Why Vindictus Will Destroy the Genre of MMORPG’s

That’s right, everyone – I AM STILL ALIVE! [Insert Portal reference here]

Now that we’ve gotten updates out of the way, I’m going to explain why Vindictus is the best MMORPG ever and will inevitably destroy the entire MMORPG market. This will be a long article, in order to make up for lost time and adequately explain why this game is so win. Let’s start out with a default review even though the game is, at this point, old news.

Story – 4/5

Vindictus is a prequel to the story of Mabinogi. In Mabinogi, the setting is Erinn, the land of paradise. In Vindictus, the setting is…some place (hence the 1 lost point in story) and the human race (or at least everyone in the game) is trying to reach that land of paradise. The Goddess Morrighan promised the human race that if they killed every last Fomor (covenant of various races) in the world they would be brought to Erinn, the land of paradise. It is up to the Oracles (an indeterminate number of people who can communicate with divinity) to keep themselves and their race safe in order to keep contact with the Goddess. Honestly, I think it’s just the church’s way of exterminating Fomor, but it’s because of a story which makes the player question the truth that this category gets its score.

The player begins as a mercenary in the Crimson Blades group. In the first mission the player saves the oracle Tieve and is instantly appreciated/loved/hated by the other mercenaries. As the game progresses, the player gets to become more and more important to the central plot, and as far as current English content allows the player can become a captain of the royal army.

There are a lot of side quests which develop each NPC’s story. Unlike a lot of other MMO’s, Vindictus hosts only a handful of NPC’s, and most of them have stories to learn about. Also unlike other games, the NPC’s interact with each other during quest chatter, making the text an actual enjoyable read.

Gameplay – 5/5

The gameplay of Vindictus is incredibly entertaining and, although repetitive, it doesn’t seem to falter over time. Vindictus is an action-based MMORPG, and its physics system is Valve’s Source engine. Despite many small physics glitches, the game is very realistic with object, enemy, and player movements. Hitboxes are evidently used but are for the most part of correct size and shape, and the game hosts three (soon to be four!) very different characters which allow for constant enjoyable gameplay.

Players are able to fight enemies with just about anything – objects, pieces of the map, enemy weapons, enemy corpses – and everyone but the mage class can grab enemies and do stuff like break spines, throw enemies into other enemies, and push victims off ledges to their doom. The character that will be out on June 15th can even grab boss monsters.

Each character involves the use of very different playing styles. Fiona, the user of weapon and shield, acts as a tank, requiring the player to decide how long to attack before having to use the shield to block, counter-attack, or become an immovable force of invulnerability. Fiona can use a sword or hammer as a weapon, and a shield or “large shield” as an off-hand. Each weapon and shield has its own uses that I won’t go into detail here. The second character, Lann, uses dual-weapons to deal immense damage to enemies. Lann can use dual swords or spears (which are actually thrusting swords, not spears), and is well known for using spears for spin2win. The third character, Evie, acts as the mage and wields either a staff or scythe. The two weapons function very differently, but in essence a staff Evie is a destruction mage while a scythe Evie is a necromancer. Again, each weapon serves its own purpose for battle. The game has PvP although I find it unbalanced and not worth my time (although i feel that way about most PvP settings).

The game offers rewards for getting farther through the game, unlike most MMO’s which simply offer more content and more generic abilities. Yes, Vindictus offers more abilities as you level, but rather than giving a bunch of damage numbers to crunch across a million similar skills, the game grants abilities that attack in certain ways and are used in combination to combat in different manners. Like Mabinogi, Vindictus’s skills are more situational rather than damage-dealing combos. Unlike Mabinogi, though, the combat in this game is much more fast paced and characters don’t die in one hit from (most) enemies. More of Vindictus’s rewards include actually entertaining plot progression and content that actually improves as characters go through it, unlike most MMO’s which offer crappier content as the story progresses.

Like some other MMO’s, the economy is player-based and is regulated purely by supply and demand. One player puts a item on the market for a price, and if no one buys the item then they are naturally beaten by another player selling the same item for less. This makes common items cheap and rare items expensive. The economy isn’t as successful in America, though, because Americans are lazy and would rather pay half of their money for one item rather than run a ten minute mission to get it themselves.

Sound – 4/5

The PC’s have sounds when they fight, the monsters roar and screech at you, stuff explodes with decent quality, but the music is only average. I have heard, however, that NPC’s have their own voices in Korea now, so maybe we can look forward to that.

Control – 5/5

The game primarily uses keyboard and mouse to play the game. Your keyboard is used to move and use items, while the mouse is used to look and attack in various ways. The mouse is a two-layer system: In battle, the mouse turns the screen when moved. The user can then hit the ESC key to show the cursor and moving the mouse will move the cursor around the screen. One more hit of ESC and the mouse is back to battle-mode.

For players who hate their mouse for some reason, there is also a full keyboard mode. All keys are customizable and there are toggle options for auto-aim, attacking forward, and other shortcuts.

Replay Value – 5/5

This game has amazing replay value, especially if the player knows what content is ahead of them. With every new episode released, the game seems to get better and better. The dungeons become more complex and entertaining. The monsters become more interesting and variant. The bosses become more awesome.

Overall – 10/10

“Ten out of ten!? But the category scores aren’t perfect!” EAT ME. This game is pure win. I was in love with Mabinogi and when devCat made me ragequit I thought I would hate devCat forever. I love devCat. devCat, thank you for making this game. I heart you. Love, fanboy.

If you are a gamer and have a computer that is halfway decent unlike my sister’s, I implore you to try this game. Even if you don’t like it for some crazy reason, you will have experienced a game unlike any other MMO. It really opens your mind to the possibilities of multiplayer gaming. New content comes out June 15th, so if your excuse is that you hate looking like a noob then you can use the new character when it comes out.

So why is this game so detrimental to MMORPG’s?

You might be sitting there surprised that I didn’t attribute this armageddon to a terrible game. Well, think about this: If a really, really bad game came out, no one would really notice it and therefore no real harm would be done. In fact, some really, really bad MMORPG’s have come out already (Tibia [I was really tempted to put WoW here but I’m being serious]). This game, however, is just too incredible for other MMO’s to handle. Let’s take a look as to how this can be.

1) The Graphics outshine any Free-to-Play MMORPG.

There is a reason why I don’t count graphics as a category in my reviews. The reason is that graphics are not important. However, having good graphics is pretty sweet, and Vindictus basically takes the graphics bar for MMO’s and puts it through the ceiling. Players will never again be impressed with an MMORPG’s graphics. Ever. Go ahead and make an MMO that looks like The Elder Scrolls V, no one will care because we already have this.

And that’s resized-quality, too.

2) Vindictus can be played for 15 minutes or for an entire day.

Games nowadays seem to be either stressing the idea that you have to play for a long time to get anywhere or are punishing gamers for playing too long. Some games even prevent players from playing for an extended time. Vindictus used to use a token system to limit players for the sake of economy, but the limit was raised so high it didn’t really limit anymore and now the system is removed completely. A player can log on and do a mission for 15 minutes or can constantly run missions all day. Players who are of a higher level are indeed much stronger, but there are no centralized community events which make weaker players feel worthless. Each mission has a level requirement and new missions are always readily available all the way until the end of released content, so everyone is and feels important to the success of the mission, even if you’re a level 10 running with a level 70.

3) Vindictus uses sex advertising as a double-advantage.

Vindictus is able to shamelessly place females in “plate” armor which shows cleavage, legs, and panties, but at the same time makes fun of itself for doing it. People love it when others make fun of the norm (and sex advertising is a norm now) and other people like to see almost-naked women. Vindictus can attract both crowds without either one feeling bad about playing the game. How is this accomplished, you ask? Players cannot choose their gender. You might be thinking that this would be a negative for a game this good, but think about it: Why feel ashamed of using a barely-dressed sexy lady if you don’t really have a choice?

4) Vindictus makes Nexon money without game-breaking cash shop items.

Although some newer items are offering some added character potential, players cannot purchase items that would completely destroy free-playing characters in PvP. Instead, Vindictus uses genre-dooming reason number 3 (see above) to make its money. Players can buy “inner armor” for their characters which offer slight bonuses to item drops (via a luck stat) and makes the characters look a LOT better. The basic inner armor for all characters looks stupid, but for a one-time purchase totaling fifteen bucks you can have whatever undies/hair/makeup you want for your character. There are also cash shop items for auto-reviving in battle, insta-health potions, and more recently dye for your equipment. The game stays well-balanced with these available items and I am sure Nexon makes a LOT of money off of sexy undies. As a result of this phenomenon, we move to number 5.

5) Playing for free does not yield insane difficulty.

Even Mabinogi, my previous game-love, could not achieve this. Players who play for free can enjoy the game just as well as anyone who pays. Yes, those who pay do get the advantage of extra-lives and instant potions, but the game’s difficulty is catered to the free player, not the player who buys their way through games. I have only purchased revives a few times in all my time playing this game, and it was because my party of eight was incredibly retarded on a very long and hard mission that I just didn’t want to have to do over.

In a word, Vindictus will be the death of the MMORPG genre because it’s too damn good. Well, I should say that it would be the death of MMORPG’s. You see, people are stupid, and therefore don’t do their research into games. If they don’t do their research into Vindictus, they have prejudgements and may not like it. If they don’t play it, they miss out on the PURE WIN and go off to play WoW or some shit. Therefore, the only reason bad MMORPG’s still come out is because of stupid people. Add that onto the long list of reasons to eliminate the stupid.