Blade And Soul Review

Blade & Soul (Korean: 블레이드 앤 소울; RR: Beulleideu aen soul) is a Korean fantasy martial-arts massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by NCSOFT (Team Bloodlust). On September 13, 2012, NCSOFT announced that Blade & Soul would release in Western territories, which eventually happened on January 19, 2016.^[1] A Japanese animated television adaptation aired on April 3, 2014 on TBS and other stations^[2] then finished on June 26, 2014.

Gameplay[edit]

Blade & Soul features a combination of martial arts-inspired combat and qinggong in an open-world environment. Players create playable characters that explore around the world by completing quests assigned by various NPCs. The game uses a real-time battle system in the third-person camera view and requires players to 'combo' a series of attacks, much like that of fighting games. According to NCSOFT, the game also features an innovative “Downed” mechanic, allowing players to recover from the brink of death. Players begin with “player-versus environment” combat (PvE) but may participate in “player-versus-player” (PvP) combat later in the game.^[3]

Character customization[edit]

According to the developers, Blade & Soul provides a highly customizable system and it has been stated that NPCs in the game were made with the character customization system.^[4] Customizations a player has access to include hair styles, facial structures, facial markings and makeup, eye color, height, and body sliders.

Read reviews on Blade and Soul on Crunchyroll. Alka, a sword-woman with proficient skills, defeats foes by a single stroke. She travels with an aim to avenge her master, Hong's death, of which.

Races[edit]

Characters may be one of four playable races based on the Four Chinese Symbols: The Gon (based on the Azure Dragon), the Jin (based on the Black Tortoise), the Yun (based on the Vermillion Bird, also known as the Fenghuang), or the Lyn (based on the White Tiger).

Development[edit]

Weeks before NCmedia day, NCSOFT announced a new Unreal Engine 3-based MMORPG only known by its codename Project [M]. For the next two weeks, a teaser website was updated revealing more information about the project.

During E3 2007, Sony revealed that they had entered into an exclusive deal with NCsoft to produce new titles exclusively for the PlayStation 3. This contract included titles from both existing intellectual properties owned by NCsoft.

In February 2010, it was announced that Blade & Soul, alongside Guild Wars 2, was being developed for release on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, since then, there have been no updates on the development of the titles for the consoles.

The first closed beta test was scheduled for April 27, 2011, while the open beta test and commercial release were to be determined within the year.

In July 2011, Tencent gained the publishing rights of Blade & Soul in China, and made its first appearance at ChinaJoy 2011.^[5]Blade & Soul launched in China on November 23, 2013 with an open beta which seamlessly moved into official launch.

The second closed beta test took place from August 29 to September 10, 2011. During this event, the Assassin class was playable for the first time.

After an open beta test on June 21, 2012, with a record number of 150,000 players, NCSOFT confirmed that the official Korean Blade & Soul launch would commence on June 30, 2012.^[6]

In 2013, HTK has stated that an English version of the game would indeed be released sometime in 2014 after the Chinese commercial launch of the new Blade & Soul anime in Japan alongside Taiwan and Russia.^[7]

On May 20, 2015, Blade & Soul was announced for the NA and EU region and released in January 2016. The closed beta officially began on October 29, 2015.

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NA and EU beta testing occurred over the course of five weekends beginning on October 30, 2015, and concluding on December 21, 2015.

The official launches of NA and EU servers occurred on January 19, 2016.^[8]

On May 10, 2018, NCsoft has teased a new 'Blade & Soul Vision Update', the renovation project that aims to upgrade the engine to Unreal Engine 4^[9], and released as the Blade & Soul Complete expansion in December 2019.

Media[edit]

Anime[edit]

An anime adaptation of the game was produced and aired from April to June 2014, in which Hiroshi Hamasaki and Takeuchi Hiroshi directed the anime at the studio Gonzo from scripts by Atsuhiro Tomioka. Eri Nagata adapts Hyung-Tae Kim's game character designs for animation and serves as chief animation director.^[10] The original storyline revolves around a swordswoman named Alka who travels to seek revenge for her murdered teacher.^[11] The opening theme of the anime is 'Sayonara Usotsuki' (サヨナラ嘘ツキ) by MimimemeMIMI, and the ending theme is 'RAINBOW' by LEGO BIG MORL. The series was streamed by Crunchyroll in the West.^[11]

Episode list[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Announcing Blade & Soul'. NCsoft. Archived from the original on September 17, 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2012.
2. ^'Blade & Soul Fantasy TV Anime's 1st Promo Streamed'. Anime News Network. February 14, 2014. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
3. ^'FAQ'. NCsoft. Archived from the original on September 16, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
4. ^'Massively'. massively.joystiq.com. Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved March 2, 2012.
5. ^'MMOsite'. MMOsite.com. Archived from the original on November 1, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
6. ^'Blade & Soul Dojo'. bladeandsouldojo.com. Archived from the original on March 29, 2016. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
7. ^'김형태 Hyung-Tae Kim Interview at NCSOFT 'Blade & Soul' studio'. Cuteinkorea.com. Archived from the original on November 16, 2016. Retrieved June 11, 2014.
8. ^'Blade & Soul'. NCSoft. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
9. ^'NCsoft previews upgrade to Unreal Engine 4 for Asian fantasy MMORPG'. MMOCulture. Retrieved May 11, 2018.
10. ^'Blade & Soul Fantasy MMORPG Gets Anime by GONZO'. Anime News Network. February 7, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
11. ^ ^ab'Crunchyroll Adds Blade and Soul Anime for Spring 2014'. Anime News Network. April 3, 2014.

External links[edit]

• Blade & Soul (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia

• • Platforms:
  PC
• Developer: Team Bloodlust
• Publisher:NCSoft
• Release: January 19, 2016

Launched in Asia in 2012, NCSoft’s MMORPG Blade & Soul has been released in the West and while it’s a polished and attractive game that makes a good initial impression, a more extended stay in its anime and martial arts-inspired world reveals some issues that impact its staying power. An enjoyable and skill-heavy combat system is unfortunately wedded to an uninspired and ultimately repetitive campaign. As MMOs go, Blade & Soul ultimately feels like a lightweight experience.

Actually, Blade and Soul — like so many recent MMOs — consists of an essentially single player campaign that prepares the player for PvP arenas at level 45. The anime-inspired story puts the player in the role of a mystical martial artist in training, whose school and revered master were destroyed by an evil sorceress, thus setting up the arc of revenge and retribution. After the well-produced cutscene-heavy tutorial chapter and in the game world proper, the player is quickly inundated by quests in service of one faction or another, leading them through the five major areas and dozens of locations.

The main story quests are voiced by earnest and American sounding actors, but sidequests are not and the quests themselves are grindy, a mixture of short instanced quests in mini-dungeons and environmental sub-bosses that are completed solo or by small ad hoc groups of players. The quests themselves show a stubborn lack of originality: kill x number of monsters, fetch y number of some object, rescue z number of prisoners. Thanks to the combat system, clearing the level of the constantly respawning mobs is fun for a while, but it’s also easy. The enemies aren’t smart, there aren’t scores of them at a time and on the rare occasion you die, there’s no real penalty other than the loss of progress. Despite the lovely Asian architecture and attractive environments, the enemies themselves could have spawned in just about any MMORPG. There is a fast travel system but within each major region, distances aren’t huge and the characters can run/fly along the treetops á la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Blade & Soul has a strict class-based system but at least the classes are not gender locked. Consisting of seven classes that more or less conform to ranged, melee, dual weapon, and magic-using fighters, each has a unique system of combos and special abilities that really shine in the unpredictable and challenging PvP arena, where skillful use of abilities, strategy and practiced timing equate with success. It’s great fun to kick an enemy down, pick him up like a limp doll, then finish him off with a series of whirlwind slices and dices. When Blade & Soul is in “fighting game” mode, it’s great fun, especially for an MMO, and the area battles are impressive and chaotic. You can read the impact of a teammate’s strike on an enemy by color and add your move to the chain.

On the periphery of questing and combat, Blade & Soul checks off most of the boxes we expect with an MMORPG. There is a simple crafting system, but no player housing. There is some lightweight and relatively unimportant resource gathering and while the game is quick to remind the player that a cash shop is always open in which to spend real money, most of what’s there is cosmetic or convenient, like costumes, keys, or XP boosts. This isn’t a pay to win game, but you have to wonder about any game that encourages a player to get through its content as quickly and as expediently as possible. What’s the rush? There’s also a roulette-wheel mini game that they player can spin in-game that will pay out random rewards, and there are daily challenges to complete.

While not as graphically impressive as the upcoming Black Desert Online, Blade and Soul is a great looking game, with a bright, appealing and uncluttered look that might be described as “clinically beautiful.” It’s not in any sense a believably real world — creatures, people and animals move in their little proscribed patterns or stand around waiting to be killed and then respawn almost immediately — but the environments are varied and interesting. Four years after launching in Asia, most of the bugs have been squashed so the game runs smoothly with few hiccups. The musical score by Japanese game and media composer Taro Iwashiro is an effectively dramatic and emotionally varied blend of Western and Eastern instruments and musical motifs.

While we’re on the subject of aesthetics, it should be noted that this is one of those anime-influenced games — and characteristic of NCSoft MMOs — in which women are overly sexualized and men are either androgynous or absurdly over-muscled, though some of Blade and Souls races tone this down a little. It’s not like Western games don’t objectify women, too, but when every female warrior is wearing some variation of stiletto heels, peek-a-boo armor and a g-string, as an adult it’s hard not to to feel vaguely embarrassed and/or creepy just being part of it.

Closing Comments:

Blade & Soul is a free-to-play MMORPG and as such offers a lot of content and gameplay for literally nothing. It’s attractive and has an interesting and flexible combat system that will actually take some time and thought to master, and lots of classes and move sets to play with. If you’re looking for an MMO that isn’t a generic high fantasy clone, Blade & Soul will be appealing. After a while, though, the romance fades and the grind sets in, and you realize that the good stuff is the PvP after level 45 and even then, there’s not that much to do. There are seven classes but every character slogs through the same story and the same quests and easy-kill monsters. It’s then that you realize the cash shop and XP-boots are there for a reason. It’s easy to recommend giving Blade & Soul a try, but hard to imagine sticking with it for long.

Version Reviewed: PC