Ether Saga Online Review: Where's my bunny?

Ether Saga Online Review: Where's my bunny?
Written by: Mohammed Afzal (MageMoa), OnRPG Journalist

Pets, pets, pets and more pets! Pets and minions have always been an obsession to me. If a game didn't provide these awesome creatures, I wouldn't be interested.  This is exactly the reason why I was so amazed by Ether Saga Online, a game created by Perfect World Entertainment, the creators of Perfect World.  The game had everything I wanted! Fast combat, flashy skills, billions of slave-.. pets, beautiful graphics and life skills. I didn't hesitate a moment and tried to download it from three different sites, to see which one would be the fastest. After ten exciting minutes I was able to enter the game and make my dreams come true, but I should have known that dreams will always remain dreams....

Dreamlike world in Ether Saga

How it all began...

I started the game, expecting to find amazing character customization, but that was not what I found. I could pick between three or four facial expressions, a few hairstyles, a race and a class. Sure, the characters looked beautiful, but I was hoping to create a unique character instead of finding ten clones of myself the moment I went in game.

That being said, you could have knocked me down with a feather if you had been there at the moment I entered the game. Everything was so beautiful and everything seemed so lively! I decided to talk to the woman that was trying to do everything to get me to talk to her. The woman, a Goddess, started to tell me a story and I was immediately interested in what she had to say. She told me about the past and what had happened to the world of Ether Saga and I felt so bad for her and decided to help her.

 
Beautiful characters in an enticing, beautiful world

After doing a few quests for her I realized that I had already hit level 20. She told me to go to some big town and talk with a man that could help me out. I decided to listen to her and I ran through the beautiful valleys, covered in colorful flowers.

When I reached the town I saw people! No, I am not talking about dead ones. I had almost forgotten that I was playing a MMORPG.  There were many people who were willing to help me and they brought me to the man I was referred to by the Goddess. The dude was a little bit annoying, but I totally forgot about him when he gave me a cloud. I had no clue what to do with it so I just double-clicked it and WHOOOM! I could fly! It was time to explore the world of Ether Saga and its amazing features.

Gameplay

"No grind" was what I had heard about the game and I would have agreed if I would have quit the game at level 30, but that was not the case. After level 30 leveling got a bit annoying. Doing quests was the only way toget good exp, but these quests were not unique or special. You had to kill X amount of this and gather X amount of that, which was really disappointing, since the monsters didn't give a lot of experience. There were moments in the game where you were questless, which meant that you had to kill hundreds of monsters to get that single level. I was glad that the game had more to offer than just leveling.

The pet feature made up for the horrible grind. There are so many monsters that you can catch and they all have different stats and skills. It will take some time before you understand what kind of pet will fit your personality, but that doesn't mean that you can't catch some beautiful creatures. These beautiful creatures have their own personality (naughty, shy etc..) and they have some pretty cute emotes that you can use.

Flashy combat

The combat, one of the most important parts of every MMO, was... flashy. The combat is point and click and you are spamming skills the whole time but I can say that the combat was pretty amusing. All classes have many different skill trees and special skills that you can use. The only downside of this system is that you need a certain amount of points, which you can get by killing monsters, to obtain a certain skill. It took me hours to get enough points for a skill I wanted.

Another aspect I was looking forward to was crafting and I can easily say that I was not disappointed with the crafting features in Ether Saga. The life skills, such as woodcutting and picking herbs, were all combined with a certain way of crafting. You could make your own weapons, equipment and even your own potions! It might take you a while, just like everything in this game, to craft swords and bows that are actually good for your level, but selling the items you craft will still make you a decent amount of money, something that you really could use at lower levels.

Some background information

There are some things that you should know before playing the game. First of all, be sure that you pick the right race for your character. All races are supposed to be equal, but people prefer to pick a class that fits their race. The Ren race is the human race. You could say that it focuses on melee. It would be a good race to pick for classes like Dragoon and Rogue. The Shenzu race is the demigod race. It is a more spiritual race and it would fit well with classes like Shaman, Conjurer and Mystic. The Yaoh race is the more agile one of the three. Classes like Rogue and Ranger are preferred by the Yaoh. Please keep in mind that the races are pretty much balanced, so you can pick any race. The things written above are just recommendations.

Conclusion

After a few weeks my adventure in the world of Ether Saga had ended. I was no longer willing to spend hours to get enough experience to level and get my next series of quests. There is not much to aim for in this game. It is a good timewaster if you have nothing better to do and I would really recommend it to gamers that love having minions and pets, but that's all the game can offer you.

Now, has anyone seen my bunny?