Bumblejinks' Reviews: Age of Conan: Unchained
Battling enemies on unstable ground.
"Difficulty and Challenge". Very few MMORPG's nowadays understand this crucial difference between a game that's difficult and fun, and a game that's just brutally challenging and unfair to play. The Lord of the Rings Online and Toontown Rewritten are prime examples of MMO's that actually manage to get this right without butchering the entire game. Age of Conan: Unchained, on the other hand, fails in this aspect tremendously. It takes a series I've always been rather "on-and-off" about, puts it into the world of an MMO, puts in a ton of neat and interesting features, and then drowns it all in some of the most difficult and frustrating game design I've ever seen for an MMO.
The game begins promisingly enough, with your character apparently dying in a shipwreck shortly after leaving the character creator ( even he/she doesn't want to be in this game ), and then waking up on the shores of a remote island, where the entire first part of the game takes place. As you move about the area, fighting whatever enemies you can see and obtaining what experience/money you can, you'll learn how the games combat system works. Unlike some other MMO's, there is no "Auto-Attack" mode. You have to press keys on your keyboard to specifically attack the enemy, either swinging your weapon left, right, or center. It threw me off my rhythm at first, but after a while, I was able to adjust and really get into the swing of the game. Overall, the intro area did a good job of introducing me to the world of the game, as well as showing me how enemies and even bosses are handled.
...However, it's not during the games tutorial sequence, but rather, after you leave said tutorial sequence, that the problems begin to rear their ugly heads. The enemies in this game are BRUTAL. I'm not even kidding here. If you get mobbed by two or three on-level enemies at once, it's almost guaranteed you're going to lose your life. And if you can't get a grasp on the controls soon enough, the game punishes you for this severely. Beginning at level ten, any time you die, the game places a "tombstone" at the spot where you died, and your given a severe debuff to almost all of your attributes until you are able to return to the spot where you died and remove the tombstone. And sometimes, it's not possible to return to this spot without further endangering yourself ( if at all ). Even worse is that this debuff stacks for every time you die, thus discouraging repeated attempts to get back to the spot where you died and remove the tombstones. More then likely, when this happens, you're going to find yourself sitting around and waiting for the tombstones thirty minute timer to expire, at which point it will disappear and the debuff will be removed. In a game where multiple on-level enemies can easily mop the floor with you, that can get very annoying VERY QUICKLY.
Ah, but the problems don't stop there. I can recall many a time where I tried to pull off a combat combo on a pair of persistent enemies, only for my character to do the wrong attack or do nothing at all. I'm not sure if the combo system is supposed to be the way it is, but it really leaves me baffled as to why it was handled this way at a time when World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online was just perfecting the MMO combat formula. And most of the time, I find the combos don't deal anymore damage then if I was just using my standard attack. I also noticed a little bit of input lag in areas like the volcano area, which has led to me careening right off of a cliff and falling to my doom more then once, when there's really no reason for there to be input lag in the first place. What exactly is the cause? Is it a bug? Is it the games age just catching up with itself? Well, after eight years, I wouldn't be surprised, but still, what the heck is going on here?
It also doesn't help that the games weapons aren't very powerful starting out. I don't care how rusty or dull a blade is, it shouldn't take more then ten blows to bring down an enemy, yet that's often how many it took to take down an enemy. In general, I find the weapons in this game pretty dull and disappointing, especially starting out. There are some cool weapon designs that show up later in the game, but the fact I have to slog through so much garbage to get to them, it makes the entire adventure just not worth it. Also, I exaggerate nothing when I say that game-changing magical weapons and equipment, which WOULD have made the game easier and more tolerable, don't start showing up until AFTER your out of the first major area, and even then, I didn't recall finding much in terms of better equipment. The gear you get from vendors is pure garbage and is replaceable very easily, so I really have to wonder why they couldn't put in nice enemy-dropped equipment to make the game a little easier for first-time players.
The game uses a very Diablo-styled character progression system. Upon leveling up, your given multiple points to spend on upgrading your character, as well as a skill point to spend on upgrading one of your combat abilities. And personally, I think this design is pretty good. I don't know about you, but I always enjoyed seeing my character get stronger and stronger as the game progresses. Even if the enemies always manage to stay one step ahead of me.
I'm not completely sure, but I think the game is meant to be played and completed by a team of companions instead of by a solo character. At least, as far as the daytime areas go. For those who are interested, there are also nighttime areas in which you play completely alone, but the enemies are automatically scaled to your level. While these nighttime areas are nice, and they're excellent for quickly racking up experience against on-level enemies, the fact I can't bring allies into these areas to fight by my side basically kills the one thing they might have had going for them. They are pretty handy to have around in case you need to get away from the hustle and bustle of the daytime areas, but I honestly wouldn't recommend staying here for the entire game. Especially for some of the more difficult dungeons.
That's another issue I'd like to address: The game is not very solo-character friendly, especially during the daytime areas. Something like Lord of the Rings Online can be played and enjoyed by a solo character easily, though the option for multiplayer has always been optional ( for the most part ). In Age of Conan: Unchained, unless you're playing the nighttime areas, I feel it's almost required for you to band together with other players in order to survive. One of the charms of an MMO is that main story content has always been solo-able; You don't have to band together with other people if you don't want to in order to get through the main story. Take this one aspect away, and you've effectively ruined the whole experience. Again, this is only an issue if you're playing the daytime areas exclusively, but sheesh!
Visually, the game looks pretty awesome, especially by today's standards, but I can't help but notice that no one area in the first seven or so hours of the game, with the exception of one area in the tutorial area and the cellar areas, looks visually distinct from each other, which I understand is supposed to reflect the architectural style and culture of the area, especially the Pictish culture, but it really kills the atmosphere for me. To me, in an MMO, every area should look at least somewhat visually distinct from the area that came before it. And while to do to a minor extent, it's not enough to make me remember any of these areas. The game looks great, but I can never remember the layout of this place because everything is just dull and forgettable. The characters and whatnot look nice at the very least, though I couldn't help but notice an occasional hiccup with their animation, especially with the player characters.
As for the audio? Well, I won't lie, I never got far enough into the game to get to it's best musical piece. I was mainly stuck to listening to that Tortage theme that plays in and around the city of Tortage. While there were a couple of epic pieces that kicked in every once in a while, whether during combat or in a specific location, the fact that I spent most of my seven or so days of playing this game listening to the same theme for Tortage really took a lot out of me. At least the games sound effects are pretty decent, as far as today's standards go.
Is it even worth talking about the NPC's at this point? While there were a few I couldn't help but crack a smile at, with their witty dialog ( with some nice voice-acting, I must admit ) and personalities, the rest were either stereotypes, aggravating, forgettable or all of the above. They weren't horribly bad, mind you, but they were nowhere near the level of quality Harry Potter's background characters were. At least they all had competent voice acting. Tee hee!
In the end, I'm really not a big fan of this game. The areas are dull and forgettable, the weapons and gear leave a lot to be desired, especially early on, and as an MMO based on a long-running and highly successful series of books and movies, it's pretty disappointing. While the game looks and sounds excellent, the fact that I'm looking at and listening to pretty much the same stuff for the first seven or so hours of the game really takes me out of the experience. Pile on brutally unfair enemies that'll mop the floor with you like nothing else, questionable combat combos, and the occasional case of input lag when things start getting crazy, and you've certainly got a lot on your plate as far as problems go.
...I don't exactly know how to squeeze this in, but I would also like to bring up that the game does feature some PvP elements, with an entire second server set aside for open-world PvP. But I'll tell you right now: You are not missing a thing. It's incredibly bare-bones, and the PvP server is mostly deserted nowadays to begin with. Obviously, there are much better options out there. Heck, World of Warcraft is a better option, and I hate that game. Oh snap, did I just say that out loud? Ah well, whatever, I'll explain what I mean whenever I get to reviewing that game.
I don't find Age of Conan: Unchained to be an incredibly bad game, just an incredibly boring one. It only took me seven full days of playing the game before I wanted to turn it off and play something else. I can appreciate the game for trying something new, with it's different locations, items and combat system, but I think this is a case of changing to much, to fast from your traditional MMO. And that's not even mentioning the difficulty and challenge balancing, which is so awful to the point where I just can't play this anymore. If you can somehow muscle your way past that issue, however, I think you'll be in for a bone-smashing good time here. But as for me, give me Pirates Online Retribution any day over this game!
*** WHAT'S THE SCORE? ***
PLOT: About what you'd expect from something based off Conan the Barbarian. It's just a shame that Conan himself doesn't actually show up for a while. The plot could have used some work for sure. ( 6.5 )
GRAPHICS: The game looks great, especially by today's standards, but the fact you're starring at mostly the same surroundings for the first seven or so hours of the game can really kill the experience. The characters look and animate fairly well, despite a hiccup every once in a while. ( 7.5 )
SOUND: The game sounds excellent for an MMO, but while there may be some truly memorable musical pieces later on in the game, the first seven hours may end up putting you to sleep. Especially the Tortage night theme. ( 6.0 )
GAMEPLAY: If the game had good difficulty and challenge balancing, better combos and half-decent weapons and equipment, it would be a fairly fun and enjoyable experience. Instead, you get hours upon hours of torture. By far the games weakest aspect. The PvP is complete and utter garbage as well. Megafail. ( 2.0 )
APPEAL: By far not the best MMO out there, though it could have been worse. All that said, it IS worth a play if you love Conan the Barbarian, but honestly, that's about it. You're better off staying Free-To-Play for this one, folks. ( 4.5 )
FINAL SCORE: 26.5/50 ( Fair )