The Pride of Taern Proxzor Impressions
By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor), OnRPG Journalist
The Pride of Taern is a browser based RPG that lets you follow its story with a lot of different classes and a unique combat system to keep the game challenging. Make your hero and travel the world as the story develops around you, play alone or together in a guild and declare war against others to expand your grasp over the land. Arenas and tournaments are also offered to show off your skills at end-game.
Before I even touched the game I already noticed that the developers are a fan of multiple franchises. I have seen many things taken from other products and I was scared if I would be trying out a game that was simply a clone of its predecessors with a new skin. Even when making my first character I was a little bit surprised by the Archer class; just look at him, tell me that doesn’t look like Aragorn at all. When I got in the game however I was really surprised by what I saw. The game is actually really good looking and by far one of the best looking browser games on the market.
Right from the start you get sucked into the story and it immediately revolves around your character. I was together with my family until a war broke out with most of my loved ones getting caught in the crossfire. Unfortunately things went from bad to worse and soon I was the last remaining member of my bloodline, ready to claw my way out of my own personal hell to seek revenge. While doing the starter quests I was amazed at the attention to detail the designers put in the background and environment effects. My greatest gripe though was the walking pace of my character. It was absolutely terribly slow and in my opinion should be speed up because the longer you play in one setting, the more it grinds at you how slow you’re progressing. While walking through town I even was overtaken by a turtle with a snail on his back that looked like he was laughing at me.
The combat in Taern is really difficult; you have 12 AP that you can spend to dodge armor, ranged and magic attacks. On top of that you will have to choose what kind of attacks you want to do and how much damage. So you can either choose to fully block incoming melee attacks and deal 3 heavy attacks yourself. Or you can try to block a little from all the three possible attacks and deal 5 weaker attacks. Unfortunately it doesn’t really work that great yet and it is quite annoying if you are using a weapon to deal damage. The game comes with 2 preset attacks already but unfortunately I didn’t find any option whatsoever to make your own setup, resulting in me having to click through a lot of options at the beginning of each battle. Once again this combines with the slow movement speed to make for a tedious combat and questing system during long play sessions. One strange feature tacked on though is the card system. When a person dies he must draw a card to know the price he has to pay in order to return back on his feet.
Conclusion
All in all Taern is ahead of its time for what it offers within a browser game, but still has some minor issues to adjust. From my own point of few these mistakes are enough to deter players from wanting to play long-term, which is a shame since the RPG elements are so strong. If you are a big fan of RPGs in general and want the convenience of one in your browser, keep an eye on this title as I imagine it’s going to get a lot better with a few patches.
