It seems like I was already a bit late when I discovered
Rakion, an MMO game that is more action oriented than RPG. The game is distributed by
Softnyx which also distributed the classic style, "Worms-like" international game
Gunbound. The good thing with Gunbound is that the game is addictingly good [if you're into strategy games] and it doesn't have a monthly fee. The prepaid card for the game is only used for buying virtual items ingame to upgrade your character to become more formidable. Same goes with Rakion - no fee's, no limits, just play to your hearts content.
The Rakion storyline is somewhat uncommon: about the humans negotiating with White Dragons regarding the balance of things. The White Dragon's left with a promise that they will return after 500 years. However, the promise runs both ways, and the humans must fulfill their own side or face disaster. Two centuries have passed and the tales and promises to the white dragons faded from everyone's mind. The comet Alcon started to shift its course towards the continent resulting to a sudden monster population boom. The honorable Mage Romaan tried to persuade the 4 different nations to band together to fight the monsters to no avail. Nonetheless, the monsters had banded together and destroyed the most powerful nation of that time. The mage together with the other 3 nations allied to stop the monsters and stop the comet. The mage and his companions were able to destroy the comet at the cost of their lives. The pieces fell and it absorbed all those who were present during the battle. Due to this, the shards were kept hidden for fear of its ability to call monsters or to repeat what happened during the battlefield. After 1000 years, the comet shards have been found and they have become the new means in battle.
The game has 5 different types of playable characters: a warrior, an archer, a blacksmith, a mage and a ninja. I believe all the characters have both melee and range weapons, on in the case of the mage - magical skills to do damage. The characters look well made though there are no modifications for the character's faces or looks as of today.
The game system here follows the style made established by Guildwars in that solo characters or party create their own instance maps. The maps are somewhat huge and great - with vibrant colors and highly detailed. Though it isn't the same level of the Guildwar's Cantha or Tyria. The armor and weaponry is changeable provided that you can grind your way to earn gold. For those with more money but no time, they can purchase these items with real money - after they finish setting up their payments system. This is one of the games that have better CG character design than the actual artist work.
The
game requirements are not as high as compared to
Guildwars or
World of Warcraft though they would prefer if you have at least 512 mb ram. Its obviously trying to target home users. The game installer is only like 350+ Mb and it doesn't have any major "2GB worth of patching" like those on
Granado Espada. The problem though is when you're trying to party with other players. The game continually checks the connections of the all those in the party with each other and will automatically disconnect the user if his connection doesn't is very slow as to another user. I have a 768kbps adsl account and I still get kicked out from the game due to "my connection to another user is slow." Players will have a hard time partying specially when they're trying to get competent players who will automatically get removed from the party due to the connection problem.
One of my issues here is the game design. The camera view is very limited - you can't view your chars from the top so getting a better angle during mob attacks will be hard. Another problem is the use of the mouse for creating attack combos. If you remember playing the first Diablo [before you discovered the shift and ctrl keys like me], then you'll probably have the same probs here. The mouse is heavily used here to do attacks and combo, which would probably result to a dead mouse after a couple of levels.
Overall, I'll still probably prefer to play World of Warcraft with all the lags than this one. I guess I'll never get used to games that's similar to Dungeon Siege 1. The game is fastpaced but leveling up is almost as slow as
RF Online or the top two worst grinding games ever made:
Rose Online and
Mabinogi. It is still a good game so I recommend this for those seeking an action-oriented gaming with a console feel to it.
