Linage II Review: More Features And Gimmicks Than the Average MMO

 

If you think you enjoyed the first Lineage game, then wait till you get a dose of its successor. Lineage II is a Massively Multiplayer Online game that shares the same mechanics as World of Warcraft and other broad exploring games. Lineage II’s graphics surpasses its predecessor by a mile, with a bunch of eye candy characters that are detailed to your satisfaction. Lineage II is rather PVP oriented compared to its old persona.

 

When I first started playing this game, I was surprised unto how beautiful the visuals were. The map alone was enough to tell me how big this world was, and the new Kamael expansion just added more places to visit.

 

 

First thing that caught my attention was the game’s line of characters. You won’t find a shard of ugliness among all the races. In fact, I was pretty surprised after seeing the hot orc women (cuz trust me, You don’t see hot orcs in this era). When was the last time you saw an orc that looked like Vin Diesel with hair? If not, now’s your chance. Races are mainly composed of the default mythical races namely: humans, elves, dark elves (drows) and so forth. The Kamael however, is a new breed of one winged angels (geez how original) who dress up like Victorian aristocrats. This new race managed to enter the war after the Kamael patch was implemented. 

 

The graphic detail is quite amazing. Characters look well rendered, not to mention their armor that greatly compliments their looks. The character creation system lets you pick your race and of course your corresponding class. Know that each race has their own set of classes that tends to be different from other races regardless of whether they’re both spell casters or not. During the character creation phase you’ll be asked to pick your character’s gender, hairstyle and face. It’s not much but they do have a lot of em so you wont have to worry about seeing a clone. You’ll start out with your race’s default class which will of course branch out into different class trees as you reach certain levels.

 

The game has a lot of classes from where your default class can evolve to. A dark elf for example can take the road of an assassin after reaching a certain level. He will then be able to move on to being a Phantom Ranger who will then be able to turn into a Ghost Sentinel.

 

As you can see, that alone is just a small part of what your characters’ outcome would be. The long array of classes would pretty much get anyone into creating tons of new characters just to be able to try em all. This factor alone boosts the game’s replay value by a mile.

Skills are more or less acquired through gold or ingame money. Most of them can be learned through your skill tree but some of em however, can only be acquired through proper purchase. Skills look amazing and tantalizing for both physical units and spell casters. The Dynamic lighting effects while executing  skills makes combat quite additive, and getting to hear your characters say they HOOAAAs and YAAAs totally enhances your combat experience. 

 

 

After creating my first character (a dark elf fighter), I found myself awestruck after seeing the Dark elves’ town. The visuals were really amazing, for every area that I come across tends to be different from the rest. The map was huge, giving me an impression that it would most likely be impossible to explore it in a span of a week. It’s always a big plus for a game to have a big map, mostly because nothing rewards a player better than getting to see another part of the world. The whole forest-dungeon- town doesn’t seem so appealing now a days, so I guess this means that Lineage II has something that players should look forward to.

 

 

The game lets players transform into various beings (most of which are race-tied) that grant them more power than their default characters could ever muster. This helps when you’re doing PVP or when you’re up against stronger enemies.

Since this game revolves around PVP, I guess you’re looking for something different. Yes, the game lets guilds own castles throughout the game. Once marked as your territory, other guilds or races can lure you into something that’s called a castle siege. In this scenario, you’ll battle it out in an all out war against your suppressors. Pretty neat eh?

 

What really caught my attention though were two cursed swords that randomly appear in the world of Lineage II. The Zariche and Akamanah are two separate items that grants a player surreal powers. Once a player gets a hold of either swords, their name turns red and must continuously kill other players in order to further enhance the sword’s lifespan. Once a player dies, the sword disappears and that player returns to their old self. It is pretty cool when you look at it. You can probably kill a lot of people during a castle siege, provided that your teammates don’t kill you first.

 

 

In game music is complete epic and really boosts the efficiency of role play. Either that or it completely lets players build their own personal relationship with the game. Each area has its own background music if not complete silence. Sure the game could use more music but hey! The sound effects were pretty good.

 

 

Lineage respects the Karma system that limits players from killing other players. For a PVP type game, this is pretty dull and would definitely destroy the factor of PVP. Players who kill more than they’re supposed to enters a certain mode wherein they will no longer be able to enter towns (you could try… but the guards would probably kill you before you touch the gates). You can get rid of this curse by killing monsters (a lot of em) or by doing the repentance quest which is a bit hard to do. I even made another character after my Dark Elf’s name turned red. Since the repentance quest is quite hardcore (meaning you’ll get to visit places that characters of your level cant handle), I guess it’s better to just start over and make a new one. I know they were trying not to encourage people to camp other players but this completely kills the player’s love for PVP. I mean, the siege wars doesn’t completely cut it anyway.

 

 

This is definitely one of the big MMOs. The in game graphics are superb and matches the most up to date games. The ultimate PVP experience? Maybe, but castle sieges are pretty good anyway. As for the cursed swords, I really cant wait to try em out. It must be really fun to kill other characters while wielding an unholy sword. This game is character creation at its finest. A game that has more features and more gimmicks than the average MMO. Should you play it? Absolutely!

 

– Superb graphics
– Unique gimmicks
– Excellent map with a lot of areas for you to visit

 

– Needs more BGM
– The karma system is overkill
– Probably needs a bit more than just the face and hair customization (ever heard of increase bust?)