dungeon Siege II, though you won't need to have played that game to get into the plot. Basically, the world of Aranna has been torn asunder by a magical cataclysm, and your character must travel around the shattered world and battle the evil force looming on the horizon.

There's no character creation in Throne of Agony, so you won't be able to create your own unique avatar. Instead, you're presented with a choice of three premade characters. Allister, the battle mage, is the spellcaster of the bunch, though he has lackluster fighting skills. Mogrim, the warlord, is a hulking fighter and perfect for melee, though he's slower than the rest and has very little magical ability. Then there's Serin, the shadow stalker, a quick, thieflike character who is good at melee and ranged combat and not too bad at magic, though she has very few defensive abilities. Each character has a specific reason for wanting to go forth and battle evil. Allister seeks his lost love, while Mogrim is being tugged by the magical artifact embedded in his body. Serin, meanwhile, foresees the evil building and wants to attack it before it can strike.

Each hero gets a follower that you can choose from a selection of two. Allister has a stone golem that can act as a buffer while he's busy casting spells, or a lap dragon that sits back in a fight and uses its breath weapon. Mogrim can bolster his fighting abilities by taking along Shaelyn, an elf mage, or he can get a powerful fire elemental to assist in melee battles. And Serin has a hooded archer who can provide ranged support, or a war hawk that helps spot enemies from a distance as well as enhance melee accuracy.

Whichever character you'll choose, you'll find a short cutscene to explain how you find yourself and your follower end up washed up in a strange land. The game's cutscenes, by the way, are coolly animated, sort of like a dynamic graphic novel. However, once the plot is set up, you're let loose upon the world and your job from here on out is to battle evil and pursue quests. For instance, it won't take too long for you to make your way to Seahaven, a village full of characters in need. The mayor will task you with recovering food from a nearby farming community before he gives you the information that you need, or the town guard will have you take out a nest of giant insects to gain their trust.

Throne of Agony differs quite a bit from the PC Dungeon Siege games, as the action is a lot more immediate and personal. Instead of clicking on the screen with a mouse to indicate where you want your character to go or what you want your character to attack, you'll have direct control in Throne of Agony. The analog stick is used to move your character around the screen, while the X button is used to attack. These are the two buttons that you'll use the most, by far, though the D pad gives you access to inventory items such as health and mana potions, while the Select button gives you access to your character sheet, inventory, abilities, quest log, and journal notes.

The control scheme makes Throne of Agony a much more action-heavy game than the PC Dungeon Sieges. This sensation is enhanced by the fact that the action is zoomed in tight and your character fills the PSP's screen. In fact, it's so zoomed in that this would otherwise present a problem, since you can't see much beyond your character's immediate surroundings. Thankfully, the minimap does a good job of giving you a lay of the land beyond the borders of the PSP's screen, and you can easily see enemies coming, as they're displayed as red circles on the map.

The key for a good action role-playing game is to constantly present you with a series of easily achievable goals, which makes you want to keep playing just a few minutes longer. Then, once you've achieved the immediate goal, another one rears its head and you keep on going. That's certainly the experience that we had in the early sections of Throne of Agony, as our character quickly advanced up the early experience levels and began to accumulate more powerful weapons and armor that could only be equipped if we were an experience level or two higher. Before too long, our level-one character was level seven and had gone from running around in simple clothes and wielding a couple of knives to wearing scale armor and carrying some fearsome swords.

Each time you level up, you can assign points to improve your various physical attributes. More strength means you hit harder, while higher stamina means more hit points, and so on. You also get skill points that you can use to increase existing skills or unlock new ones. For instance, dump more points into Serin's dual-wielding ability and she does more damage when holding two weapons, but she can also unlock a teleporting attack that lets her jump across the screen and unload on an opponent. At higher levels, you'll also be able to choose a prestige class, which lets you specialize your character even more. This is another sign of a good role-playing game, as you definitely get the sense of becoming more powerful over time.

You also get the visual sense that your character is improving. The graphics on the characters are fairly detailed, and there's a paper doll system, so whatever your character wears or carries shows up on the actual model. At least, this is the case for arms and armor, though items such as cloaks don't seem to appear. In contrast, the environments aren't quite as detailed, particularly in the world map, where you can travel between major locations. Still, the overall look of the game, including its lighting effects, is good, and the load times are about average for a PSP game. We quickly got caught up in Throne of Agony's action, and this has the feel of being an immersive, fast-paced action role-playing game in the mold of the Untold Legends games, though Throne of Agony is certainly out to establish the Dungeon Siege name on the PSP.