Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony PSP Review

On the PC, Dungeon Siege is a ‘hack ‘n’ slash’, which essentially means it’s all about whacking creatures with big teeth and kitting your created warrior out in more durable armour as well as striving to gain more powerful weapons. The series’ first handheld venture is more of the same, but true to its size, in comparison to its bigger brothers, Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony seemingly has got some growing up to do.

As a portable game, this is really quite acceptable though. Throne of Agony is ideally suited as a game that can be played in short bursts, whilst not taxing the old grey matter to any great extent.

There are many omissions compared to the PC versions, some of which will have been done away with to better suit the game to portable play whilst others are obviously missing because of the systems much lesser power. Whereas on the PC, you are offered almost limitless options to craft the ideal character, Throne of Agony has just three pre-made characters to choose from. On the good side, each possesses their own storyline (and two companions to choose from) and are just about diverse enough to make journeying through the game worthwhile at least three times.

Offering up around twenty hours of gameplay, Throne of Agony is of substantial length. You’ll journey through the usual fantasy locales of forests and caves etc, and bludgeon the usual adversaries, allowing you to level up in the process. Visits to towns will allow you to purchase better equipment and chat with the locals, some of which will give you quests. It’s all very familiar stuff.

The controls are mapped intelligently, allowing you to carry out every action with ease. The requisite health and mana portions are just a button or two away, whilst magic can be shortcutted requiring no more than two buttons to fire off.

The biggest problems are the repetition of the game and the PSP’s obvious Achilles heel: awful loading times. Here they’re so excruciatingly bad that even a simple loading screen itself must be loaded. In spite of these problems, Throne of Agony is a well crafted handheld conversion of the Dungeon Siege series with few major faults.

7/10