After reviewing so many Japanese action RPGs lately, Champions: Return to Arms is a nice change of pace. Champions is a hack n’ slash-style RPG, light on story but long on action. It comes out of the same game design traditions as ASCII dungeon crawlers like Rogue and Nethack, but splashes in the multiplayer appeal of the arcade classic Gauntlet. The way Champions updates this old formula is entirely satisfactory, if not exactly a stunning exercise in originality, and the result is a very fun party game. It can be played either on its own or as a sort of “expansion pack” to the previous Champions of Norrath game, letting you send your old characters on new quests for even more loot.