Early Access: Scarlet Blade Pt 2 – Customization and Lingerie that Matters!

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

As I alluded to in part 1 of OnRPG’s Early Access to Scarlet Blade, if you’re looking to be one of the early adopters of this game, you’re probably a pretty identifiable type of gamer. As such the customization this game offers is going to be a big deal to you so I’m breaking that down in as much detail as possible.

 

 

Pre-Start Customization Options

Your first decision in making a character is an important one you’ll want to coordinate with any friends you plan to game with. You see there’s actually a story behind the tits ‘n ass Scarlet Blade brings to the table and though you can read it all for yourself at their official site, the part you need to know during customization is that you are one of the final surviving humans and you must now choose your avatar from one of various bioengineered super warriors to fight on your behalf on the surface world against the Narek Alien Invasion. But not all is peaceful within the Arkana’s underground confinement as two branches of the controlling AI have arisen and view the other as a threat.

 

 

Thus you must choose to fight for the Royal Guards that uphold the original beliefs of the Ark’s creators and the Mother’s AI oversight, or the Free Knights that believe the original AI is outdated and oppressive and that Arkana should be granted their full freedom as soon as the Narek are defeated. But no worries, from a gameplay perspective you still will have access to all the classes so view it from nothing more than a roleplay perspective and not as a gameplay factor.

 

 

Once you choose sides you can choose your class that will align your character with a certain body type. Be it the tall and might Defender, the loli Sentinel, the voluptuous Punisher, or any other class, you will carry rather distinguishable and unchangeable traits and weapons that will allow you to be easily identifiable from a distance by your enemies. Sad news I know for those that were expecting a boob slider but that’s the current design decision.

 

 

So what options do you have? Scarlet Blade offers a slightly above average number of customization choices ranging from face to eyes to lip color, to hair style and so on. With the limited and rather unimportant default lingerie option as the only exception, everything on the list is focused on giving your character a unique enough face to tell yourself apart from others of your class. Though I give the game props for offering a full spectrum of color choices for hair, eyes, and lips that’s inexplicably missing in many F2P MMORPGs out these days.

 

 

I will complain (and this is more a personal gripe than actual issue) that I can’t stand when customization systems put the ‘random’ button at the bottom of the list. Those excited to quickly jump through the options like myself will usually accidently click this button and there is no way to revert all your previous decisions once the random button is triggered. Please Aeria do us a favor and tell the developers to move the button up next to the pre-built area to save players the frustration at launch.

 

 

Post-Creation Customization

One of the strengths of Scarlet Blade has to be the sheer number of options available for distinguishing yourself and customizing your character’s strengths once in-game. Characters can acquire plenty of visible equipment including helms, chest pieces, underwear, gloves, leggings, shoes, wrist-guards, and weapons, along with other not so visible accessories like earrings, rings, and so on. And for the record, yes your lingerie gives stats so be sure to go for the overpriced table at Victoria’s Secret cause the granny panties aren’t going to cut it in PvP. Beyond this there are huge numbers of fashion slots available to give your character the perfect sexy look of your dreams.

 

I like tall well-endowed women dressed in bunny girl outfits. The fact Aeria knew this and gave me a Defender Playboy Bunny for my GM character was a bit scary.

 

 

Are you more into the hot vampire in the snow fantasy? Hentai-Bot 6,000 is!

 

Kill Bill fans as well as Asian Racing Queen lovers can unite in their love of this hot outfit. Cash Shop weapon skin preview included!

 

Shrink Ray Malfunction? Good work Hentai-Bot!

 

Ever thought European puffy pants from the Middle Ages were hot? Yea… so did the Scarlet Blade designers. Forever Alone no longer!

 

 

Skill Customization is also open for players to experiment with, though by end-game you’ll have most if not all your skills fully unlocked. Just be cautious if you’re one of the first to play as we were testing level 39 characters but the early beta events will only allow you to reach level 29. As you level you gain points to unlock both active skills broken down by various tree branches and passive skills unique to each class. You will also be able to acquire unique skills related to your PvP exoskeleton and Mech but more on that in part 3 of our write-up.

 

 

Stats

For those that have to know everything, here’s a quick stat breakdown based on the game in its current state. Your three primary bars include HP, CP (used for summoning and maintaining exoskeleton suits and mechs), and Skill Points (akin to a mana bar or MP in most MMORPGs).

 

 

The physical attack based stats are strength, accuracy, defense, evasion, crit rate, crit attack (multiplier of how hard your crits hit), and crit-evade (lowers chance of crits hitting you).

 

 

Magic in this game is classified as Chakra and broken down into gravity, plasma, voltage, atomic, and particle Chakra, though I don’t know exactly what the strengths and weaknesses of each are currently. Your Void stat and Void-Crit determine the relative strength of your Chakra skills which is further broken down into Chakra Attack, Chakra Accuracy, and Chakra Evade, making magical strikes act more akin to the way physical attacks do in the usual MMORPG.

 

 

Whew sorry if I got a little long winded on stats there! I’ll conclude OnRPG’s Scarlet Blade write-up tomorrow with my thoughts on gameplay, features, and my overall first impression and critique of the game.

Early Access: Scarlet Blade Pt 1 – Choose your Fetish.. er Class!

By Darren Henderson (DizzyPW), OnRPG Editor-in-Chief

 

 

It’s been nearly a year since I dropped in to see what’s going on at Aeria Games’ office in San Francisco for a look at Lime Odyssey. So other than mergers with IJJI and Gamepot as well as the sudden rise of their mobile gaming line, I’ve been quite curious what this company has been doing with all that income from Eden Eternal and the various other titles that round out their portfolio. With 2 titles from Xlegend currently under their belt and a history of FPS and Anime styled titles, I was expecting perhaps an Anime Styled FPS Hybrid. So when they announced Scarlet Blade (formerly known as Queen’s Blade, I wasn’t caught completely off-guard or off the mark on my prediction. What did catch me off-guard was that there was a decent crisp controlling MMORPG under the M-rated hood of this title.

 

 

The (Sexy) Elephant in the Room

Now before I can get into features I have to get this disclaimer out of the way. This game isn’t rated mature by the ESRB as some gimmicky marketing campaign by Aeria Games to get attention. They are indeed using gimmicky marketing because of their mature rating, there’s no doubt about that. But the mature rating stands for partially nudity, violence, alcohol use, and various sexual off-humor jokes, each of which I intend to get into at some point in my write-up. Consider yourself warned though if you’re reading this at work or in your mom’s basement. There will be boobs and this game is NSFW.

 

 

Classes

Scarlet Blade doesn’t just offer classes, they offer the holy trinity delivered via a fetish filled fantasy line-up. From power lifting goddesses to barely legal lolis, to assault rifle wielding beauties and even a whip wielding dominatrix, if you’re the type of person this game is targeted towards, they’ll likely have your dish of choice on display.

 

 

The Supports –

 

Defender – I’m overcompensating for my Commander

Since I spent the majority of my time playing this class and only have 3^rd party accounts to discuss the others, I’ll go ahead and lay out my thoughts on this class first. The defender is tall, determined, and can whip an oversized two-handed sword around with enough ease to make League of Legend’s Garen proud. This class is a jack-of-all trades though as not only can they absorb huge amounts of damage and push forward with superior personal healing skills, they can also take out their foes’ top dps with a ranged stun, gap closers, and various disabling skills that make even the Whipper’s bite feeling no worse than a mechanical kitten.

 

Furthermore, if you choose to ignore the Defender and take the fight to her party, she can throw defense to the sidelines and unleash an offensive flurry that will force you to recognize her for the threat she is. Just be careful how you play with this fire as a smart opponent can send you packing once you choose to go all-in for this assault. And when in doubt, spin to win in the middle of the enemy’s backline to turn any fight to your team’s favor.

 

 

Medic – I stole Space Channel 5’s fashion but you’re probably too young to know that! (I won’t tell 😉 )

To call the medic a healbot would be an accurate description. After all she’s practically a bioengineered robot and can heal. But to say that’s all she brings to the table in a fight would be a misconception. Medics have a ton of long duration buffs to keep their team strong even if they themselves fall in battle. They also have plenty of AoE heals, self-heals, and CC removal to make them a nuisance in any engagement. And should you corner one be on guard. They can do some limited but very nasty burst that can take a low HP target out of the fight before they know what hit them. Should your foe survive that though, best look cute and spam your skills into cooldown as you’re going to need back-up to put up a fight.

 

 

Melee DPS –

 

Shadow Walker – I actually wear armor. I’m also one of the squishiest classes. Physics!

I honestly can’t say much about this class. It took keen eyes to even realize they existed on the battlefield. Still the final score tallies told the tale of their subtle effective work of systematically picking off weakened targets across the battlefield and then just as quickly disappearing into the shadows. They have the potential to unleash the higher burst damage in the game at the expense of having low durability. But if you have the skills to handle her curves, your foes will soon question the “Walker” in your name as this roguish assassin is fast as hell and hard to catch if they make the first move on you!

 

 

The Whipper – Your MMORPG isn’t man enough to include me as a class

It’s ok if this is the class you’ve been waiting for. I’m not here to judge. The Whipper is rather unique from the typical MMORPG class archetypes and if anything, would be labeled as an off-tank. They can take a beating and unleash a barrage of AoE focused melee to mid-range strikes that offer one of the best counters to team’s turtling around a Medic’s AoE heals. Their damage is rather unpredictable and can be used to lull opponent’s into a false sense of security prior to blowing them apart as they realize far too late that you’ve already woven a deceitful web around them. Though coordinating your assault with a Defender or Shadow Walker seems ideal for ensuring your dance of death captures a kill.

 

 

Ranged DPS –

 

Punisher – My weapon is made of more material than my outfit and it shows

So are you one of those guys (or girls!) that did a double take when you first visited Vegas and saw the ads of hot bikini girls flaunting assault rifles? The Punisher has you covered. She isn’t ideal for 1 on 1 confrontations as she’s middle of the road in durability and lacks in sustained damage, but with a coordinated team at her back, the Punisher is a serious threat in any battle. These maidens of artillery can and will litter the field with a glorious rain of death that will wrack up more total damage than any other class out there, especially against foes with poor combat formations or those who choose to fight in narrow corridors.

 

 

Sentinel – I’m 18… really!

So you’re that guy that has figurines of Anime girls decorating their desk at work? Have your favorite Moe Line-Up on your desktop’s wallpaper rotation? Never fear, Aeria Games has your back and offers one of the most entertaining classes on the roster to fit your taste. This tiny but mighty class compensates for her diminutive size with devastating ranged spike damage. Just make sure your friends keep that nasty ogre of a woman, the Defender, off your back, as her sword will split you in two if she can catch you off-guard for a minute. Positioning and battlefield awareness are necessary to the Sentinel and I imagine this being the class that will have many noobs and a few godly masters forcing you to second guess your approach against one never knowing which you might be facing.

 

 

While the classes each fill a role in the overdone MMORPG Holy Trinity, Scarlet Blade seems to offer enough solo skills to help players get by when a party isn’t readily available. In our limited time testing the various roles in group PvP, there didn’t seem to be many imbalances between classes. Though be aware that this was based on characters at level 39 and there may be more noticeable imbalances earlier in the game when characters haven’t acquired their full kit of skills, particularly for support characters that must choose whether to learn their support or damage skills first.

 

 

Medics could usually hold off a single Defender on their own and dish out nasty support damage if left alone so they were useful most of the time. If anything they just didn’t have enough options to keep players actively participating at all times.

 

 

Defenders offered enough utility and more than enough survivability (especially with proper timing of potions) to make up for lacking the raw damage of the Shadow Walker and Whipper.

 

 

The Whipper’s AoE attacks were large enough to not punish them too badly for not spiking as hard as the Shadow Walker. The Shadow Walkers also exploded like glass when unable to make clean escapes.

 

 

Unfortunately I didn’t get to face a Sentinel to see just how harsh their spike damage hits but the Punisher hit with enough force that I can only imagine how nasty those little pipsqueaks will be. The Punisher makes kiting a pipe dream for low hp foes and are vital for both softening targets prior to full engagement with poke damage as well as procuring kills on those targets that usually get away on a wing and a prayer.

 

 

Anyone familiar with my Early Access write-ups know I don’t like talking about a title until I’ve clearly laid out how the classes function in detail. With that out of the way I’ll be jumping into the rest of the features and ambiance of the first mature rated MMORPG I’ve personally reviewed.

 

 

Don’t miss part 2 when I go over customization, factions, gear and fashion, and of course stats!