AprilReyes

Another game that bought the "Bezt gaem ever" scores for a couple bucks. Sad where the game industry is going nowadays. Yeah, Tribes is certainly something unique, but that doesn't mean its good too. What makes this game promising is the "fast-paced" action that is in reality almost uncontrollably hovering (or as they call it "skiing") forwards while shooting stuff at people who do that same. Sadly, however, there is no sense of speed whatsoever, and you don't get chills because you're going so fast, mostly because the maps seem like someone accidentally scaling them ten times higher than they should be. The so called "competitive gameplay" falls flat by the simple fact that explosives deal an absurdly high damage plus have a huge blast radius which means that when "skiing", you hardly ever need to aim, and while indoors, you don't even need to because you'll blow everything in your way to pieces. The CTF is quite interesting, because the flags are, for some reason, keep left out in the open which means a luckier enemy who got quite the speed can dash by and pick it up, while the defenders simply can't go after him because there is no slope they can use to gain speed. And then there are the "pay to win" issues. No, don't come with that "you can unlock anything" thing, I'd like to unlock new weapons faster than classes, but after some calculations I figured it'd take hundreds of matches to switch my pea shooter that deals no damage to something that can actually do something, while who bought the Game of The Year (brb vomiting) package can get everything on spot, ready to go. Disgusting. I've played about one hour of this but I've already uninstalled it, utterly disappointing. I'll be honest, the only thing I liked about this game is the weapon designs, but those I LOVED.

There is a word for games like these: Shovelware. Look it up. Swordsman Online is the creation made Perfect World Entertainment for the sole purpose of riding the Wuxia Bandwagon and milk money from people who were bored or disappointed by Age of Wushu or 9Dragons, even though the engine was originally made for Point and Click games like PWE or Jade Dynasty. You can imagine what happens when you try to make something in a program that was not intended for that use. First thing first, the character creation. Compared to other games it's a bit limited. You have a few hairstyles, the usual sliders for body proportions, but they left out basic things like skin or eye color... oh no, wait, they're only available for paying users. Also, the female character model looks just weird at first. Then the graphics... typical Perfect World graphics, not the highest quality, but not too low either. The skills are all flashy, unsurprisingly, though there are many things that look horrendeous up close, even if they're not in the background. Yeah, I'm talking about you, stone door thing that was suppose to open... But now let's get onto the abyssimal gameplay: Even though the game has "Action mode" which enables you to use the nowadays trendy "MouseLook with Crosshair", it is ridiculously sluggish, especially when projectile-based skills are used, making the whole camera control just painful to do. The story starts off with your home village being attacked by a bunch of bandits, who you can kill off with a simpleChuck Norris style Roundhouse kick, before running away from them despite they take NO HP from you. The story in this game is stupid, and you WILL end up being confused about what is going on. What you'll pretty much get about it is "You're going around stopping bad guys." but other than that, it's a mess. Thanks the translators for that. Also, it's pacing is ridiculously fast. The game is a gigantic Auto-Route fest, and even though I'd prefer walking on my own, most of the times I needed to use the function still because the NPCs on the map are extremely poorly signed, and many things like cutscenes do not trigger unless you stand on the exact one spot the Auto-Route brings you to. Remember how you could do tricks and such on rooftops? Yeah, they're automated too. There are many schools you can choose from, however, NONE of them explains anything about their style. The only thing school master said when you have to make the decision is "If you join my school, I'll teach you how to fight." You NEED to look it up on the internet before choosing because the only thing that gives you a slight hint is the weapon they use and the skill showcase videos that, ironically, doesn't showcase the skills in one skill tree, but just some button mashing. You can, no you HAVE to literally noclip through a wall (that was supposed to be some stone door) to proceed, and on top of that, you can noclip through fences, lamp posts, signs, bushes, basic decoration elements. Also, the things mobs drop are usually invisible, you only know they're there because the gather icon is shown, and only when you pick them up you can see their name. Combat feels really cluncky, there are noticable gap of waiting between animations, that is also added up with the lag. Also, the auto-targeting it beyond stupid. How many times I aimed to lash my whip towards the enemy player, and my character turned around and grabbed a mob I just passed by, or a breakable decoration. Then there are the "lightness skills", you have the Air Dashing like in Age of Wushu, but it's much less smooth and rather clunky as well, there are also other dodging skills, double and triple jump, which are much smoother, as well as the "Forced Move" which cancels your current attack, a very useful thing you can bait people with. Now, remember how is Wushu there was the nice Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic? PWE decided to spice it up by adding Lizard and Spock to the mix, thus, completely messing up everything. Each skill has one or more status effects carried to it, which can be countered by another, different status effect. Which one? Good luck figuring out, because the game doesn't tell you. So long for "strategy". Quests are also very generic most of the time, however, the game tries to break the monotonity by making you carry a monkey, get drunk (like everyone else in this game) or help a friend winning in a race, but it falls short to make a real difference because they are just too short. And there are the armor-recolors, and other things I could mention. Overall, this game seems incredibly thrown together, lazy, overly-instanced to be called an "open-world MMO" and pay2customize. It's a crystal clear money-cow, there isn't many good things in it that could get you hooked, in fact, you most likely get bored by the end of the "tutorial" that is at Level 40. It's mediocre at best, which is very disappointing, because I expected somewhat more... okay, a lot more.

If I'd have to compare this game to another one, I'd say it's very similar to Scary Maze. It keeps your focus down on one small point, then throws an enormous screaming thing in your face. It's beyond cheap. True, true, it's scary but after a little while your heart will jump a bit, then disregard the whole thing with an "Ahh f**k you!" It has little replayabity, mostly because the game has very little to offer, you won't really use the "Custom Night" feature much other than the infamous 20/20/20/20 (or maybe putting Foxy on 20, the rest on 1). However, what I found the biggest problem here is the complete lack of immersion, simply because the game is about you sitting in one place for basically no reason, without any way you'd at least try to defend yourself other than shutting/opening the doors, again, for no reason. On the upside, the characters are unique and frightening (for that rough two seconds they clatter their teeth five centimeters in front of you), each having different characteristics and tactics, so it's easy to pick a favourite, or one that you despise. It's gameplay mechanisms are clear and are easy to understand, as well as easy enough for new game developers to see the "board game" behind the curtains of the sprites that you're looking at while playing. Overall, it's a fair little game of resource management, however, it's horror aspect is based on pretty much only flashy, noisy, and after time, annoying jumpscares, which, while sometimes can be good, shouldn't be overdosed in horror games. Adding the nonsensical elements mentioned above also axes from much of the score. If you are a fan of jumpscares (for some weird reason), this game is just for you. If you want quality horror that really sends chills down your spine, I suggest saving your money. Still, for 5$, it's not a bad deal.