Vindictus/Mabinogi Heroes (1st review)

Here is my first review, Beginning with a game Supported by Nexon, Vindictus. 

This is probably the first game that made me wish other games had an overkill counter.

In this game you start out with 4 different classes, warrior, shielder, mage and tank  but you will notice there is a 5th one that is soon to come, from the looks of it, it could be an archer class(hinting: the arrows on their back). 

The classes are gender locked because the game plays by a story using specified characters, but when in game, it doesn't seem like anybody looks the same at all, why? Because i found it quite ingenious that the makers of the game decided to put together a very thorough character creation area. You can customize your character only on hair, eyes and skin color, height and for the ladies breast size, and trust me the way it is done, you don't really need to have a face change option. Within the character creation you would see a few extra styles, but those are some of the NX cash(items that need real money to purchase).

As you can see here in this video

The game starts you off into an immediate tutorial with a choice of skipping it of course, but i found that it had a very fancy cut scene and  a boss fight. The game offers two different styles of aiming and adjusting with your camera, using your mouse or your arrow keys, i actually preferred using the mouse but you are able to adjust the speed in which the camera would move, and so far the in game camera has never had any of those stupid little glitches or suddenly flinching when you turn a corner. In the tutorial you can easily notice that the enemy wont fight back, but instead let you beat their faces in to get the feeling of the controls. W,A,S,D are your movement keys and for me left clicking was my kick butt button with right clicking  to do some heavy hitting.

After the tutorial you are instantly sent to town where you actually set your character's name for the first time and get known as "the person who climbed the bell tower." You are sent on some immediate quest to get the feeling of how to do certain things, like equipping items, learning new skills, upgrading skills, crafting, fishing and also a title system. Now i usually hate games that have skill leveling separate from normal leveling but in this case it was something totally unexpected, where your skill points are given to you by the dungeon you have completed, upgrading skill points may seem a little expensive at first but you would soon notice that is actually easier than it seems.

Now for some actual getting into dungeons, you have your normal, hard and hero mode (hero mode is only limited to characters who are at least level 50) and they also have "oath objectives" that have specific objectives to complete while in the dungeon like "complete with 3 or less players" or "complete with out healing yourself" which actually changes the path of the dungeon and even the monsters your encounter, and doing these good to get more points and more exp. Right before you enter your dungeons you would notice that you are on a boat, which is a very fun waiting room to wait for other players or invite friends where you can destroy everything, take your anger out on some boxes, or that picture of a duck that quacks every time you hit it.

When you begin a dungeon you will have a very straight forward path, and i isn't as bland as it sounds, the terrain is well done and the interaction with the environment is superb, being able to knock down a pillar and the pick up the rocks and throw them at your enemy can be quite fun. Now i wondered why there should be a stamina bar, but i soon realized how unfair it would be to your enemies if you can act like some unstoppable monstrous killer to them. Your stamina bar is taken up by almost everything except by taking potions and walking, standing in one place make it regain faster, but you do need that bar to be able to throw, block, dodge, attack and even move because once that hits 0 your character is stunned for about 2-3 seconds, which is a wider opening than you think for enemies to get their revenge. The bosses in the game are super challenging since they don't get knocked backed but get stunned instead by continuous bashing with the heavy attacks or by using special items like spears and chains that slow the boss down, the game actually makes you attempt to find a way to weaken or stun the boss before doing some heavy hitting but it doesn't really stop you from jumping in like a maniac and slash every where till they die, its just harder if you do it like that.

Now here is the part i found most amazing about the game, the clothing, almost limitless attire at your disposal, but all you need is to get the material.

Where? by ripping it off the dead remains of your fallen foes of course duh! But in all honesty the clothes in the game that you craft yourself or sow for yourself seemed like something you would pay real money to buy, but to my surprise, you actually make almost all of it, and if you can't find it, just buy it from the market place, because so far the only un-tradeable items i have seen in this game is the underwear, meaning just get to the right level, fix up your skills, save up some gold and start making that sexy outfit.

Quest in the game are simple and straight forward you practically instantly reach level 5with no problem, most quest are mostly the usual "kill this" or/and "collect that," most of the collectable items are buy-able since they are not those quest only items that are soul linked to your character (which is annoying when they take up space in your inventory), the game makes you feel that quest are necessary to level up since monsters do not give that much exp but actually give you the choice still of going around and killing everything over and over again.

Criticism: Despite the excellency of the game, it still has its flaws, during some cut scenes, many things seemed a bit off, like the first one in the tutorial, the giant spider was climbing in mid-air, which did scare me for a bit believing, that the boss transformed into some kind of flying/levitating creature. One thing i never liked for playing an online game is paying for items to get better in the game, especially if the items are limited time, the game does offer some permanent items but they always come out almost 3 times the amount of the item that will last 1 month unless you're planing on trying to be super pro in this game. Other problems in the game are some interaction get a little two off balanced that the AI wont respond properly in some situations, like in one of the dungeons i would stand  almost in front of the enemy and it never reacted until i killed it. Also there was one point when i threw the enemy into a pile of boxes and finished it off with a swift kick to the face, the item melted into the floor and i was not able to pick it up.

Now would i recommend playing this game? Only if your not afraid of blood - the game is really fun and a heck of an attention grabber. Its fun, simple, and would keep you interested in more to come.