Monday, 18 August 2014

Game Review: Elsword(Taiwan Servers)

Alright, another MMO to talk about. And this one I have a better relationship with. Here's a heads up though: I'm doing the Taiwan Servers of this MMO. The reason for this is due to not publisher in South East Asia providing a server, North American Servers being region locked and the Korean Servers being about as penetrable as a wall made out of diamond.

Anyway, Elsword is a 2.5 dimensional side-scrolling action MMORPG developed by Korean game company KoG Studios. It's 2.5 dimensional in the sense that models and environments are 3 dimensional but the game is played along a 2 dimensional axis. The game itself would probably bear a lot of resemblance to KoG's other 2.5 D side-scrolling game Grandchase(So there's going to be some comparisons here and there).


Set in the fictional world of Elrios, the game follows the story of Elsword and his comrades who travel the lands in order to bring peace to areas where turmoil is occurring, though some of the members the group have other personal reasons for fighting.

Starting the game, a player can pick from one of 9 characters in the cast. From there, a player can also see the available job paths that character can take(As of the build the Taiwan servers have). The specialty and stat distribution/growth of each character and their jobs are also shown so a player can make as informed a choice when creating the character as possible.
Example of a job path. There are also short clips played to show the playstyle.

Combat in the game revolves around a character's combos done with the Z and X buttons as well as their skills, which are assigned to the A,S,D and C keys. For every 5 levels, a new tier of 2 skills will be unlocked but only one can be learned. Certain skills need to be unlocked via a Skill quest too. Equipment and Skill Notes also affect combat, as equipments can be argumented with elemental properties and Magic Stones that may affect damage and attack speed, not to mention some have set bonuses. Skill Notes modify certain skills, changing properties and/or damage values.
Example of a combo list and skill tree

Demo of gameplay

There are Dungeons and Field for players to fight mobs. Dungeons are preset areas that have players fight through to a boss monster. Fields are areas between towns that spawn 'lesser' versions of mobs that appear in Dungeons, though to make up for it, they do occasionally spawn their own 'field' bosses, of which tend to be much more a challenge than that of dungeon bosses. As for end-game content, there's Henrir's Space Time(A boss rush) and the Secret Dungeons for those who want a challenge and consider the normal ones as walks in the park. Well, the Secret Dungeons counterpart would be a walk in a park when typhoon hits.

In terms of monetization, the in-game store sells avatar skins that are worn over existing equipment and like equipment, provide slight set bonuses. But of course, it does have its own 'lottery' system in the form of Ice Burners and Ancient Fossil Discriminators. Ice Burners consume Ice Sculptures created from the town alchemist and provides a chance to obtain rare avatar skins that are better than the ones simply brought, while the AFD could give the player a Mount, though some can also be brought in store.. Mounts are more than just aesthetics as they have their own attacks that are used when the they're rode on. Besides these, the store also sells other things like skill resets, class change items, item expansions and extra skill slots(Meaning that 8 skills can be assigned instead of the default 4).


Elsword's combat is pretty fast-paced since combos can be chained mind way into another(For example a ground attack that sends an enemy into the air to be chained into an aerial attack/combo). Proper combos are rewarded, as hitting opponents that are downed reduced the damage done. The array of characters also serve a pretty wide spectrum and provide replayability, considering that if one counts every character's job paths, there would be 27(Or 23 as of the TW servers) possible paths for a player to take.

Searching for a party to do a dungeon is convenient, as one press of a button automatically queues the player and shows  how many are also searching in the same dungeon. When a party is formed, the game would ask if the player is ready, so they don't just get dropped in unaware. There's also a penalty implemented to those who think to join a dungeon and then Alt+Tab and feed off their team mates, of which is that if a player doesn't catch up to their team mates in a 20 second timer as they wait to get to the next area, their health would rapidly decrease till death and then they'd need to use a revival stone. 

The Cash Shop items feel rather fair, since they aren't necessary beyond letting a player look unique in the sea of other characters that might be wearing the same equipment as they are. The items that aren't for fashion however don't feel like they break the game more than they convenience a player with add-on that they would consider helpful or access to content faster. Even the Ice Burner sets can be brought via in-game currency so long as someone is selling it in the game's free market(Though such items have seals on them that need to be removed before use and disable trading when the seals are gone).

THIS SWORD NEEDS MORE TEMPERING.

As much as the game's combat flows like liquid silk, the skill tree is a bit of an issue, since you can't test a skill before investing skill points to it, so if a player messes up in allocating their points, they'd need to wait till their next job advancement(Assuming the screw-ups occurred before the final one), where they'd get a potion that resets their points, though the potion will expire if not used quickly. If the player only realizes their mistake VERY late in-game, they'll either need to fork out some money for a skill reset or wait for character rebalancing, in which the skill points of the character is reset since, well, rebalancing.

Elesis players be looking at this and be like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn977W9HjWM


The final job advancement quest tends to feel like it breaks the flow of the story(?) somewhat since it makes a player plow through dungeons that they shouldn't be if in the context of the story. Also, the requirement drop rates can feel horrifically volatile between characters.

The level design...Well, let's say they need more variety beyond 'area where you kill X mobs then go to the next to kill more'. Boss fights mostly consist of hammering away at them till they fall over, though some bosses require the players to take note of certain surrounding elements, for example: There's a boss that spawns two 'clones' of herself if the mirrors on the end of the level manage to turn to the center, meaning teamwork is vital so there won't be three times the trouble to deal with. Sadly, these kind of bosses don't appear often enough. The 'tutorial' portion of the game also feels a bit too long, considering it drags from level 1-15.

I would give Elsword a 7/10 . For what is has, Elsword's combat and general user-friendliness are its strongest points but a general lack of variety in level design and break in flow mid-game rips points off it.

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