Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle

"Pretty, Flashy, but worth it?"

First, I must say that Lineage 2 does take you on a wonderful journey in a mythical land full of familiar and unique creatures. While the game does have pretty graphics, and in my opinion, the best looking armor of any game I've ever seen. It does lack in a few other departments.

The Economy of the game if fairly extensive, and balanced as well. Though the problem isn't the economy, its getting the cash (Adena, its called) to continue to advance your character further and further. Monsters, as you fight your way through the game, drop very low amounts of cash (adena), while items in the game, before you even reach level 20, can cost up to 700,000+ adena each! That might not sound like much compared to other games, but considering monsters drop around 10-100 adena around levels 1-20, its quite difficult to make the cash needed, to advance equipment wise. Lacking good equipment for your level, also hinders your ability to effectively deal with monsters as you increase in level as well.

Increasing in level is also a problem. At first, you might be going quick, and such. But as you progress, experience continues to seem less and less, and soon your making only a fraction of a percent of experience, a kill. Thats soloing monsters as well, sharing that fraction with a party when playing? Might as well say good bye to leveling up for a while.

While the game does offer a great deal of classes, and paths to choose from, there is some classes that are much more powerful then others. This leads to a greater number of that class, and that particular class ends up being the "favorite", just because its powerful. This destroys any variety PvP (Player vs Player) combat would hold, for the most part anyway. When everyone is the same two or 3 classes, PvP will always be the same thing over and over, and who has the best equipment and the largest wallets will be the winners in that fight.

As I mentioned above, the game is visually stunning for a MMORPG. It would be, naturally. Lineage 2 uses a modified version of the Unreal Game Engine, used for the unreal game series. The items, special effects, monsters and general environment is without a doubt, true eye candy. Though, you wont be able to view the pretty armor, or weapons, or unique monsters without leveling up. To do that, takes hours of grinding/questing. A lot of casual gamers don't have the time to get high level, so they are stuck in the lower levels, and quickly quit the game.

The game handles smoothly, but you do need a somewhat decent computer to handle the graphical load. Especially in crowded places, like towns. Or if you manage to make it to higher levels, castle sieges.

Quests in this MMO vary from simple tasks, to very tedious, grinding, hour wasting chores. Not fun, I think. The castle siege system is something to be considered though, as well as the Clan War, and the Rank System.

The Clan system in this game is extremely extensive and well done. Perhaps the best I've seen in any game, as well. Besides being able to create a Clan, you can level up the clan. That also requires a great deal of time and resources for the higher levels of the clan, though.

You may also participate in whats called a Castle Siege, where one clan, will attempt to siege the castle of another clan and take it for themselves, and keep it until the next scheduled castle siege event. Clan Masters can also bid on Clan halls, or create Academies for clan members under level 40. Besides the Clan master, there can be two Royal guards, selected by the clan master. Each Royal guard, A and B, can have a collection of Knights serving under them. All played by actual players.

Over all, a very pretty game, and somewhat addictive. Until you hit the constant grinding to gain small amounts of experience or money. If you have the time to devout to this game, and actually raise in level, I recommend it more so then any other MMO out the market today.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/07

Game Release: Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle (EU, 11/19/04)