Another Nondescript MMO~
I'd just like to start out by making it clear that I am not a fan of point & click MMORPGs, as I call them, but after being invited by Webzen to participate in the open beta test and player survey with a chance of winning an Xbox 360, I thought there'd be no harm in at least seeing what
Archlord X had to offer.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to deliver a full review since my experience with the game lasted no more than fifteen minutes, after which I was inspired to log out and uninstall it for good.
Starting out with character customization, Archlord X offers two races, each having three different classes to choose from (the classes are gender locked).
Cosmetic choices are decent, though perhaps not up to par with many recent MMOs.
Once ready to get into the game, you're plopped into a dark gritty castle, but soon find that it's not just the castle that looks gritty. Almost everything in this game, including the outside world, looks dark, dirty, and drab. However, light sources and object points that reflect light are bright enough to burn holes in your screen.
Okay, so the looks aren't that hot, but what really counts is the gameplay, right? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you're not going to find much relief in that department either. Aside from being a typical cookie cutter point & click MMORPG, the game is jittery and slow-paced. At first I thought the jittering may have been caused by some kind of graphical (as ugly as it is) or connective issue, but no. Even with the graphic quality set to low, the game was just as shaky, which lead me to believe that it either suffers from inefficiency or server instability. The slow-paced gameplay may have been forgivable if there had at least been some decent scenery to admire along the way.
Combat was, again, rather slow, not to mention the fact that it often felt like a game of spot-the-enemy-blob-in-a-world-of-blobs.
In short, to me, Archlord X was a very unpleasant experience, but I'm sure there are some out there that would love to disagree (there usually are).
Seeing as the original Archlord actually looks like a better game, and Webzen will soon be releasing Continent of the Ninth Seal to a global audience, there doesn't seem much point in the release of this title, but I sincerely hope it improves for the sake of its development team and unfortunate player base.
