Conquer Online Review

by Vincent Haoson, OnRPG Journalist

TQ Digital, the company that has brought to the world Eudemons Online, CrazyTao and Zero online. Brings to us a 2.5D oriental MMO like no other, Conquer Online(CO).

What is Conquer Online?

Conquer Online is a free-to-play oriental themed MMO that centers around the story of a world in chaos and your character is one of the chosen warriors who is there to protect the world’s citizen’s from the darkness brought by it. As one of those “chosen warriors” in CO, you get to choose from four different job classes. You can be a Taoist, Trojan, Archer or Warrior.

The Taoist is your basic magic wielding class in Conquer Online, though unlike in other games where the magic class have a clear separation at the beginning of the game, the healers or the water Taoists and the attack-magic users, or the fire Taoists all start of as a one default job class.

The other range-type of character in CO is the archer. They are better known as the class that can kill a large amount of monsters the fastest, though this is highly arguable because this is dependent on the player’s skill. Unlike most, classes in CO Archers have more mob-killing skills than the other classes. Furthermore, they have more advantage in killing higher level monsters due to their flying skill, a skill that only archers can use.

Trojans on the other hand are the heavy hitters in CO. They are sturdier than the Archers and Taoists but they are not made for tanking unlike the other melee character, the Warrior. They’re the only class in CO that can duel wield and that majority of their attacks and skills are for dealing huge amounts of damage.

Warriors meanwhile are the tankers of CO. As I mentioned earlier, Warriors are sturdier than Trojans and they are the only characters in-game that can equip the heaviest armors.
According to CO’s website, there’s a new addition to the four job class available, the Ninja class. Their website says that ninja’s deals more damage than Trojans but they have the least amount of defense and hp in the game.

Characters in CO are not gender-dependent, giving you the feel that you can “customize” at least your character. You can also choose between a big and small body build. This option is more for vanity and has no actual use in the gameplay.

Graphics and sound

The graphics engine of the game is not that impressive. With the limitation of CO being a 2.5 D MMO, the background of the whole game is static and dull. The NPCs are just standing there swaying, if you pay attention enough.

Considering other f2p MMOs CO is disappointing in this department. The character designs are rough and sometimes too dull to look at. The monster designs are rough too. Even if the graphics is already set in the highest option you can see that it doesn’t really help as much. Another thing is that the movements of the characters and the monsters are quite clunky.

The plus in CO is that you get to see whatever you equip to you character and unlike most games where what your character looks like is retained in your whole experience.

The music is well tailored for the game. It does help make you experience that you are actually playing an oriental-themed game, though it can be quite repetitive if you stay in an area too long.

The Interface

Starting in CO can be a handful, if you play the game in windowed mode the interface can be heavy on the eyes, reading the text is also bothersome especially when you are not yet that familiar with how the game looks.

The camera is stuck in a slanted angle and the only thing you can toggle is the zoom, though the camera angle is convenient in most areas. Clicking to your next destination can be a little tricky and troublesome if you are in a heavily populated zone.

CO has one default skill that can serve as a convenient and funny way of moving around the maps. By pressing ctrl then clicking your point of destination, you can make your character jump to that place regardless of his position in the map. Though this is a tricky move especially if you’re landing in a place where the background can be a hindrance, learning how to jump large distances in CO helps you not only as a means to move to other places faster, it can also serve as your escape plan when you can’t take down a monster fast enough and you need to have an exit strategy fast.

Your character can also do a set of default actions your characters do. You can make them sit, wave crazily or even make them dance. This adds the quirkiness factor in CO and making it more appealing.

Another thing to look out for this game is that there is a reborn system or more commonly known as rb. Players who reach level 131 have an opportunity to be reborn and get another class while their previous skills are retained. You can only rb twice in one character therefore making it quite possible to have three different skill trees at the same time.

Conclusion

MMOs can be judged quite harshly in graphics and sounds, and yet sometimes even if they aren’t considered visually stunning and have a great soundtrack players still flock the game and take their time in playing.

That is also true here in Conquer Online. There’s nothing that really changed in the graphics and sounds ever since I encountered the game before 2.0 but I was surprised to see that the community is larger than before. With 11 servers to choose from, it seemed that the game earned more players while I was away.

I think that the reason behind this is the events and the already established community that CO has already made. Though the amount of players online in CO are either multiple accounts, it still obvious that players still care for the game to spend their time creating a lot of characters, and not just mules but high level characters to boot.

TQ Digital made sure that players would not only level grind and PvP. The company also included events that are not just in-game centered, but also community building. The mentor/apprentice system is also a nice addition, as players can get to really be part of the game not for the game itself but also for meeting new people as well.

CO is a game you’ll never really fall in love with at first sight. The dated graphics engine can be quite a bummer especially if you have f2ps who are more visually attractive than CO. Yet you would have to wonder why is it that there are still a lot of players who play and spend time in CO. There is a gem in CO that those players have seen, and getting to that gem takes time.

Pros
– A vibrant and thriving community
– Events keep on coming
– Simple controls that are easy to grasp

Cons
– Graphic are dated
– The static background makes the game dull