Blade & Soul Review

Finally after the long praise and hype of the most talked about MMO Action-RPG in a while to hit the shores of the states and other countries. This was originally a Korean title back in 2012. It mixed elements of crouching tiger hidden dragon with a brush of seasoned MMO questing and intense PVP aimed as its core feature above all else. Many people for a while tried to proxy accounts on the Korean side and simply play it. Me personally, I was far too lazy to go through that kind of effort. Gratefully I was given a chance to play the closed beta a while back. I liked what I have seen sadly weather was making my net at the time cut short a strong absorption into the game past eight hours tops between power failure and the lot. Now that my internet is full steam ahead I was excited to leap into the game. You play the whole of a student seeking revenge. This branches off of faction wars and adventuring along eastern themed characters with more cleavage then the red district by a sailors port.

The story starts off with you being brought up from a fisherman’s boat. Of which rewinds you a bit then you are training in Master Rochi’s dojo!

Kidding. You are brought into a brief introduction into the gameplay of the whole game. The how-tos if you will. Each class slightly varies from steps to complete this school of hard knocks then you are introduced to a rabbit professor(he is actually a old form of the Lyn race in the game). From here crap gets real then you are brought back to current affairs. You then are the Bamboo Village’s errand boy/girl. It flows deeper then what I have just explained. You must seek revenge is basically the whole plot. You meet cheerful to simply intense characters along the way. All having some good depth to the plot overall. It has actually slightly altered in the original story then what I could play of before, but I will keep the rest of this vague like I have done. Because I personally believe in keeping stories for the source to tell them to you, then me just goofing it up.

The gameplay begins with who or what you wish to portray. Things like race or sex are the usual standard for most MMOs. This games customization to said toons (playable characters you control) is very detailed. They removed a few features like boob jiggle and the whole nine yards. In the original port that was included. Giggle giggle. Hair, eyes, skin you name it, it can be colored by your taste. Want a hulking male, you got it. So I am getting ahead of myself and almost forgotten the playable races! Those said races are The Gon, the Jin, the Kun(Yun), or the Lyn. Each factoring a class few class restrictions limiting them to three per race. The same way that World of Warcraft or other MMOs of then do and did. Outside creating your character you are welcomed to a tutorial. Helping you get used to the combo system the game offers. Which in itself is pretty massive. They limit you to only one weapon per class so the guess work of “what weapon do I use?” is covered. Builds are actually played out by a simple to understand system. All roles are based off of seven classes in total. Each class then is broken down to difficulty for their respective play style. This of course plays into cooperative combinations with other players. Ok so if you ever played games like Chrono Trigger you were given a chance to cross attack enemies with Joint attacks. This game plays with a much more active style to that. Giving it more flow and timing then usual to expect from turn based MMOs.I could sit here all day talking about my opinion of each class, but I worked with only two classes for this review. Maybe in the future I will invest deeper into the other classes in the game. I went along with the Destroyer, and the Summoner in the game. Both different in styles. Destroyer plays the defensive distraction(a tank for people who know their online games) of groups. Dealing a ton of damage and staggering enemies. I found them awesome pairing with someone who was a Kung-Fu Master. The stories ark moves you along the games world, allowing you to dash, jump, and hover around like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. This mechanic is pretty darn effective later on in the game. At first feeling stiff and needing a spit shine. Along the way among quests you do you unlock the ability to water run, wall bounce/run. And being able to dodge from left to right respectively. The game does one thing pretty well and that is keep the pace of the game going smooth. Not too fast, not too slow. Me personally I am more of a farming type who enjoys to sit back in a area and farm all materials and land back to a town and make whatever possible. Crafting in the game is broken down into Crafting guilds to which you must unlock by joining a player ran Crafters guild. And be level 11. Weapon crafting, gems, and stone forging are mostly what is important in the game. Making your weapons stronger and your soul shield a beast. You basically stick with one weapon through out the game so crafting is a must. Slotting weapons is one of the other beneficial things you must do. So learning every little detail is required in the game. No Skipping Dialog for “how-tos”! The world around you is instanced to a point. Where some places require a download in order to move forward. So you will see floating circular door ways almost every where. I can see this not as a bad thing personally. As I would rather have a zone that is near to nothing for lag then have to feel the spikes while trying to fight down nasty monsters. The community itself is mostly a make or break when it comes to requiring crafting done for this or that. Down to even making a party for dungeon running around level fifteen. You can be a lone wolf if you like. Well I lied. I can say its possible for a short while but then soon you will need a buddy or two to move about named dungeons for the fact some classes are soft vs others. Summoners can solo a dungeon almost easily with the right patience and skill. Others like the Destroyer can too. Just try to take in a small pack of enemies at a time, champ.  Groups for instanced dungeons are six total. At the end of each dungeon a named monster drops a name themed chest that you pop open in hopes of sweet, sweet RNG luck. This varies to purple items like staves/weapons that are required for evolving weapons in the game after awhile. So que’ing up is something you might want to consider if you feel the burn from soloing.

One thing with many MMORPGs that are Free to play, are usually ruled out as Freemium games. This being more of a hurtful term then usually a good thing. As I played through the game I never once felt as if I needed anything from the cash shop. Which mostly has cosmetics that make my male characters abs in the game look nice I suppose.

PVP was decided down into two warring factions both having their own motives of simply just being team red and team blue. The Cerulean Order are your blue team if you will. The holier then thou sort. Who wish to perish evil. Blah Blah Blah. Then you have the Crimson Legion who are more of a rebellious sort. The red team. The up-risers who think the order are “full of themselves” then to resort to organized means of living. Personally I was not as invested into ether side I just picked one and moved on. I picked the Order as the Crimson was apparently filled. So if you wanted a choice for that kind of thing it is locked to first come first serve. PVP is like you would expect from most other mmos, use your brain and you will prevail. Just watch out for those stinking Kung-Ku Masters. *shakes fist*

There are over eight sub factions you may toggle between(with the right money in your pocket). Cosmetic armor as I said before is for looks. That part is completely true to a point. There are certain pieces of gear that act as like a toggle for PVP. So if you wear lets say a Blackram piece of clothing. It will make you war against the apposing force. The photo of a splash screen above here shows a pretty good example of who clashes with whom.

Graphically the game is beautiful. I say this until I glance among the NPCs fingertips. Looking like that from a N64 game. This does not take away from too much as most of the NPCs look pretty darn good. Another thing to note they feature pretty decent voice actors! Combat animations are fluid and so darn great! Combo cues seemingly working to a tee(this kind of thing is important). Flashing on screenon a hud that is clear and programmable. The character creation screen is like Bob Ross’es bedroom for a pallet for you to create your character. Eyes, hair, you name it all having strikingly good customization. Some elements of the game are barricaded. Or invisible wall’d if you will. You will try to float over to a mountain wall and instantly slide downward straight down rather then carved to the shape of that said mountain. It is sort of a downer. I wished due to teh games character movement you could explore and locate hidden treasures or much of the sort. Alias.

In Closing:

Blade & Soul was a much hyped game. And for good reason. It offers a fun combat system. Challenging you in the PVP side of things. The leveling in the game does not feel as a grind as I was expecting. pacing you along with many side quests and the main plot to move forward on. If you are one of those type of people who love mainly PVE you will get that at first. Then slowly that kind of content will fade away. To the games credit it was never truly meant as that. It was to simply bring you into your own and be aware of what does what. Keeping the PVE the long introduction into the large scale of things. The PVP. After spending hours farming, destroying flocks of enemies. I was still hungry for more. One thing to note, it handles a ton like many games you might know of like Aion. The combat feels slick, fun and addicting. The story is pretty well made. With more then acceptable voicing acting. A few draw backs from the game is the potential lost on full world exploration. Another which is mostly thought on a general demographic is the lack of endgame for those who option out the PVP. I personally do not mind that this game is a PVP focused game for endgame. In the future I do hope at least for both sides of the coin players PVE/PVP will have a large playground where everyone can be happy on that tone of it all. If you wish to see what all the hype is about, give it a download. It is free to play. It lacks too many restrictions that would hinder the player from enjoying the full content. So give it a go.

Recommended –

• If you Love PVP.

• Have a good enough PC to run this beauty.

• Like Action RPGs.

• Story driven games with that eastern flare.

• Enjoy some fan service