Elsword Review

Elsword Community Page

Originally planned as a remake of KOG’s other MMO “Grand Chase”, Elsword was originally hated when it first released back in 2011. Whether it was due to genuine issues with the game that made it un-enjoyable or whether is was just GC fan-boys raging that there was a new kid on the block; that doesn’t matter as it got its act together, rinsed out most of the bugs and threw in some new characters to boot, so is the new Elsword worth your time or is it just trying to beat the corpse of a horse that died a long time ago?

Story

The synopsis of Elsword is simple enough. To cut a short story even shorter the land of Elrios is where the story is set and all life in the land from the people to the trees is maintained by a magic rock called the el-stone. A stone that proves very susceptible to people taking it as it is stolen not 20 minutes after you start playing leaving you to chase the thief across the land while helping random people with the most menial tasks that they could easily do themselves in standard MMO fashion. While the story is perfectly functional do not expect it to weave epic legends in your brain.

Presentation

The presentation of the game on the other hand is sublime. With cell-shaded environments and cutscenes hand drawn by professional manga artists, the graphics are amazing. On the other hand, I have a very polarising opinion on the music. The hub world and field music is inoffensively average. Never souring the experience but instantly forgettable. The Boss music on the other hand is tense, high octane and very indicative of the game’s manga and animé inspiration. When I was fighting a plethora of well designed bosses against a background of epic landscapes with beautiful music blaring in my ears it’s hard not to imagine being in your own anime/manga!

Gameplay

The Game play is, by far, what we’re all here for considering that this is an anime inspired beat-em-up. The relatively limited character selection as made up for by a wide variety of fighting styles from conventional RPG weapons like swords, spells and bows to some less expected killing techniques like robot drones, missile launchers and mechanical arms as well as special attacks that consume MP. The controls are easy to pick up, you get two attack buttons, heavy and light attack which can be combined into a variety of combos assisted by on screen prompts, this can sometimes seem like pandering to the gamer, but there are few things more satisfying than watching a guy beating bandits to death with a massive cannon! There are two kinds of area’s in the game, hub area’s and field area’s. In the field (open world) you can kill monsters and gain exp while the hub area’s are monster-less and contain a variety of shops where you can buy and upgrade equipment with a surprisingly complex upgrade system. With a single piece of equipment, you can socket magical gems into it, infuse El-Shards into it, upgrade its stats at the blacksmith and transform it into an entirely different, better piece of equipment. The biggest flaw with the upgrade system however lies in the fact that every bit of exposition about how to upgrade and socket gems and other details is covered in a single, entirely miserable side quest. So miss it and you will have no clue how to upgrade your gear and will miss out on one of the most unique features in the game.

For when the beasts of the wild are not enough, from the hub you can also access two kinds of challenge modes, Dungeon and Arena. In dungeon mode, you pick from a variety of dungeons, select your gauntlet and after a few details such as difficulty you are left to fight a battle royale with all the occupants of the room proceeding only when you are the last one standing. You must fight through a set of similar situations until you reach the dungeon boss, beat it and you win the dungeon. It’s a fun and surprisingly addictive mode which you will have to enter several times to complete main story quests, but its biggest flaw is that while the environments you fight in are suitably varied and nice to look at, the level design is some of the most unimaginative that I’ve played in quite some time. The different dungeon difficulties were a neat idea as the level becomes more extravagant in design as the difficulty goes up but the changes to enemies you fight are just lazy. Perhaps give them some new attacks, or make their AI more intelligent and receptive to fighting strategies? Nah, lets just increase their health and the damage they do. So beneath their herculean muscles and titan armour they’re the same stupid enemies, who wont attack until they’ve had a rhetorical debate about it which in my opinion rather ruins the point. The Arena, as the name implies, is a PvP game mode. You can choose between 1v1 or 3v3 game modes which give EXP and AP which can only be spent in the arena shop selling equipment only really useful for arena matches but fun none the less. Again, the arena is a good idea but needs a serious look at the match up system. The problem is that the opponent selection is completely random, you could just as easily end up fighting a level one beginner still pulling on his second hand armour, or a level sixty veteran who would like nothing more than to brain you with his broadsword for a handful of AP. Your level dictates how powerful you are so most arena matches are a battle of luck as to what level the person you pair up against is. You could win if the guy is 3-4 levels higher than you but anything higher than 6 levels and you might as well hand over your lunch money.

Lifespan

The game is an MMO so naturally the lifespan is very long but Elsword certainly scores points in that all the time I was playing not once did I feel bored despite all it’s flaws. The game is undeniably fun to play especially with friends in dungeon and arena mode and the story is just engaging enough that you want to know what happens next without feeling forced to stick to the story and ignore the side quests. It’s certainly a very attractive game with it’s breathtaking graphics and landscapes with fitting music with just the right balance between fantasy and manga to appeal to both audiences and most importantly…It’s free to play! So if you fancy a fun side scroller beat-em-up with elements of both Runscape and DBZ, it’s definitely worth a look.

Level Of Freeness

Elsword is a free to play game, a genre that is ironically usually full of micro transactions so as expected, you will soon find that things like extra ability slots, backpack upgrades and even things featured in the game’s advertisements like hair customisation must be paid for with “K-ching” which must be bought with real life money. While this undeniably takes points off of the score, you can still enjoy the game without spending a penny so feel free to join up without endangering your wallets safety while also laughing at the people who are willing to give up their hard earned cash to give their avatar a cat hat or something.