Vindictus

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WORDPRESS VERSION: link

inb4newbies.

Sorry, just had to get that out of the way. This will be one of my more complete blogs for a while, it's not too long I hope, and this one won't get deleted, regardless of how many 'likes'. -facepalm-

Alright, so, what's the topic at hand? Vindictus. Yeah, Nexon publishes it, shoot me. DevCat remains the developer (carried over from Mabinogi), and it uses the Source Engine, which is a bonus. It IS outdated according to those jaded critics, but so what? Some of the best online games are coded with it.

First Impressions
The download and installation was a breeze, unlike MapleStory, which effs you in the rear a couple of times before it can run without crashing. The game, in one word, is beautiful above average. It's nothing breathtaking, but it is VERY nice to look at. I didn't crash the entire time I played the game, so that was a bonus. -thumbs up- However, other people weren't so fortunate. I assume that they had some sort of euh, fail @ Nexon HQ. If your account wasn't above the age of 18, you couldn't play properly/AKA can't go on the boat (more on this later).

tl;dr
Vindictus is good.

Read on for the full effect – WARNING, INCLUDES SPOILERS
Vindictus is sort of like, in my opinion, a cross between Mabinogi, Dungeon Fighter Online, and just utter brutality. There is a lot of violence in this game, and by a lot, I mean, A LOT. In the first cinematic/cutscene, we see soldiers and ballistas hunting down the town protector, now gone rogue – a big ass arachnid, or a frigging:

Yeah. A tarantula. You really have to wonder. 1) Why the hell is a spider climbing a belltower? 2) Why the hell is a f@$%ing tarantula the town PROTECTOR?

Anyways, depending on which character you choose, which (for now anyways) can either be Lann (male dual blade adventurer) or Fiona (sword & shield female adventurer), you get the same cutscene. You are a rookie in a squad trying to kill that particular icky spider. However, there's this Oracle (short, blonde chick, blue eyes, SUPER-Drama Queen) that tries to stop you guys from massacring the thing, so the captain decides to go in and escort the Oracle to the spider in the attempt to calm it down. Yeah, calm down a spider definitely on rage. Great idea.

After that weird intro, you guys go in this Bell Tower that the big ass spider is climbing, and your team gets immediately ambushed by these Fomors (very cliche, right after the captain was all like, hurr I found this weird skull on the ground guize), which are basically Werewolves with either swords or bows. The archers takes out the entire team except you and the Oracle (HMM I WONDER WHY) and then proceeds to run away (wtf). You, the lucky bastard remaining, get to ESCORT THE ORACLE by yourself to the top of the tower!

After 4 painstakingly lame floors of weak monsters with AI so bad that they stand next to you while you pummel them, you reach the giant spider, and an epic boss fight ensues. BUT GOOD SIR, IS THE BOSS HARD?

No. The boss has two attacks. One makes you dizzy (which really doesn't affect anything except graphics wise), the other is basically a leap towards you that kinda reminds me of rape. But that's just me.

Anyway – after the "epic" boss fight, the spider scurries even higher… and the Ballistic missiles arrows start firing. About a dozen arrows (fired from giant crossbows) pierce the thing's gut, blood is everywhere on the screen, the spider drops down, and just when you think the blood can't come faster, the fucking bell from the belltower drops on it and literally a TORRENT of blood comes out. Talk about unnecessary gore. >.>;

The oracle then suddenly wakes up as if having an epiphany, and becomes a total drama llama. She starts crying and saying sorry and spewing basically a load of bull while you stand there watching with a smirk on your face. ^o^

After some opening CREDITS (cutscene) where we see all the developers (90% korean names), we proceed to the "main" game. NPC interactions are VERY streamlined – I like it A LOT. Instead of talking to some nub in front of you, there's only the text dialogue with a nice soothing background and music. Mui cool.

Your first mission is of course to train, so this is the part where people 18 under get stuck. >: Anyways, you proceed and you're like, all pro and stuff. So you take the boat, which is basically like a dungeon entrance. Every mission is composed of [stages]. A stage has several parts to it, but usually there's only one part for the easier missions. Each stage has an end-boss, like DFO, and once you kill it, you get EXP and rewards.

I do like the combat system – it's very streamlined and you can throw/destroy a LOT of the environment, not as much as games like Red Faction, but still a decent amount. Looting is an absolute royal pain in the rear – monsters drop these black orbs, which you then have to "loot" out from. The first time, it's really cool when you see your character literally ripping out the black orb, but after a while, it gets old fast.

Anyways, I only got to the first stage and finished it. The end boss was a wooden animated lion-esque create. Pwned it with no difficulty on both characters.

The game reminds me of Aika online – the inventory works the same way, and some of the interfaces reminds me of Aika as well, but overall, it's very much like a 3d version of DFO. Not that I'm complaining – DFO is among my favorite MMORPGs.

The game is still buggy, to be expected from a closed beta testing.

Now, on to the finer aspects of the game.

The finer aspects
As mentioned earlier, Lann is literally your typical warrior. He has two swords. Normal attacks involves him slashing wildly ahead, and his special attacks (without any learned skills) is this dual blade slice action. He also has this skill where he latches onto other monsters, then kicks in their gut, immediately killing them.

Fiona is sort of different. She has a shield, so she's able to bash monsters with said shield. The two aren't that different in terms of game-play yet.

I also don't think you can really hack this game properly, but I'm probably wrong. You have HP and Stamina, which is basically like MP, but recharges. Every time you sprint, it costs stamina, and every time you use skills/attack/pick up/throw you use stamina. Stamina recharges pretty fast, but a lot of the time once you're out, you have to run around like an idiot waiting for it to recharge. >.>

The other weird aspect, added in for realism, are potions. You have to stand still while drinking potions, otherwise you only absorb about 10% of its effect. Personally, I find this annoying, since in most games they just recover the whole thing. No doubt cash shop items will have potions that are "magical". >.>

There aren't any cash shop items yet, which is quite expected. I think that's about all I can cover for the finer aspects.

Let-downs
Ah, yes, the let-downs. Well, my first and most major gripe is the ability, or inability, to jump. This annoys me to no end – why the hell isn't there the ability to jump? All source engine games has the proper physics to allow a jump, and yet, DevCat/Nexon decided to replace it with a stupid "dodge." This pisses me off to no end – every single game I played on a computer has jump. If this is supposed to be the future of MMORPGs, WHY THE HELL ISN'T THERE A JUMP FEATURE? Are we all supposed to WALK everywhere? No spam jumping?

The only jump I'm seeing in the game is the jump 'emote' thus confirming that there won't be jump implemented anytime soon. [/rage]

My second gripe are the loading screens. They are understandable, but holy shit there are a lot of them (granted, only at times). Thankfully, there aren't any loading screens while playing, but after you move from a town to a dungeon, etc, that loading screen is just unbearable. C'mon DevCat/Nexon, modern games already got rid of loading screens midgame, why can't you too? >:

And finally – Gender tied classes. I believe that the mage is female exclusive, but that remains to be.. revealed. Anyways, apparently, all classes can do their own thang, but you are gender locked. I really can't give a crap about this, but I'm sure a lot of people won't like it.

Synopsis
Vindictus is good so far, the first impression I've had so far is very good. I'm glad I saved up 330k nx on my other account for this game. 🙂

Hopefully Nexon doesn't ruin it, but until then, yay. 😀

Still processing as of 11:06 PM EST.. >.>