GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Mediocre
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 08/24/2007
- Updated on: 08/25/2007
- Released on: 07/12/2007
- Originally published on GameSpot: Sword of the New World: Granado Espada (PC) Review
One thing's for sure--Sword of the New World: Granado Espada won't waste anybody's time. This new massively multiplayer online game from Korean developer K2 Network is all about grinding away at killing monsters and gaining levels from the very moment that it begins. Despite interesting design twists and an offbeat storyline blending swords and sorcery with the colonization of a fantasy-tinged new world, the game collapses under the sheer weight of its monotonous gameplay.
Story and setting are arguably the most intriguing lures, and certainly what makes the game stand out the most from the MMO crowd in the beginning (that and the innovative pricing model that scraps monthly subscriptions for a Free2Play system bolstered with cash shops for in-game items). The plot mashes together a number of historical themes to create a unique whole featuring elements of the age of discovery, medieval fantasy, and foppish Victoriana. Added elements like a budding civil war between Royalist and Republican factions and a religious feud between the mainstream church and the new faith of Solioto even establish something of a real-world political backdrop. Still, K2 doesn't make the most out of this setting. The politics aren't pronounced enough to have much of an impact on your actions, and might as well not really even be there in the first 20 levels or so. Also, window-dressing NPCs and weird translation issues make your dealings with people a bit surreal. Typos are common, as are NPCs who respond to conversation attempts with apropos-of-nothing retorts like "Sounds good!" or pure nonsense such as "These good chances are not always like this!"
Even with cool spellcasting special effects crackling all over the place, good luck taking your eyes off of the Victorian fetishwear outfits.
K2 also doesn't do much with character design, despite intriguing ideas. Although the game is built off the neat notion of creating a noble family and adventuring through the new lands of Granado Espada in teams of three, there isn't any depth when it comes to the creation of the individual characters. There are only five different stock-standard classes offered at the beginning (although bonus classes are available with boxed versions of the game, and additional ones become available upon the completion of quests). You've got a warrior, a wizard, a sort-of wizard called an elementalist, and a scout representing the D&D crowd, along with a musketeer to add a pinch of "age of discovery" atmosphere. Few options are available to customize your selections aside from a handful of costumes. There are no ways to alter faces, hair color, body frame, or anything else until you get into the game and start collecting new armor, weapons, and other accoutrements, although the addition of new combat stances unique to each class helps.
Quests are equally simple-minded. The first dozen or more hours of play is a grindfest in which incessant monster-killing is solely spiced up by the odd delivery or pick-up assignment (which typically involves wandering around aimlessly and killing monsters anyhow, given that key quest locations sometimes aren't marked on the map or represented in the game world). The amount of time you have to devote to mindless slaughter is somewhat incredible. One of the first big quests involves acquiring trophies by exterminating three different types of monsters prowling around an old monastery. That sort of assignment is par for the course in the early stages of MMOs, of course, but the numbers involved here are just staggering: you have to slay between 150 and 200 of each creature. Add in a slow respawn rate, and regularly cooling your heels for a minute or more after getting overwhelmed by swarms of ghouls and other critters, and you've got a quest that takes upwards of three hours to complete. This seems pretty representative of Sword of the New World as a whole. All of the jobs seen up to about level 20 require a mind-numbing amount of killing, involving hundreds and hundreds of endlessly respawning beasties.
Other problems afflict this eternal combat. Battles typically involve so many monsters that you need to team up with others to survive, even though the three-person team idea would seem to have been introduced here for the sole purpose of giving players the ability to go solo. The monster menagerie reuses the same creatures with only slight modifications to make them look a little different. So even though you do get to kill bizarre beasties like demonic roosters and hunchbacked gnomes called vedonabahs, you're generally wading through packs of three or four monster types in each map. A lot are just slight variations on fantasy stereotypes with odd new names. What appear to be skeleton warriors, for instance, are called zealots, while giant spiders are known as zebra-eaters.
These battles with interminable numbers of monster clones also run on rails, giving the action an assembly-line feel. Unless you intervene, your characters automatically attack enemies that get too close or that stand in the way of quest destinations. You can actually leave the room for stretches and let the game play itself, especially during the monster-massacring quests. And just getting to the average quest location is a challenge all on its own. Soldiers and waypoints provide instant teleportation for a nominal fee, but even when you take advantage of this transit system, you still have to wade through a few lengthy maps packed with respawning monsters on the way to each quest.
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