If you want to hack, slash, and find new equipment on your PSP, we've got you covered.
The graphics in the game are somewhat average. While they are certainly above what previous portable RPGs have been capable of, they do not fully take advantage of the PSP's capabilities. Environments repeat rather often, and while they look good while standing still, there is quite a bit of blurring whenever your character is moving around, which is most of the time. Your character's model is well done, and new equipment is reflected on your avatar, although this begins to wear a bit thin when your new armor looks exactly the same as a dozen other ones. Perhaps the best part of the games graphics are the enemies found in the wilds and dungeons; they are varied and have a surprising amount of detail.
The sound in this game is average at best. There is no voice acting, aside from minimal grunts from your avatar and death cries from defeated enemies. Each stage has its own background music, with some stages sharing music if they are similar in other ways (i.e., most ice stages share the same tune.) While the songs fit with their environments, they are almost universially very short and on a constant loop, and grow tedious and annoying in a hurry.
The gameplay and controls are solid if not original. Switch on the fly between melee, range magic attacks and mash the attack button to kill anything that moves. Loot the corpse to find new equipment that you can use or sell to buy...better equipment. Rinse and repeat until you level up or reach your maximum carrying weight, at which time you warp instantly back to town to lighten your load, then warp back and continue the killing spree. Sure there is some story to go along with it, something about saving the City of Aven and the rest of the world from an ancient evil that is about to escape its prison, as well as some sidequests where you kill specific named monsters and retrieve items for people, but lets face it: this game is about killing and looting. The controls are all standard for a console hack-and-slash, and the game compensates for the lack of a second analog stick quite well. The biggest drawback to the game in general, however, is in the inventory interface. Using the stick to move a mouse like cursor is very cumbersome and inaccurate; thankfully Sony is already stating that the sequel will have a revamped interface.
Replay value is there for those that want it. There are four different classes of characters to play, 2 melee oriented and two magic oriented. In my experience however, all four classes wind up engaging primarily in melee combat, given that the typical tactic of 99% of enemies is to rush directly at you and attack (the other 1% rush directly away from you while attacking from range).
In the final analysis, the enjoyment one gets from this game all comes down to one's expectations. If you think that this game is going to be a quantum leap forward in portabale RPGs, then you will come away disappointed. If you are looking, however, for for some simple hack-and-slash fun for yourself and your friends (ad-hoc mode only) on the go, then this game will give you your fix.