Budget players back again, party up, party down, now let's begin! The start of a new set of reviews, kicking it off this week is
Elsword is a side-scrolling platform game developed and produced by South Korean company KOG Studios And Kill3rCombo. It was released in North America in February of 2011.
BLUF: This game is cheap all around, and not worth your time. I forced myself to play the minimum seven hours I require of myself before writing any review, and those are seven hours I will never get back.
SCORES:
Playability: 3/5 The gameplay is simple and straightforward, but is not responsive enough to keystrokes. Additionally, you can't change your keysettings, only which power attack is on the available keys.
Atmospherics: 2/5 Boring, overused anime clichés abound in the art, and the soundtrack is so repetitive that you just want to turn it off.
Community: 2/5 Neither helpful nor harmful, the community of this game doesn't seem too interested in you, even when you're on their team.
Learning Curve: 2/5 What curve? Seriously, the power attacks are all similar, and only truly vary in the amount of energy used. Button mashing makes up most of your combat, and your energy is renewed with successful attacks.
Cash Shop: 2/5 Being able to buy gear that permanently improves your stats for cash tanks this game from the get-go. Their costs aren't too unreasonable, but long term gear should not be available for purchase. That changes it from a FtP to a Pay-to-Win.
Support: 4/5 I did not have any trouble with the game, and they have regular updates and additions to the game.
Overall: 15/30 Maybe several years ago this game would have been top shelf material, but come on. This is not worth your time.
BACKSTORY:
An ancient world of darkness and shadow was miraculously transformed by the powers of a blue diamond, known as the El Stone. After many generations, the miracle was forgotten, the people became complacent in their abundance, … and that's the entirety of the backstory. The rest of the story is the limited story interactions of the characters, and even those aren't explained very well. I think that some of the story may have been lost in translation, but can't be sure.
There are six characters:
Elsword: Elsword specializes in close combat with a big flat tipped sword. He is looking for his missing sister, the leader of the Red Knights, Elsa. As he is the namesake of the game, I chose him for my character.
Rena: An elven archer with mystical powers, she searches for the power of El in order to protect this world and hers from fading away. Her abilities allow her to attack from a distance or close in with her target.
Aisha: A magical phenom, Aisha put on a cursed ring that stole all her powers. She now seeks to relearn what she lost. Aisha's powers can do large amounts of damage, or can damage all enemies in range.
Raven: Commoner-turned-captain of the guard, betrayed by his own country, given a robot arm and aiming for revenge, Raven has a change of heart when he meets the other heroes of this game. Raven is a close combat character as well, using a sword for light attacks and his robot arm for the big blows.
Eve: The last of a robot race known as the Nasod, Eve was once their queen. After a long war with the humans, the rest of her race were twisted by hate until they were all destroyed. Eve uses other robots and tech to fight.
Chung: Using special armor and a cannon, Chung is the son of his clan's leader. He has both short and long range attacks, as well as the ability to transform his armor into a special “awakening” mode, giving him infinite ammo.
TUTORIAL
The game picks up at the attempted stealing of the El Stone by both monsters and bandits, which launches you into the tutorials from the town of Ruben as you try to retrieve the power of El. The tutorials start with basic attacks, of which you have two, and as you progress and unlock special attacks, pop up windows give you the rundown on each. The game calls them skills, but there is no skill in their use. I thought Rusty Hearts was a button masher, but this game beats it in spades. There are some techniques for each character that maximize your damage output, but really, the basic attacks occasionally sprinkled with special attacks will kill all the monsters there are, even the bosses.
You play through each level three times, supposedly at increasingly harder difficulties. After I unlocked some of the big hits, I waltzed through every level. By myself. I do not see how you could possibly need a team other than to try some of the quests that require you to clear the level in a time limit.
Once you have beaten the Bandit leader in the second tutorial level for the third time, you can progress to the town of Elder, where you'll find all the regular stuff you'd expect: stores, challenges, NPCs with a bunch of quests, and a battle arena, where you can go PvP on each other. I rarely found a reason to buy anything other than health and mana items, as the loot drops were always better. I also found that the stories given by each quest NPC were boring to the point that I just stopped reading them.
THE TOWN OF ELDER AND BEYOND
Ruben and Elder are the first two of seven towns, and each is the starting point for a set of dungeons, there really isn't much to them, and no reason to go back to a town once you have unlocked the next that I could see. They have the same collection of shop owners, quest givers, etc. and only serve as a point to drop gear, buy new health and energy potions, and pick up your next quest.
Each town has a set of dungeons attached to it, but just like the early levels, you have to beat each dungeon three times to open the next. There are no alternatives but to grind through every level, in order, and the minions you kill are as bland and uninteresting as the last set you demolished. Most of them don't even have specialized attacks or weaknesses to certain characters, they all just are pretty much your punching bags. Bosses have a few specialized attacks, but are not much more than beefy versions of the minions.
There is an available PvP option, arena matches, but when I found out about my major problem with the cash shop (just one sec and we'll get to it) I didn't even bother to try it.
CASH SHOP
Here's what tanked this game. You can buy, for cash, equipment that alters your stats for extended periods of time and/or permanently. I have no problem with temporary boosts, those that last a gaming session or less, because they don't alter the flow of the game for the non-paying customers. But if your boosts are even semi-permanent, say 30 days long, and you have a PvP element, then the game is not Free-to-Play, it is Pay-to-Win, and that sounds the death knell for this game. I will not play a game where some spoiled ten year old can shell out his mom and dad's hard earned cash to wipe the floor with me. And I refuse to shell out my own money for so weak a game. With boring combat, forgettable art, lousy music, no real skill needed to win, and a PtW, this game is just not worth your time.
SUMMARY
Forget it. Do not play Elsword, do not download it, do not waste your time. You will be bored out of your mind, and end up pulling it from your computer to make room for something else.
All right, that does it for this week, join me next week when I try out Dragon Nest! Until then, stay classy Freeloaders!
[NoCashReq has left the room]
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