VidyaSoup

(this review counts as on level 80 cap) This game is relatively unique among MMOs (and probably was the first or second action combo-oriented MMO). Combat is very intuitive with different handling difficulty depending on the character you pick, and very fast paced without never being reduced to a button smasher. Paying attention to your enemies animations and reactions to attacks as well as your surroundings it's just as vital to survive as learning how your own character plays. Each character class' gameplay is unique enough to guarantee you will have fun trying each one of them. For how limited the graphics are the visuals are gorgeous, and most of the soundtrack while nothing exceptional it's entertaining and fulfills it's purpose of keeping you engaged on the combat. There are a lot of game modes for PvE and PvP. Quests, level up rewards, the achievement system, feats system and npc friendship are very rewarding (you can get both in-game and cash shop items through this). One of the big surprises of this game is how carefully crafted the story and characters are, with such complexity that you often only see in offline/solo games. Unfortunately, for an MMO it is not as exciting to play in party, instead the gameplay shines the most in solo/duo PvE and solo PvP. At capped levels you may find that the party gameplay gets less and less complex as you gain more skills with such huge damage values that renders a lot of your old skills useless or incovenient, to the point that a lot of people end up having exactly the same build on the same character with little to no room to experiment without sacrificing party optimization. Solo/duo PvE and 1vs1 PvP is where you can truly experiment with your character's movepool. Another downside of this game is the amount of time one must spend to get top tier gear. If you though Monster Hunter was tiring, this game will screw you. Fortunately the game has means to cope with this, making almost every crafting material tradeable and providing alternative ways to acquire said gear other than grinding for it in it's respective dungeons (which no, doesn't involve the cash shop at all, but rather playing alternate game modes or completing achievements, and sometimes participating in events). The customization is limited and you can't change the sex of your character, but the cash shop offers a lot of cosmetic items (which may or may not come with stats bonuses, all of which are turned off in PvP). There are a lot of skin colors, eye colors, hair colors, faces and hairstyles available to change the body of the initial character you picked. As you can pick gloves, shoes, pants, shirts and hats individually without being restricted by costume sets you can mix and match to create unique clothes for your characters. There are also earrings and decals (face tattoos) and silly costumes, wings, animal ears and tails for those who like to go around with more extravagant looks. I want to thank the developers for the amount of care being put in this game, as it is constantly tested and you can expect a balance patch almost every month. Content updates are usually 1 or 2 times a month, so there is always something to look forward. It's such a shame that the reason why some people are giving it such low scores is due to thing that have little to nothing to do with the game or the developers: Complains about distributor-based changes, and the cash shop or community of the game version they play. My advice for anyone who wants to try out this game is make a research of all the servers available for the country you live instead of jumping into the first server you come across, and to try to get a friend to start to play with you.