It has been about 4 years since this game came out in Korea, now finally the game has come to us in the States. I'm sure you know what I think about this, another gender-locked classes MMO. Sigh. Anyway, let's get down to business. There are 4 classes in this game, at least in our version; the standard fighter in armors male Dragon Knight, the one with brute force male Berserker, the spell caster with offensive and defensive spells female Elementalist, and the long range weapons user female Valkyrie.

Each class has 2 builds. Different build affects the play styles, equipments, and enchant. I play as an Elementalist, obviously. My 2 builds are Ether, and Circle. Ether build focuses on spells with offensive power. While Circle is more for defensive and supportive skills but some attack spells are still available. Valkyrie's 2 builds are direct damage skills, and buff skills. While Dragon Knight's builds are Dragon and Battle, presumably direct damage skills and some buffs as well.

What goes together with skill builds, is statistic builds. (stats) When a player gains a level, 5 Bonus Points are given. Now you have to decide how to spend these points. They can be put into Stats, to increase the Character's attributes (Strength, Agility, Vitality Intellect, and Spirit), or they can be put into build Proficiency. (Ether and Circle, for Elementalist) Build proficiency is important because in order to learn new skills, you need to meet the requirement of its proficiency (need 10 Ether Proficiency to learn Ice Daggers skills, for example). Additionally to the 5 Bonus Points, you also get 1 Skill Point each time you gain a level. And again you have to make a choice whether you want to put that point into Ether or Circle build (for Elementalist) and into new skills, or upgrading existing skills to be more efficient. Of course, this should go according to your character's Stats Build.

If you're thinking your Stats Build will be ruined by requirements to wear equipments, fret not. Because there are many version of the exact same gear. For Elementalist, there's 1 version of equipment that requires high Int and some Spi, another with high Spi and some Int requirement, another with Int and Ether requirement, and one with Int or Spi (can't remember exactly) with Circle.

I myself like this Stats/Skills builds a lot. Each player has to decide which play style he or she likes. Each player also will come up with different style with different skills, or at least until someone says 'Here's the build for ultimate pvp'. But so far, there seem to be variety of builds just for Elementalist. Some players focus purely on Offensive skills, some on AoE skills, some on healing and buffing, and some on soloing.

Since we have 4 gender-locked classes, that means equipment of each class is for its own. Expect a lot of equipments trading in this game. There seems to be Private Shop feature for that too.

Hmm, forgot to talk about the game graphic. Despite it's being about 4 years old, its graphic is still very good-looking, and high frame rate per second is still obtainable without graphic lag or internet lag.

The game customization is, however, poor. Upon creating a character, you get to choose 5 hair styles and 5 types of face, and 4 variety of height, not that great of a difference. Players at the same level end up wearing the same equipments. And since helmet is visible, all players end up looking the same.

The game has both WSAD and point and click movement. And they work quite fine too, except that A and D keys are for turning the character instead of Strafing, which are Q and E keys. And you can't change these key mappings either, at least by ingame option. Additionally, the game seems to be full of area players can't pass. This means you can't jump off most cliffs, or jump on some rocks, or even hugging the wall to avoid monsters. You keep running into invisible walls and have to back up a bit before finding different route.

The combat in this game, is simple. Auto attack with some skills activation. It's bad though that there's no 'Auto Self Cast' option. So you have to select yourself before casting Healing or Buffs in mid-combat, then switch target back to the monsters.

The game UI is well design. Questlog with enough details to guide you around, and map markers are also nice. What I don't like is the Party Window, which doesn't exist. And after changing map, it's confusing who's still in your party and who isn't.

Even though questing still involves around killing and gathering, there are however instanced dungeons for you and your party members. Some of them have nice triggers too, not just a place filled with mindless monsters.

There's also Equipment Enchanting and Potion Crafting systems, whose materials are from killing monsters. Captain and Boss monsters also drop nice equipments with good Bonus.

Battle Zone is a system that allows players to form parties, and go into newly created areas filled with monsters to kill for experiences and loots. Large scaled Siege Combat also appears to be available.

Reviewed Aug 09

RATING