Rho's Reviews: Aika~

I WANT THE LAST HOUR OF MY LIFE BACK.
(It's a working title; may or may not change.)

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I was considering writing some kind of proper review with an "overall" and "breakdowns"...and then I realized that it does not deserve one.

First impression:
I tried to make a character, but it rejected my name (Rho).
Why? Apparently HO is a bad word, and therefore is not allowed in your name. However, afterward, I'm allowed to say "ho" as many times as I want, in chat.

The characters in this game are gender-locked, which means that each class can only be one gender. What can you customize on them? 5 hair styles, 5 hair colors, 5 faces - none of which look satisfactory to me.

Screenshot for no reason:


Side Note #1 In the above screen, you see my starting "nuke", which is a DoT that does like 30-something and then DoTs for 5dmg/3sec. But, note that although cast time is instant, the non-interrupt casting animation takes longer than just normally shooting the mob 4~5 times for 10+ each hit. Of course, you can pour points into it to make it better, but thought I would share anyway.

Side Note #2 That distance I'm shooting that boar at? That's pretty much the maximum distance of my GUNS. I'll let that sink in.
one mississippi~
two mississippi~

Anyway!

I can't quite put my finger on it, but, for some reason, this game reminds me of those crappy 10-year-old RPGs. Everything just feels stale; they wanted to be smooth like Guild Wars but ended up feeling like a bag of bricks fished out of the dirty DnD pond.

Side Note #3 You can't see buffs and debuffs on the enemies; actually, you can't see buffs or debuffs on you either. wtf? lol Unless my Fast Step or whatever (it dodges the next incoming attack) is not a buff.

The game is not very friendly overall. You can't rebind keys, apparently; if you can, it's not in the keyboard settings menu. lolz

Talking to the NPCs is a pain in the ass. Instead of just giving you the generic garbage single-screen quests (like, "Bring me 5 rabbit spleens so I can shove it up my ass,") it has an interactive way where we exchange sentences and have a conversation for a more RPG feel. Honestly, I'm not playing MMOs for the story; if I want to participate in this story, I'll go download ME2. I thank the devs for giving me a "skip" option.

The graphics is decent; the interface annoys me - again, because it reminds me of old school RPGs (not the good kind). But, I mean, if you're playing games for the graphics...wtf are you doing here?

It feels like I'm walking around with Easy Mode on all the time. You double-click a mob and auto-attack it to death, occasionally skilling because you remember that you can and also occasionally potting because the mobs finally whittled you down enough for one (there's a 4~5 second cooldown on pots).

Customization!

There is SO little customization in this game that it hurts. I already mentioned the gender-locking. Well, you also only have one set of weapons and armours as well.

Skills come at specific levels and at specific intervals; considering that you have some 50 levels to gain and only 4 tiers of 3~4 skills, I doubt there's going to be much diversity in build later on.

Where the hell are my stats? Is this another game where I don't have stats?

One of the major selling pitches of this game (and I'm purposely not giving it much space on the page) is the PRAN system, which I believe stands for Pedophiles R All Nasty, but I could be wrong; we shall see. I digress. The Pedo (re: PRAN) System basically gives you a little girl that follows you around. (There are 3 types, shortened to offense-, defense-, and evasion-oriented). They give you certain bonuses and eat your food. Their Number One attraction is the random comments that they make to everything, such as, "Oh, Master, your sword is HUGE," and, "I can't fit all that in my mouth, Master [><]." They went as far as to have dubbed it in English. I would say from here on out to use your imagination - but, sadly, not much is left to it.

Side Note #4
Apparently, there won't be any cash shop outfits, either. The reason for this is because, in M4SSIV3 N4TI0N W4Rz, there will be too many people and if everyone looked different, it will lag too much...so...everyone will wear the same gear and spam the same skills... I dunno about everyone else, but I've seen Lord of the Rings; the generic-looking guys always die. Meh~ Maybe it's a Korean thing. (Aaro Note~ : Offense taken, Rho, offense taken.)

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Closing comments:
Overall, this game is just a stripped down version of all the bad formulas of the past, with less mechanics and customization, and not-so-secret selling of sex. (You know, kind of like Disney.)

Please, if you respect yourself as a person, DON'T PLAY THIS GAME!
I didn't pay for it, and I STILL feel like I deserve a refund.


~*+ Rho