Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Underappreciated"

I will go with a Pro/Likes vs Cons/Needs improvement format. And you may see pro/cons under the same aspect of the game. I have 18h into gameplay:

LIKES.

- Wide selection of inventory/character build: The game offers quite a NICE selection of abilities (spear/bow/magic/elemental magic/sword/axe..) to build, as well a really nice selection of different weapons, armors.. to equip. And give you the change to enhance and combine weapons using differents materias found trought out the game. I should point that some people do not like the system to build your character, I have no found any inconvinient on it; I think is simple to use, you can change between characters easy to build them or equip.

You also have your Knigh, which it seems you can customize as well (no sure about this yet)

- Gameplay: The game was announce as a "fantasy role-playing", for some reason GS decided to put this game as "action RPG" so before you go into this game you have to know: this game is NOT a action/real-time RPG. The mechamism of the battle works as a turn-based game in the sense that you can not do button mashing, you have to wait a bit for your turn, on this game represented by waiting for your action circle to fill. The enemies also attacks you, and like in any turn-based RPG, you getting hit or no is RANDOM and/or based on you agility/build of the character.

Once you know this, and you know what you are going to be playing: the gameplay is exactly what you expect.

Running the fields exploring and looking for treasures and lvling up is fun.The world is big, you have a mini-map on your screen and the option to open the full map by select, zoom-in and zoom-out function would have be a nice addition.

You move in party of 3, you can change the members of your party at ease (so far i have 5 ppl to change in between)

Battle system is easy to learn. You select from your skills which one you want to command and put them in the "commads slots", and fighting as the white knight is also quite a nice addition, where you have to choose if you wants to save your points for special attacks or to transform into the Knight.

Even thus the battles could be harder, it required for you to set your party in a way that will help you survive. I tried going for a "troll" early in the game and playing with magic as main, well it did not go to well.

Leght: The game so far have gave me 18h. I have play mainly the story and do treasure hunting/exploring. I played 2 online quest and have just build 1 house and 4 jobs; recruited about 5 ppl for my Georama. So I have MUCH more to do. I did heard/read the game can be passed in 20h, but i can not imaging how.

- Online: OMG online. You have something called GEORAMA where you can build a town. The houses, which can be bough online (real money), can also be BUILD in the game. You build them with materials that you collect in the story mode, and you pay gold to do so.

You no just build the houses, job places, accesories/decorations, but you also get to RECRUIT people from differents towns and place them in the house/job place that you like. And different combination would give you different stats, and also by doing this you get materials. e.g. having miners in your GEORAMA can get you stones to build more or enhance your weapons/armor...

In your Georama is where you meet others to start the quest online. The quest so far are fun, great co-op gameplay and great way for leveling up and looking for treasures.

GEONET, which is the online system overall have forums, you can see rooms (georamas is present of others) and so on... You can create your quest (quest are bought on the story mode) or you can join one quest bought/created by others players. you have the option of either joining just friends, players with similar lvl or anyone/everyone.

- Graphics/enviroment/animation. WKC has beautiful fields, the enemies and yourself move smoothly. All cutscene would show the armors that you have equiped. Framerate (to my eyes) move without any problem. Thus I ahve read online that the game have freezed to some people (I have 18h into the game and so far so good)

- Sound/Music: great selection of tunes, that macth beautifully the envirment. No much to say here.


NEEDS IMPROVEMENTS

- GAmeplay: The game is quite straighforward, you can choose to just go to where you HAVE to. Even thus it is nice, and may be appreciated by some people to have a START pointing where you have to go, I think that RPG are ment for you to find out, talk with villagers so that they give you clues as what to do. If not, like happens here, you do not feel as motivated to talk with them.

Even thus the "build system" was fine with me, I did have a issue with the items/equip screen. For some reason giving items/equip to your party can be hassle, maybe including an option of "give" in the equip screen would have be nice; or just a fussion of the items/equip screen.

The battle system even thus good, I would have add a way to make the party prioritize the attacks. You can put all the commands in a raw and they would use mainly these, but they would not use them in the order that you have put them. which can be sometimes frustated. That said they are really good following the "tactics" so if you put "att regardless of MP/AC" they would use combos, powerfull magic attack and so...

Also I think that changing in between characters during battles has to many steps, which make it harder and almost pointless to even try.


AI: a little "smarter" AI for your enemies and sometimes you party would have be nice. Mainly battling bosses can get too easy. I have just die 2 times. But neverless if I did not had one of my members focus on healing I would have die more.


- Camera: can jump around or get behind you head sometimes which can damage or affect the battles.

- Story: I can not comment much on this one without spoiling it for you. But so far is a typical, generic RPG story: war, princess, heroes. I have not finish the game, but I heard it has a few twists. But the story is not told in a smart way, with about everything so far being predicted and I`m sure I can tell who is going to be "bad" in the cutscene to come.

LETS BE PICKY, lets mention these points just becasue I may be easier that others to please :P

- Load time and specially saving screen, can easily take 30-45sec.

- Your avatar, even thus part of the game and your party, is not actually part of the story. He/She was made to be your online player, but is not the focus of the story on the game. And so far it has had no lines/role on it.

- Re-play value: As far as I Know, except for starting the game with the chance of re-builing you character playing the game a second time do not give you anything extra. So playing this game over and over, unless they add DLC-quest I do not see much replaying.

- Throphies. I`m not a throphie lover, I`m old-school so i play for playing. I have no idea how many throphies, how hard/easy to get them. I do can say that apparentely (for what a friend-thorphie lover told me) the GEORAMA has NO effect on this.

MY SCORE: 7.5

I will no give this game a 9 like some who wants to support the game are. But nor I will give it a 5-6. For me gameinformer was actually quite fair with the score.

A game that can give me so many hours of FUN gameplay and still have me excited is a GOOD game.

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Well.. I hope this helps..If I missed touching an point about the game or you have any questions, feel free to go to the blog about this in my profile and ask.

enjoy..

chang