Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is an innovative online RPG boasting many creative features.
Full Review
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Review
By, Robert D Stock
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is a pay-to-play MMORPG about the Conan universe, based on the graphic novel by Robert E. Howard.
Conan has many races of people, such as the Cimmerians and Stygians. Age of Conan has 3 playable races along with 4 types of classes, each with 3 classes. Each race has their own special class type they can choose. Like the Stygians, they can be all the mage-type classes, one priest-type class and two rogue-type classes. The class types are Soldier, Priest, Rogue, and Mage. Soldier has Conqueror, Dark Templar, and Guardian. Priest has Priest of Mitra, Tempest of Set, and Bear Shaman. Rogue has Assassin, Barbarian, and Ranger. Mage has Demonologist, Necromancer, and Herald of Xolti. The only race that can be any of the mage types are the Stygians, but they can’t choose any of the soldier types, and every race can choose one priest class. Every class also has two different feat trees that will help them throughout the game and one general feat tree for the class type. Every character also has skills that are gained just by leveling, and gets points to allocate into the skills for every kill and every level. Bandaging and renew mana are just some examples. Crafting is also available, like weaponsmithing or alchemy. The model of your character can be configured to what you want in great detail. Once you enter the game for the first time, you are on a slave ship as a slave while the ship is being thrashed about in the middle of an ocean storm and then sinks. You survive and find yourself on an island, and a man walks towards you. He asks how you got there, and after the conversation you plunge into the “tutorial island.”
If you are a new player to Age of Conan, take the tutorial and you will be set with the basics, like the combat. The combat in Age of Conan isn’t your usual right-click-on-enemy-and-watch-the-character-bash-it-to-death. The melee combat has three basic directions that you will have to click in for the direction you want – to swing, slash, or bash your enemies. Of course, there is a strategy to melee. The enemy, along with yourself, has shields that encompass its entire body, one for top, right and left, and can offset your attacks. For example, if you are attacking the left side often then they will set all the shields to the left side. When they do change, the shields will blink before switching so you can easily switch direction to the other side or the head. No one side is weaker than the others; it depends on how many of the three shields are there. Magic combat is the usual sit and wait for the casting bar to finish, but depending on the class you use there will be huge differences. A necromancer has a minion called the Corruptor that does more damage to the target if you cast a certain spell on the enemy, so many magic abilities and how they work are dependent on the class chosen. While we are on the topic of combat, every class has different fatalities. Fatalities are fun little things that usually happen at the end of the enemies’ lives. A Necromancer, for example, has two different fatalities that aren’t controlled. When the target dies there is a chance that they will be shackled, taking away their soul and a minion will be summoned.
The coolest aspect about this MMORPG is that it has both single player and multiplayer modes. During the single player you will go through your character’s story mode. Every class has a different one and it is usually played during nighttime. There are certain things that you can’t do during single player mode that can be done during multiplayer mode and vice versa. During single player you can’t accept quests from NPCs that would normally be “awake” during the day, but if you do have some quests from them you won’t be able to complete them. During multiplayer you can go into dungeons alone or with other players, but you can’t go into them during single mode unless it is for a quest that you got during single player. Single player gives you quests that give great class rewards, but to do those quests there is a level requirement. You can switch back to multiplayer mode and level to the requirement which makes it easier, especially when you haven’t been in multiplayer mode for the entire time. There are so many quests in multiplayer that you will most likely get your quest log full just attempting to get them all. During multiplayer the area won’t change, unlike during single player. Advancing your story line will get you to a rebellion that topples the leader and eventually lead you towards the end of Tutorial Island, and you will head out to your country depending on what race you chose. You can always choose to go back to the island and finish up any quests that you didn’t complete or didn’t get.
Player vs. player is huge in Age of Conan. Anything can be done from capturing the skull to attacking a guilds city. The combat is essentially the same for PvP as it is for fighting an NPC, but since it is players, you will be facing tougher and unpredictable foes. There are PvP minigames where anyone can just go in and play, like Capture the Skull (which is essentially capture the flag except with a skull) and Team Annihilation, where you try and kill as many of the opposing team’s players as you can. For the hardcore PvPers out there, there are of course the huge battles where you can go out and attack player-owned cities or join your guild and take a battlement for your own. Just don’t forget that if you have a city or a battlement of your own you will need to protect it from any invaders or it will be quickly taken.
Age of Conan is a great pay-to-play MMORPG and I recommend it to anyone who loves Conan or just likes MMORPGs in general. The only flaw would be that some levels don’t have enough quests and the ones you do find may be harder for some classes during that level. You may have to find some lower ones to level up and get the quests.
Backdrop
.hack Part 1 Infection (Dot Hack) begins with a bang. Something disastrous happens to your character‘s real world friend, while innocently playing a 20 million-subscriber base, wildly popular online RPG game (MMORPG), The World. To unravel the mystery of your friend’s misfortune, you become an online, ingame rogue hacker, exploring every corner of The World, even some virus-infected ones.
The hero is armed with the special skills of Data Drain and Gate Hack, and some colorful, talented fellow adventurers to fill the two other available party slots. Different adventurers must accompany you depending on the plot‘s development. You have some control over the others in your party, including upgrading them through trades or gifts. You can play only a single class, Twin Blade. Other characters are from different classes, with varied strengths and weaknesses, from a mage type (Wavemaster) to a bully (Heavy Axeman).
Gameplay
Gameplay takes place in three principal areas – towns, fields, and dungeons. Towns house The World’s servers. There, the player can save the game, buy magic scrolls and useful and unique items, store items, buy equipment, and talk and trade with lots of other players in character online. One town has an unusual ranch to check out, a patent homage to an enduring feature of just about every Final Fantasy.
The town’s Chaos Gate provides instant teleportation to a particular wide-open Field, containing monster encounter hotspots, a mystical spring, treasure, and lots of mysterious food. You enter three distinct keywords, some known at the game‘s onset, and others learned through play. Whatever keywords are entered, the difficulty level of the destination is helpfully revealed. This prevents a low-level party from being massacred. Once the keywords are entered, you travel through the Chaos Gate. (You can enter specific keywords learned to continue the plot, do side quests, or do unlimited exploring. Or, you can instruct the Gate to enter random keywords, and take your chances. There‘s also an option to enter any keywords you wish from a word list.) Every Field houses a single Dungeon. The dungeons, where you spend much of the game fighting for your life, are not overly large in size, and always range between three and five average levels.
Many have compared Dot Hack to Phantasy Star Online Episode I and II (PSO) on the Gamecube. Let us gently discredit this. We feel Dot Hack has far better graphics than PSO. The Fields and Dungeons contain many colorful, over stylized backdrops and settings, including weather effects. Dot Hack’s monsters resemble the beautifully-drawn monsters of the later Final Fantasy’s. Dot Hack’s world is gigantic with a seeming infinite number of locations to explore. PSO’s world is relatively small, and plot is threadbare, with meaningless, though fun, side quests, which instill no enthusiasm in the player. Dot Hack’s plot is deep and complex, with each subplot advancing the story just a little bit further. (Remember though, the end of this game in no way comes close to wrapping up the story, to be completed in the three games to be released later this year.) One visual treat, however, was lifted directly from PSO – the cascading rings that accompany the teleportation of characters to and from different areas.
Combat
Dot Hack’s combat engine can best be described as modified real-time. Much like the action-RPG, Kingdom Hearts, button mashing can be effective to beat monsters. Monster combat icons appear as large yellow twirling landmarks. As you approach, the landmark dissolves, monsters come at you big-time, and, undoubtedly, players will feel a healthy adrenaline rush. Some of Dot Hack’s many monsters do not stand around waiting to be pummeled, rather some you need to catch. Dot Hack lets you turn combat almost into a turn-based affair. The player needs only to hit Triangle in the middle of battle to pause the game instantly. From there the player can give orders to the others in the party, anything from healing someone, reviving another, casting a spell, designating a target monster. Without jeopardizing your party from the hailstorm of monster blows, combat becomes a calmer, more strategic, experience. This will help the many action-challenged. Camera angles play a big role in successful combat. You must be facing a monster to do any damage. As in many games, manipulating opposing environmental elements, like fire vs. water, is a key to successful monster combat.
Dot Hack’s cyberspace setting provides a wealth of Wow-inducing outbursts. The Data Drain option in combat is a great example. When a monster’s approaches zero, the player can Data Drain to reduce a horrendous, gigantic steel robot, for example, into a sniveling, puny monster, easily defeated with a single blow. Data Drain always results in a nifty, rare item or essential Virus Cores so you can Gate Hack areas of The World now closed, but needing investigation. One bad side effect – if you defeat, a Data Drained monster, but a single experience point is earned. One REALLY bad side effect – if you Data Drain too often without giving the skill a rest, you may overload and explode. Game Over. In the case of Boss monsters, Data Drain works the same, but what remains is no sniveling puny monster, but a full-blooded slightly less tough monster. All of this makes for interesting and captivating combat, a large part of the game.
Fresh Features
Dot Hack is replete with new and interesting features that kept us riveted.
To start, the entire background and story of a real world gamer becoming a rascal hacker, penetrating deep into a virus-infected online game, is quite novel. Combine this with Dot Hack’s emulating the look and feel of an online game universe. (Message traffic on the web shows many gamers mistakenly believe Dot Hack is a real online MMORPG, along with monthly fees! No real Internet connection is required.)
Just like in the real word, Dot Hack replicates your excitement level when “New” appears before a popular forum or on your email screen. Some of the game involves receiving emails as the plot develops, as well as new, crucial information surfacing on The World’s Board. (Look out for emails challenging you to a strange game of Tag.) The online game world looks very familiar with a bunch of characters wandering around the game’s towns, with the ubiquitous balloon icons talking typical “trash” to each other, even criticizing “newbies“.
Combat grippingly called for surprisingly strategic decision-making to succeed, not related to the usual attack or defend choices. Do you go for experience and upgrade your character or try for some special equipment or a Virus Core, vital to Gate Hacking? The innovative control of other party members became second nature to us after some practice. The game rewards a player taking chances, like entering a Field or Dungeon rated 5 levels above the player’s current level. On the other hand, the game scoffed at players entering areas much lower rated the their current level, by awarding negligible experience points for victory.
Dot Hack takes progress reports to a new level, by slowly unlocking books that contain much in the way of statistics and information. There’s even a monster compendium with tips for defeating them.
Some might complain about the minimal “Save Game” ability, but we thrived on it. You explore a very hostile cyberspace environment without the facility to save. Only in a server-hosting town is saving possible at the local Recorder. We may be a solitary voice in the Wilderness, but we like this throwback to the good old RPG days. Those of you old enough to remember the Wizardry series, may recall those fingernail-biting multi-combat treks back to the Castle just to save the game. In case you’re really stuck deep in a dungeon, a common item will teleport you to the outdoor field, from where you can simply gate back to town from the command menu.
Many pieces of equipment come with distinctive powerful attack, healing, and status skills, essential to combat dominance. The player must tradeoff whether to equip something that will raise defense or offense or something less vigorous that lets you use a powerful skill. Trading is the most successful way to upgrade equipment.
In a first, Dot Hack comes with a 45 minute anime video. This gives some great background on what’s going on in The World, as well as provide clues for completing the game. In a nice twist, voiceovers for game speech can be set for Japanese or English presentation. Listening to the authentic Japanese voices really keeps you glued to the game.
Though some may scoff at what follows as meaningless, we liked the game’s unlocking of some nifty new “toys” to like, some only available when the game is cleared. You can unlock many different background music play lists. Tired of creepy tunes, just switch to something more upbeat, or futuristic. Just like real world gamers, who constantly change their desktop wallpaper, new and different wallpapers are unlocked along the way. Some are concept art of characters, while others are full blown anime renditions of the characters. This makes for great fun, and seems to pump additional energy into the game. As you progress over a dozen special cut scenes or movies will become viewable after defeating the game.
Though Dot Hack’s extras and new wrinkles enhance the RPG game experience, much of the gameplay will ring true to those who enjoy RPG‘s. Expect plenty of exploration in a huge 3D world, frequent monster combat, tons of treasure to earn and discover, upgrading your character’s weapons and armor, and needing to level before tackling pivotal story dungeons. The status screens for the characters and all equipment are well laid out and easy to grasp.
Time for Completion
Game length in hours always concerns many purchasers. A short RPG normally takes a lot of flack, and many online are asking about Dot Hack‘s time for completion. (Some have questioned whether Bandai should have released a single 80 hour game for $50, rather than four 20-hour games for $200 for a single story. This matter is beyond the scope of this review, but our high opinion of this game as a standalone is obvious.) Our experience, playing the plot without doing side quests or extra exploration, is in the 12 to 15-hour range. Players side-questing and extensively exploring, aside from the main plot, can expect to spend 25 hours to complete the game. You can even continue to advance your character, after game completion, to get a jump start on Part 2 due in May. In the next game, your character can be imported from Part 1.
Furthermore, imagine trying to explore every nook and cranny of the fields and dungeons accessible by a large number of 3-word combinations. Doing that would put the game in the 50-hour range, if not more. However, at a certain point, new items dry up, and a single experience point is earned for any defeated monster, no matter how tough.
Shortcomings
While, as is evident above, there is much to recommend in Dot Hack, certain concerns to varying degrees deserve mention.
From the “Why oh why did they leave this out?“ File. Pregame game board traffic and information about the Japanese version released months ago had many salivating for replaying the game in “parody” mode. This mode apparently converted all Dot Hack’s game world characters into satirical comedians. Sorry to say, this highly-anticipated feature is missing from the version released here.
The game requires massive amounts of button pressing. Every item or treasure uncovered from combat victories or exploration (opening chests, searching expired adventure remains, collecting food for Grunty’s, as examples) must be confirmed with a button press. When there could be 50-100 such occurrences in a single dungeon or field, over the course of the game, finger cramps seem inevitable. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance also required lots of bashing for buried treasure and chests, but the items literally flew into your inventory, a much better way to handle this.
The manual is woefully terse and lacking in some crucial information and guidance. While the ingame tutorials fill in many of the gaps, one extremely important gameplay feature is missing from both the manual and tutorials – instructions on control your characters directly during combat.
Final Word
We got a kick out of Dot Hack. The feeling of “just one more dungeon” dominated our lives for the 3 days to completion. The engaging environment held our attention without much effort. The strategic nature of combat, plus the convoluted plot kept us going for hours on end. The constant unlocking of both frivolous and important gameplay features created a “what’s next” anticipation. Now, if I could only read Japanese better, Dot Hack Part 2 is already out in Japan!
Final Grade: B
Final Verdict: 95%
