Review of Jade Dynasty

Trypto — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:31:13 GMT

At a first glance, Jade Dynasty ( from Perfect World Entertainment ) could be mistaken for any other online gaming transferred over from China or Korea. However, if you even begin to take a look at the backstory, classes, and gameplay it is easy to tell this is no generic MMO. Perfect World Entertainment takes many successful properties from their wildly succesful Perfect World game, such as the coordinate system, spiritual enlightenment, and Eastern religions, and supplements it with new ideas. Your Jade Dynasty experience begins by selecting one of two servers. You then pick a realm on that server ( characters can switch between fifteen realms, which are either PvE or PvP ) and create your character. While customizing your character, you are given the options of male or female and then customize your facial features from a selection of six or seven faces and then multiple hairstyles. You start out in Sunstream, a quiet and picturesque town surrounded by butterflies and boars abound to practice your noobie skills upon. Your character is eased into the game through a quick tutorial quest where you read through some boxes and walk around town a little. You are then set loose upon the town to find quests and then to go hunt. Not an original start to a game, but quick and painless. There are five classes in this game, each fitting one of the generic MMO classes. However, this is one of my favorite parts about this game. These classes are all wonderfully balanced, more than any one of the extensive list of MMOs I have played. For example, the healer class, Skysong, can give party support with healing and buffs, but is also the only class that has the ability to put enemies to sleep, and also has a couple AoE spells. No single class can claim being overpowered, and no class can claim being gimped. The in-game Cash Shop offers cheaply priced items that aren't required to play succesfully, only make life in Jade Dynasty a bit easier. Also, the ability to trade from Cash Shop money with in-game money gives players a way to access all of Jade Dynasty's features using no real life money. There are many fun quests and features that may seem overwhelming at first, but are lots of fun once a player is oriented to the game dynamics. Probably the most controversial feature in this game is a little glowy companion called an 'Esper.' Itis different for each class you join and offers it's own skill, stat boosts and.. botting. That's right, botting. This may seem like a put-off for many hardcore gamers, but it is actually quite underused and helpful. One would assume it would make for a game filled with AFK people soloing, but instead of that most players use it for killing monsters during quests while talking to their friends. This major controversy is well-managed and the community of Jade Dynasty manages to retain its friendly soul. The graphics are highly customizable so that they can be either palatable ( like I must use on my podunk little laptop ) or simply exquisite. The soundtrack consists of a mix between fiery and calming Oriental instrumental songs. Overall, this is a very innovative game that brings us the best of an already succesful games and adds compelling classes, gameplay, and shiny new features.

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Review of Jade Dynasty