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Review by vincent_valentine
March 20, 2004
RO has its good and bad points. However, it’s hard for most people to determine which are the pros and which are the cons. Here’s the best review I can give of the game, and it isn’t the easiest game to review, as it’s incredibly unique; Even though it’s also incredibly simple.
For one, there’s the graphics. Here, it’s all up to personal preference. It’s really hard to determine wether this is a pro or a con, as it’s pretty much like the old Cel-Shading argument. Ragnarok utilizes a vibrant, colorful, full three-dimensional world and compliments it nicely with two-dimensional sprites for players, NPCs and monsters. This may not appeal to all audiences, but it accomplishes exactly what the developers were looking for; A colorful world that can be happy and cute, or morbid and dark in an anime-esque atmosphere. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy Ragnarok’s graphics, and I’m highly impressed with the way they chose to do it. It’s something you don’t see often, and it works out quite well. My only beef is that all of the character sprites look the same for each class. It’s very difficult to spot someone you know, as the outfit you wear is determined by your class. You’re only able to customize your look by choosing a hairstyle and color, and upper, middle and lower items to wear on your head, face and mouth.
The music is definitely a Pro, and there aren’t many people out there that can stand there with a straight face and call it a con. The music is absolutely wonderful, bringing a nice air and atmosphere to all the zones you enter. If you enter an open field, you’ll hear music that’s upbeat and happy, so to speak. If you enter a dark, morbid zone such as the fallen church, the dark and gloomy music sets the mood precisely how it should be. As well as having the music work well with the zones they’re assigned to, they’re also incredibly well done. All of the music in RO is done by Sound TeMP, and I’m highly impressed with their work.
The sound itself, however, is another matter entirely. There’s not a large variation of sound in the game, except for a monster’s standing idle sounds or it’s death sound. The impact sound of a sword sounds the same for all swords, be they gigantic claymores or tiny rapiers. The whiff of a sword swinging through the air sounds exactly the same as a wand or knife cutting through the air. A giant axe sounds the same as it hits it’s target as a large mallet. There should be a much larger variation here. Hell, the sound of a magical firebolt hitting an enemy sounds pretty close to a sword hitting that same enemy. Definitely a con.
The combat system is as simple as it gets, folks. If you’re an archer or swordsman, you hold control and click an enemy, and the game does the rest of the work for you. It automatically swings until you click to move away or the monster dies. The attack animation is also exactly the same for every swing you do, unless you switch to a different weapon. Casting a spell is the result of pressing a hotkey, clicking a monster, waiting for your cast time to run down, and repeating the process. A swordsman activating a skill works the same way as a mage casting a spell. This is nothing new, and is incredibly boring. Welcome to Diablo, the next generation.
The leveling system is a joy I cannot express with meager human words. It’s also divided into multiple sections, so I’ll cover them here in different parts.
First is an actual level up. When you level, you receive a set amount of status points based on your level, that you’re able to assign to your various statistics (Such as Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and the like) to permanently raise them. This makes it very easy to customize the character you like to your play style, and while most people follow a set build for their character, you can stray and make a very unique character based on the statistics you choose. Each and every stat point also has a very significant change on your character, and this is something that only Ragnarok seems to have achieved. Basically, in every other MMORPG I’ve ever played, it takes a raise of 10-15…Hell, even 20 stat points to really see a difference. With Ragnarok, one single point can have a significant effect on your character, and this is something that all developers need to take note of. Every single level in Ragnarok feels important, and it’s far different than other games such as EverQuest where it only feels like every 10 or more levels is the only time you feel a significant change.
Aside from normal level ups (which give the aforementioned Status points), you also receive Job level ups, which I will touch on after this. When you achieve a job level up, you’re given a skill point to assign to a skill or spell. This adds a further ability to customize your character to your own liking, as well as letting you choose where you want to hunt. If you pick a mage for example and you like desert-like environments, you can choose Ice spells that affect the fire-element monsters that dwell in the heat of the desert. If you like grassy, open plains, you can choose fire skills to burn the earth-element monsters that dwell in these areas. One of the greatest things, however, is that absolutely no skill ever becomes obsolete. That fire bolt skill you got and raised in ranks at level 10 is still very, very useful at level 80. They accomplish this by giving all skills very defining strengths and weaknesses, and allowing spells to get stronger as you get stronger or assign more skill points to a skill.
The Class system in Ragnarok is also very unique at the time it was created, but is starting to become a bit more popular in recent releases and upcoming MMORPGs. You start off as a Novice, a beginner character, and raise Job levels. Once your job level reaches a certain amount, ten out of ten for a Novice, you can change to a second class, including but not limited to Swordsman, Acolyte or Thief. Your job level reverts back to Zero, and you start leveling again. Once you reach the level you’d like (40 is the minimal, but you’re allowed to go to a max of 50 to get 10 extra skill points.), you’re able to change to one of two different classes depending on your first choice. For a Swordsman, you’re able to change to a Knight or a Crusader, two classes which are similar to a swordsman, but differ GREATLY from one another, or an Acolyte to a Priest or a Monk. Priests are support based, Monks are Offensive based characters. As you can tell, the unique customization of characters plays a very vital role here, as you’re now able to define your class even more to your liking. The skills you earned as your first class, the acolyte, swordsman or whatever, also carry over to your second class, allowing you a very large choice of skills.
Phew, that was long. Moving on.
The quest system in Ragnarok is, if you’ll pardon my language, absolute horse shit. Basically, you walk up to an NPC, click on them, click pre-set choices, and they give you absolutely ridiculous requests to get the item you want. For example, to get a Heart Hairpin, you have to find ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED pieces of Coral. Yes, you read correctly, 1200 pieces of coral for a hairpin. The quests are absolutely ridiculous, and desperately need to be thought out better.
The Crafting system is also, pardoning my language, absolute horse shit. Only the Blacksmith class (One of the second job classes for Merchants) can craft items, and the crafting recipes are utterly ridiculous. You need SIXTY large plates of steel to craft a TINY FRIGGIN’ KNIFE. And ONE piece of steel with 8 pieces of an ore to craft a giant two handed sword. What were the developers smoking when they thought these recipes up?!
Even with it’s great character customization and wonderful leveling system, Ragnarok falls short of almost all other MMORPGs because of the lack of things to do, and it’s very uninvolved battle system. How unfortunate it is that those two great things are wasted on a game where your main goal is going to be getting hats. No, I’m not making that up, you’ll really end up spending all your time looking for hats.
If you don’t have friends to play Ragnarok with you, prepare to be bored out of your skull.
Rating: 6/10
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Most recent video game reviews written by vincent_valentine
Samurai Shodown V (Arcade) [March 22, 2004]
Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Arcade) [February 11, 2004]
Namco Museum (PlayStation 2) [March 24, 2003]
Dark Cloud (PlayStation 2) [March 24, 2003]
Devil May Cry 2 (PlayStation 2) [March 21, 2003]
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