Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle

"A game that may not be worth the money"

Introduction:

This review is for the game Lineage II, a MMORPG created by NCSoft. Throughout the game, it has been partitioned into parts called Chronicles. At the moment, it is at Chronicle 4 while discussions of Chronicle 5 are already present. Lineage II is a game, which requires a monthly subscription of about $10. Since this game has online fees, private servers have spawned to attract players with free play and with an altered leveling scheme.

Graphics: 7/10

Lineage II is a game with great graphics as it boasts vivid detail on terrain, characters, and items. For the most part, characters look realistic, which is pleasing to the gamer,'s eye. Although the character design is good, some of the building designs are annoying as low doorways can lead to control difficulties. Even though the designs are good, the monsters lack originality, as some of them are recognizable from other games. Lastly, good graphics come with a price. In order to play this game, a good video card with a memory of at least 64MB is required. I have tried to play with a 32MB graphics card, but it will not even run with minimal settings; in other words, be prepared to shell out some cash for a newer video card.

Story: 6/10

In this MMORPG, a brief story is present and is posted on the website. However, in the game, the storyline is not mentioned a lot and does not seem to be very significant. Overall, the story is nice to see, but since it is hidden in a corner in the website, it does not stand out and does not enhance the game as much as it could have.

Gameplay: 6/10

Lineage II offers a large assortment of races and classes. With the availability of jobs, it allows players to be different from each other. The problem is that everyone with the same class are like clones, with little or no possibility for customization. For some MMORPGs, they allow the player some variety of stats or skills, but Lineage II does not have many of these features. Occasionally, camera control can be frustrating, especially entering a building with a low doorway as the door tends to interfere with movement. The battle system is decent as PVP is allowed almost everywhere outside cities. Quests are a disappointment as they become annoying because in game directions are ambiguous and the rewards are not too worthwhile. The leveling scheme is quite fast at low levels, but can get very slow at higher levels. One of the ways private servers use to remedy this problem is by changing the rates at which players obtain items. While this is not present on the official servers, this can help weekend players by reducing the amount of time grinding. Dying in Lineage II is not much fun as the loss penalties are very steep.

Playtime/ Replay: 6/10

To complete the game, it will take a long time. Like most MMORPGs, they are not designed to be finished in a week. While this may allow NCSoft to gain money, it may turn away players who do not have much time to the private servers. After a long time of grinding, most people will get bored when they see that their character takes forever to level up and some may eventually quit. Since multiple character creation is possible, players may return to play it once more, but the hard grind will probably turn people away again.

Other Comments:

While this game is a pay to play game, I do not think it is worth it if for people to pay for this if they are just trying out the MMORPG genre. If people want to see if this game is worthwhile, I recommend trying the private servers first or borrowing it off a friend before deciding to pay for the real thing. Although private servers seem good, they have their own problems such as unreliability, poor community, and frequent bugs. In other words, borrow/ rent this game first before deciding to buy it.

June 13 2006

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/14/06