Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

"Vanguard - The Beginning"

So, I'll start out with saying how surprised I was when I started playing this game. I've been reading what I could on Curse-Gaming about this during my time with WoW. I said to myself, this game looks like crap. It's gonna turn out just like they all do, I'll play it and waste money on a month of game play and go back to WoW. Well, Vanguard's out now and I decided to check it out.

I quit WoW about a week or so before the release of this game. I was very skeptic of trying this out based on the things this board had said. I got a free trial from a friend and have been playing non-stop since. There is a lot of aspects of this game that remind me of WoW but the way you should at it is that these aspects are what MMO's should adapt or build upon.

The game play is very strong. After playing a few MMO's during my WoW time, Vanguard has the strongest game play out of them. I tried out most of the classes before picking the Rogue as my top choice. Out of all of the class I have to say that if you miss WoW, play a Rogue or a Necromancer as these almost mirror their class equivalent in World of Warcraft. However, I believe they did Rogues right. I'll be using this class to give my thoughts on the combat system, as well as the Psionicist, Dread Knight, and the Blood Mage.

The combat system in Vanguard is very simple to adapt to. Damage across the classes I've played seem right. Finally there's a game that when you play a class that should be strong, it is. Sigil doesn't seem to be catering to the PvP crowd and forgetting the PvE aspects *cough* Blizzard *cough*. Sigil seems to know a thing or two about class balance, if you read the new article on Curse-Gaming. They are doing a great job with it, especially when you have 19 races and 15 classes. You have four different archetypes to choose from and each and every class in their respected archetype is completely different from the next. No longer do you have a class whose real abilities are cloaked by people saying "heal only!". You'll find much more in the Vanguard classes than the strict set rules for other games.

The items are very realistic in this game and that's a definite plus. No longer are the shoulders immensely huge, but now have the same kind of power and show that there is a proportionated body under them. The stats on the weapons and armor seem pretty balanced to me so far and look pretty cool. My first tunic looked awesome for a level 2 item. The mount system is very expansive and I like how they approached it. It's not expensive and is there to help you maneuver throughout the world, like a mount system is made for. It's not there to make you spend hours and hours and hours farming money just for a horse or gryphon.

The world of Vanguard is very bad ass looking. The diversity in area between races give each starting area a great feel. I don't know about other WoW players but if I did Northshire Abbey one more time I was gonna throw my PC at an oncoming car. I redid the starting area for the Wood Elf about four times and each time I felt like it was a new experience. Maybe it's because the classes are so diverse, or it's a new game, but I like it. The look and feel of the world is very well thought through. Depending on what kind of rig you have, you'll see the world in different ways. However, if your lucky to see it in it's fully glory, congratulations because it is nice!

The races are probably my biggest beef. I love having a big choice pool and their racials are very nice, but I don't see much difference in the race models. The lesser giant, orc, and big races like that are the same model with a different head. The elves are the nearly the same model with a different tone. However, you have so much customization with them that if you do look alike your proportions and sizes will most likely not be the same. I'd like to see some more diversity between races. Maybe that would entice me to make a different kind of human out of the four kinds.

The game has some bugs, but so does every MMO that reaches release date. Sigil is doing a great job at giving us some patches so I do believe the game will be balanced out soon enough. Given a month, Vanguard should be as stable or close to it as WoW is now. A new interview with Sigil on Curse-Gaming even furthers my statement. In my opinion the biggest problem is the client-side stability. I have had the game crash on me multiple times. However, some don't have that problem, but it doesn't take away from the fact that the problem is there. Sigil is working and working pretty damn hard. Should be great in a month.

And that's what I gotta say. Hope I helped some decisions for some peeps. Cyas.

*NOTE* This review was not written by a player at the highest level but rather a prospective of what the beginning of the game world is like.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/06/07