Dark Ages

"A game that has promise, but is ruined by morons"

About a year ago, my sister told me about a good online RPG. I decided to download it and play it. After a year of playing, I'm still not satisfied with this game. Why?

Okay, this game has SO much promise. I mean, just take a look at it. We got a 2D online RPG with 5 classes to choose from. We have a lot of quests, a religion, politics, spells, swords, traps, etc. What makes this game so bad, you're probably wondering? Well, with a lack of updates, a rotten community, and a lack on the company's part, Dark Ages loses what promise it could have

Graphics -7- I admit, I like 2D games a lot better than 3D games. The graphics are really nice in this game. Each class has nice outfits, but they look WAY too much like Final Fantasy Tactics outfits. The mundanes, also NPCs, look like they fit the world, but there's like 2 dozen that look different. Then the game sticks the same ones in other places. Overall, the graphics are nice, if you like 2D games

Sound/Music -5- The sound is nothing to go crazy about. Neither is the music. Both are average at best. Some of the music fits the places you travel to though, but don't expect a great musical score.

Gameplay -4- Okay, HERE we go. The gameplay is rather poor in this game. You either slash the monster or hit it with a spell. You have 5 classes to choose from: Warrior, Monk, Rogue, Priest, and Wizard. You think the classes would be balanced, with advantages and disadvantages, but it's FAR from that.

For example, rogues have to rely on traps. They end up being the loner for the beginning of the game, but later on, they have to group and they're not very helpful in the harder hunting areas at all. Wizard's spells are VERY weak, even the most powerful elemental spells. You'd think they'd be really strong since the monster's spells are so strong as well. The only useful wizard spell is Mor Fas Nadur. Warriors have very little skills. And Priests cannot hunt alone until they hit 99 or master at the very least.

For the monsters, they do the same things. At first, they don't use magic, but later, they do. You will ALWAYS get cradhed, a magic spell which increases your defense (The higher defense, the more damage you'll take), no matter what, unless your magic defense is high, and even then, you may still get cradhed. And even then, monsters will hit you with spells so unless you have a Dark Belt, which protects you against all elements except Light magic, you will lose half your hp or even die on your own! This turns off people because it's very hard to raise your levels in the beginning.

This game forces you to group with others. You cannot survive unless you hunt with someone else. This makes hunting very annoying because you have to wait around until someone around your level comes along so you can hunt with them.

You think that this game would provide quests to help low level people. There are a few quests like that, but once you get above 25, you have to hunt. The company promises to add in more quests since last year, but they were never added, adding in to more frustrations.

What's worse is that subpath, where a character can change their class, threw the game's challenge WAY off. At one point, you could carry over status points when you subpathed. Unfortunately, people could carry over 150+ points, which is what happened. This was fixed, but those people are still there and keep the game unbalanced.

Company involvement -1- Okay, this is important in an online game. The company has to show that they want this game to succeeded and show that they like the players and show involvement in the game. The company lacks this big time. In the year I've played, only master, subbing, and necromancy was added. The lack of updates and the lack of involvement on the company's part really ruin this game.

Community -0- This is probably the worst thing out of the game. This game relies on the players. However, the community here is bad. Many players run around wild, harassing others, abusing bugs, and many unimaginable things. The director doesn't punish these people either. Instead, the director ignores the problems and sometimes, even PRAISES them! And it's the same people doing this! I wonder why the director doesn't block these people by now, since they've been around a long time. Other online games don't have this problem, because people like that would be punished before the problem got out of hand. But instead, the director ignores the problem and it gets worse as time goes on, driving away long time customers and new ones as well.

All in all, this game has so much promise, but it's ruined by people who are lazy and too stupid to see the problems in it. It's only a matter of time until the game goes down completely, because quite frankly, I'm sick of being harassed by the same people day in and day out.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/01, Updated 08/18/01