Divine Souls Shows Priests Can Kick Ass Too
By Vincent Haoson, OnRPG Journalist
Divine Souls is Outspark’s 3D Action MMO. The game is set in a world where Divine Matter was discovered and used to help humanity surpassed their limitations. However, with great power comes great responsibility, and according to the game’s story, the discovery unhinged the balance of nature. However the great nations in Divine Souls have decided to withhold final judgement on the substance despite the obvious warnings. This changes when the chief scientist responsible for discovering Divine Matter goes missing, his lab ransacked. Now the time has come for the government to act before a greater calamity occurs.
The Job Classes
The agents that are sent by the government and interested parties represent the character job classes you will have to choose from. You have the staple general concept of melee, swordsman, magic and healer classes. These classes are mostly by the book MMORPG standard classes, however, the one thing that really jumped at me is the Priests, or the healer class.
Why? Because they’re carrying scythes as their main weapon. Yes, I said it, Scythes.
Divine Souls does away with the Priest stereotype and presents you with a soul scythe wielding, monster flinging, slayer. Yes that’s right- Remember the game is an action MMO, so it wouldn’t be right if you see a bible totting priest hitting everybody with the sacred tome of Christianity (cause that’s just wrong).
The Gameplay
Divine Soul’s gameplay is set for fast-paced keyboard breaking action. The gameplay is highly streamlined to make players maximize the full “action” potential. The game is highly skill based with the emphasis of keying in the correct button sequence for combos to deal out maximum damage. You don’t play around with stat points in Divine Souls because everything is reliant on your job class choice, and the equipments your character has. Also the classes are gender locked, limiting your customization a bit.
The game is also notable for allowing players to use controllers, especially for those who are more accustomed to playing games like this with a gamepad.
The World Hub is set up in a pretty standard MMORPG fashion. An overworld exists in which you can interact and trade with other players. While major dungeons are instanced and set up for you to tackle by yourself or with a small group of friends.
Features
In terms of Divine Soul’s features, you have the staple MMO features such as a guild system, an achievement system and party systems. However the one game feature the stood out is the medal system.
Divine Souls has incorporated a medal system that’s tied to your achievements in-game. The medals serve both as bonus stat boosters and in-game titles. You have four slots to fill, allowing you to customize yourself to stand out from others sharing your class.
Aside from this, the game of course has a cash shop where you can purchase “vanity items” and some potions and exp boosts. The cash shop items thankfully aren’t as balance tipping as you would expect so there’s still no great distinction for those who actually spent money in the game or not.
PVP
If you want to peg Divine Soul’s best feature, I’d say that the game’s PVP system is its greatest strength. The game incorporates a healthy mix of PC action gaming and old school fighting game combo systems to produce a unique and competitive PvP atmosphere.
As expected, the game is fast paced and brutal, especially if your job class belongs to the fast hitters. Muscle memory is your friend here. Also, what I liked about the game’s PVP is that your equipment won’t save you from bad timing and poor strategy. Knowing how and exactly when to unleash a hellish combo is vital to turning a match to your favor.
When it comes to PVP-ing, your biggest foe… is the lag. People who have slow internet connections are in the mercy of those who have better ones. I personally can attest to getting my priest defeated time and time again by people who have a faster Internet connection, or closer proximity to the game servers. The only time I was able to kick anyone’s ass is when I was faced with an enemy from the same geographical region as myself.
Conclusion
If I think about it, Divine Souls is a game that really delivers action as promised. The smooth transition between PVE and PVP is refreshing to experience, however the instanced dungeon questing gets old fast. While the game does have some other features in place, it won’t hold anyone with short attention spans.
The game is more suited for those seeking a fast-paced alternative to the MMORPG fantasy norms. In fact I can go as far as saying that if Grand Chase were ever turned into a 3D game, Divine Souls could be its soul successor of sorts.
The game’s combo system is easy to learn but you do need to invest more time in making your combo transitions smooth and efficient if you ever want to succeed in the game’s PvP. This is where the repetitiveness of the gameplay tends to be the make or break for any player. If you’re the type who doesn’t really care that you keep on stringing the same combos, fight after fight, after fight, after fight then the game is just for you.
However, I can’t recommend the game to people who want a more deliberate and slow-paced game. When they advertise this as an action game, they are telling you just what to expect.
Graphics – 3/5
Controls – 4/5
Features – 3.5/5
Customization – 2/5
Community – 3/5
