Team Bloodlust has done the impossible. They have actually made an MMORPG you can pick up and play with little to no MMO previous experience, which is not an easy feat for this day and age of MMORPGs. How they went about it without making a gamer’s head explode is the neat part, as well as their ability to make the story seem important along the way, though not complicating things. There is a good balance of both solid gameplay and good storytelling.
The story is pretty simple. Sir Sammich’s (me — the name made sense to me, like a bag blowing in the wind) clan of martial artists is invaded and destroyed (sans Sammich) by a team of badass evil doers. What can a Sammich do? Well, he can wake up in a fishing boat and start working his way to take out those evil doers! That’s pretty much the entire storyline, which is fine by me. I treat such a storyline like a good action film, where the impossible happens over and over again, while each bad guy/gal is tracked down like the dog they are and dispatched. What other motivation does one need? Love the simplicity of it. Love the Crow-esque nature of it all.
Anyway, there it is. A good start to a great adventure. As for the actual gameplay, it’s a wee bit more technical than that story description.
Blade & Soul’s gameplay is based around the notion that not everyone plays MMORPGs. It helps if you have played some in the past, but that sort of complex MMO thinking is not necessary for you to enjoy the game. The game goes through the usual route of tutorials that you get in every game, but it doesn’t treat the player like an idiot. It gives you the important parts of the game, such as attacking, macros and how to keep yourself healthy, but doesn’t overcomplicate things. It pushes you quickly out into the Blade & Soul world, which is what you want. It’s what we want out of every game!!!
Anyway, picking up the small bits of gameplay is easy and learning along the way is easier. Speaking of easy, while I have never been big on crafting (I know, right?), I found the crafting in the game to be pretty straightforward. For example, you can add a gem to weapons that would help you out in particular situations. I had one situation that required me to add a gem to fight off a giant sand crab. Once the crab was killed, I could remove the gem and bring my weapon back to the way I wanted (and needed it to be). Adding, subtracting and creating is intuitive in Blade & Soul, which is great for a simple mind like mine. The crafting does get a bit more complicated, but not too much where it becomes a chore. I know people love to craft in games, especially like something such as Skyrim, but sometimes that aspect of the game becomes a game of its own. I want something quick, easy, effective and fun, which is what Blade & Soul delivers.
Speaking of delivering, the leveling tree and macro customization are fast and furious, as well as surprising balanced. The tree contains lots of nice options, but the actual function of it seems pretty easy to pick up on. It looked a lot like the leveling trees found in the Dragon Age series, which I mentioned in my preview of the game, and I stand by it. Leveling itself is quick at the beginning, as well as rewarding. You are given plenty of chances to earn XP, which translates to quick leveling. When you hit around level seven or eight, the game starts giving you a lot of items and macros. The abundant macros translate into fantastic fighting moments and gives you opportunities to create some healthy strategies of attack, which you will need a variety of as the game keeps going. Everything plays easy, fast and exciting in these categories. Team Bloodlust clearly wants you to enjoy your trip through their world and these options reinforce that notion. It’s quite refreshing.
Related to attacking, the enemies and bosses are abundant and unforgiving. You’ll find a lot of different monsters, beasts, baddies and bosses waiting for you in the game. The first big boss I faced in the game was a gigantic shelled crab in a cave. It took up half the screen and was brutal when fought one-on-one, though not impossible. The game has a wide variety of characters to run into during gameplay, though you will find some of them repeat in attack style, even though they look incredibly different. It’s a bit lazy, but I suspect that developers who make MMORPGs are in need of repetition when it comes to large scale games such as Blade & Soul. Regardless, you will have fight after fight on your hands, though strategizing and luring enemies is still a safe way to go…unless you are more than a party of one (lucky bastards).
Shifting gears, let’s discuss missions.
First, you should know that I’m a PvE player by trait. I do dabble once in a while with the PvP concept, but I tend to spend 95% of my time in PvE. I have heard great things from other reviewers about PvP, but I honestly cannot tell you my opinion of it (I would want to, but I would be doing you a great injustice). With that said, the PvE is solid.
The PvE missions are fast and furious, straightforward and abundant. The main story missions are a bit more intense than the side quests, as they should be, but not so much that you’re going to get stuck immediately as a solo player. I reached around level 10 before I started wishing I had friends playing along side me. This is about the time I went on a rescue mission in a cave that took about 45 minutes to complete. My methods are slow and steady, so I’m sure the mission is faster for a more seasoned MMORPG master, but that is the time it took on a longer mission.
The side quests are generally simple, but worthwhile for training purposes. You get a lot of side quests just waiting for you in villages and meet-up spots. Side quests include rescuing people, eliminating enemies, exposing hiding spots and taking back villages that are overrun. You get quite a variety of missions to choose from in Blade & Soul. The map, which is on the HUD, pinpoints your side quests in blue, while your main quest is in yellow. You can take on multiple side quests, which sometimes overlap with other side quests, which makes for quick leveling. The game feels like it’s endless thanks to the side quests, as well as feeling refreshing over and over again because of them.
Speaking of HUD, this is my biggest complaint about Blade & Soul. There is so much going on onscreen that sometimes it is hard to keep up with visually. You have the map in your top right, macros on the bottom, dialogue in the bottom left from other gamers, mail/settings/options in the bottom right, and dialogue and information from NPCs in the middle bottom. It’s a lot to take in and sometimes it’s tough to see what’s going on. I know you can turn off a few things, but honestly the only thing I could live without is the gamer dialogue. I wish there were better ways to display the rest or at least cut down on some of it. Regardless, it’s a bit much, though not impossible to work through.
On a more positive note, and one which is visually pretty, customization is the bee’s knees in Blade & Soul, as it is quite extensive. You have a lot of clothing options, hair options, face options and just about every type of option you can think of during gameplay to make your character your own. For example, I sported a cowboy hat, chaps and some badass armor during my gameplay. It truly spoke Sir Sammich’s language. Anyway, you can go weirdo (like me) or you can go full anime (like most of the outfits you find in the game). There are great rewards in the game to make you want to keep going and customization rewards fit right in there.
Overall, the gameplay in Blade & Soul revolves around the notion of simplicity. It doesn’t ask too much from you upfront, rather gingerly guides you through complicated controls when it is necessary. It wants you to have fun, play as quick as possible and experience as much of the gameplay world it built in an entertaining fashion. The gameplay has a plight for perfection, but it’s good enough to take on any MMORPG curious gamer, which is always a great thing.
If the gameplay doesn’t get you, the presentation will certainly hook ya.
Graphically, Blade & Soul is superb. While the original preview nearly a month ago had me gushing at the visuals, the patches and computer punch between now and then produced another eye-popping experience for this reviewer. The sheer depth between foreground and background was astounding to witness in an online experience. While there were pop ups here and there, the overall girth of the environment was amazing to see with details springing forth from afar. For example, there was a mission where I had to rescue some men who had been kidnapped by a group of baddies, shoved off into a cave to mine and destined to be lost forever from their families. Upon entering the cave to retrieve said men, it became quickly visually apparent that shadows, shading, textures and obscure background events were in full force. Seeing a waterfall in the background, which I could reach, was mesmerizing. The lighting, the lack of rendering needed for textures was simply baffling. You could tell that a good bit of love was given to the presentation, which was done above and beyond what a typical MMORPG would usually have in it.
The character models didn’t get quite the same love, though, as there are still issues of textures rendering when you’re having a conversation with people. Many times the conversations were interrupted by detailed armor or facial features popping into focus while the chatting was happening. Did it derail the game any? Just slightly, but honestly you’re speaking to folks in the game so briefly that it didn’t really do much to affect the fun of it. Still, it was very noticeable.
Music and voice-wise, everything was on par. The music was good, but didn’t get in the way of the experience, while the voice overs only appeared when the conversations were important. Otherwise, you would have text and reading, and honestly who reads all the text? No one…well, probably some people. Nerds.
Overall presentation for Blade & Soul put it in the upper tier of good MMORPGs. I think it certainly put it above Final Fantasy XIV, as it was far less bland than FFXIV.
With all this said, is this MMORPG really something you want to check out? I think so, as Team Bloodlust has made it incredibly easy to pick it up and play. They’ve made it engaging with the small revenge story, simple to control and move around, as well as making it seem endless, yet quick. They’ve put together some solid pieces to make Blade & Soul seem separate from the pack of MMORPG standards and have done everything they should have to make this just a fun experience, regardless of your own personal MMO habits. I hope some of the more popular MMOs out there are taking note of what Team Bloodlust has done because they have a pretty solid formula to hook a wider audience, while retaining a hardcore set of MMO gamers.
Anyway, onto the summary!
