MMO Review – Vindictus

So my son and I were looking for something new to play and we decided to go the free route. I saw him playing some ugly browser based game and said we should try a new one out. I heard of a newer game Vindictus from Massively and decided to give it a try. These are my feelings so far after reaching level 21.

After a 3-5 hour download we were up and running. The graphics are pretty good and aim at realism. Characters movement is believable and smooth. It is an action MMO where you feel powerful but you do get hurt and die now and then. There are 3 classes: A warrior type (Fiona), a dual sword swinger (Lann) and a mage type (Evie) 2 more coming soon.

You start out in a city, you tell them your name and design your character. The choices are somewhat limited (skin color, hair color, hair style, height, chest size, shading of light on your face) some you can’t choose unless you pay them a bit of cash for customization after you create your initial look. After you are set you basically run around from shop to shop to gain information and quests. The NPCs appear as pictures along side what they are saying. They send you out to do things for them into instances which you do over and over and over. It does get repetitive, but they change it up a bit. There is also an auction house and a mailbox system.

Instances: So far, there is no exploring to the game. You get a quest in the city, run out to the docks and take a boat to your instance. You chose which area/quest part of the instance you wish to enter. After you choose, you then pick the difficulty (Normal, Hard, Heroic) Heroic is for very high levels and Hard nets you a bit more gold and a few more items. You can also pick a goal/handicap like finish within 10 minutes, do it without using potions, complete the area with 2 people or solo. Choosing one of these gives a bit more gold and XP. The instances are basically one huge maze of an area…and different quests will use different sections of the maze. Sometimes they just extend how far you go, sometimes you start in the middle. This does tend to get a bit old because several quests will have you go back in over and over till you get the right drop and if you want to craft armor – you will need to farm a bit. The environment is highly destructible and you can use just about everything as a weapon.

Crafting:Since there are no armor and weapon drops you need to armor crafted for you with items you find in the instances. There are a few sets you can receive from quests as rewards. There are a few different sets at the mid levels so you can mix and match a bit. Some items are very pricey on the Auction House, so you will want to farm for as many pieces as you can. You then take the items to an NPC and they will craft them for you and they come out with a random color. You can dye the armor BUT, the dying is also random and it costs a good chunk of gold. This is an annoying gold sink. So you might want a pretty red skirt and yours came out brown….so you pay to dye it and it comes out bright orange. Farming for materials can get old, but it feels good to finally get the full set, and while you are farming, you can try and finish all the different ways to do each instance. Armors and weapons are very well done…you do see many people that are dressed just like you though.

Characters: I started the game using the character named Evie. She is a magic user type. She can control gravity, heal, shoot magic arrows, create golems from random junk on the ground (Which is sooo cool) can summon a huge fire blast, and a few other tricks. She is also extremely handy with a staff or scythe. She is by far one of the more cooler type of class I have played in an MMO. If you use a staff, she is more of a healer/caster – if you go with a Scythe, she is a whirling blade of death and destruction, but lacks many magic abilities.

I haven’t tried the other 2 much. The next one they are bring out is more of a huge strong man, and the teaser video make him look quite fun too. (No female version 🙁 ) Here are videos of the other three.
Fiona
Lann
Karok

The UI works quite well and you get use to it fast. You have 5 slots for spells/runes/potions and a secondary slot for bomb and spear type weapons. Other abilities are accessed through certain attack combos. The mobs will agro from a pretty far distance and are smart. Some will stand there….some will chop the ropes on a bridge you are standing on….some will pull switches if you are under a trap, some jump back and dodge you. While fighting, you will have to learn how to dodge and evade or you are doomed!

This is a FREE game, but they do tempt you to buy items. There are 3 item chests for storage you get naturally, and 5 or 6 others you need to buy for around $8.50 each. About the same as Guild Wars. You can buy special underwear that lasts 30 days of play time that gives you some extra defense and a bit of luck. Hair styles ($1.99) also last only 30 days (In Game Play) and provide some luck (Luck makes drops happen more) You can get 30 day makeup or permanent, priced accordingly. Also, they limit the number of times you can take a boat to instances. You need to pay coins to take a boat and the more times you go in a day the more expensive it becomes so you need to control the number of runs a day. When you run out of coins – you cant take a boat anymore until your coins refresh. They refresh 2 or 3 times a week. This limits how much you can play the game on a given character. You can spend time fishing though (very boring as far as I can tell) Also can BUY coins… 50 coins for about $7 which lets you do 50 instances and they give you an XP boost. When you start out the game – the first instance area is free so you wont be paying till after level 18-20. A Casual gamer will not have to buy coins.

Soooo, would I recommend this game. So far – YES. It is fun. One really horrible thing is the gold spammers in general chat – forget even talking in general…you just want to strangle them!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR – Grab it and give it a try… Vindictus – One thing I just learned is that Valve is teamed up with Nexon for this game….meaning Extra Cool! This game has been released in Korea and is much further along on its development there.

I have some video I will post – they make it very easy to capture video in the game. These are at lower levels in the game.

Tags: Gaming, MMO, Review, Vindictus

Catagory: Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.