Looking Forward: Blade and Soul

Now being a hardcore mmo fan I love playing all sorts of different mmos, I played ragnarok for the longest time and I’ve basically tried out most free to play mmos out there. But one company has always captured my interest and managed to keep it, this company is NCsoft. NCsoft has released multiple high quality mmos such as the casual gamer favorite, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, and for the more hardcore gamers they have released titles such as the Lineage games as well as Aion, the game I am currently enjoying with several members of our team. NCsoft is still looking to outdo their past masterpieces with a brand new one, Blade and Soul. Now if you have seen anything on this game then you know it will truly be a “next generation” mmo. The style of mmos is changing very rapidly right now and many new games are branching away from the “traditional” mmo (example of traditional would be WoW, Lineage etc.) and changing into more fluid action packed games. Blade and Soul will be a perfect example of a next-gen mmo, the graphics are better than any mmo out there and the combat seems fluid and highly interactive, no more point and click to win or winning simply because you have better gear. The interactivity level with the environment around you has also become a factor in Blade and Soul with their Qing Gong(?) system which allows the player to run along walls, jump between them, and do many other things using the terrain around them. This system is relied on heavily to complete the dungeons which seem to be much more complex and puzzle oriented than previous mmos.

The characters, races and classes still exist in Blade and Soul but the four they have announced play very differently than your traditional Warrior, Rogue, and Mage. First off you have the Blade Master, a fast attacking, sword wielding nightmare. These characters seem to be centered on quick attacks and lengthy combos which can quickly put even the toughest opponent out of commission. Next are the Kung Fu masters, these are probably some of the coolest fighters I have ever seen in a game. Their playstyle revolves around punch and kick combos that knock your opponent down, but oh it doesn’t end there, the main source of a Kung Fu Master’s combat prowess is in their grappling skills. They can mount a downed opponent and beat the living daylights out of them through a series of brutal punches and some bone shattering submission holds. Force Masters take up the role of the mage but they basically look like a character right out of Dragon Ball Z who uses some of Star Wars’ force powers (like force choke) . Force Masters appear to be able to knock people out of their combos with various mid-air suspension moves and then follow up with a barrage of energy blasts making them quite the contender in pvp. Lastly there is the Destroyer, he does exactly what his class title says, he destroys you, a lot. They feature a Destroyer wielding a giant axe fighting a gunslinging little dude whom he utterly demolishes. To add insult to injury after a destroyer KO’s you he can pick you up by your head with one arm and serve you up on his giant axe and toss you about 50 meters away. These are the 4 classes that have been shown now and several more have been hinted at like the summoner and gunslinger. Blade and Soul is also being released on the Playstation 3 as well as the PC so all of you console people no longer have an excuse to not try this game out. Look forward to more news on this excellent future release from NCsoft, it carries a lot of high hopes from myself as well as the mmo gaming community as a whole.