This desert looks like an oasis
Another Korean-based MMO is heading to the West and though Black Desert Online shares similarities with Devilian, I’m considerably more optimistic about where Pearl Abyss is taking this ambitious MMO.
Let’s get the obvious out the way. Black Desert Online is absolutely gorgeous. It’s astounding and outstanding. Everything looks good and it’s well optimized. I made the mistake of running through the world at the highest settings, suffering with 25 FPS but I hardly noticed because everything that blurred by was gorgeous. I run an i5-3750K, 8GB RAM, 660 Ti and on their Slightly High setting, the game runs at a near flawless 50 FPS.
One of my biggest problems with Devilian was the combination of apathetic missions and boring combat, but Black Desert Online’s combat is exciting. It’s pleasing kinetically and visually. I chose the Tamer character first as I love her acrobatic style. She flips, slices and dices, and is a combo machine. I sliced and diced the same way for hours before realizing I had more ways to cut enemies down through the skill tree, but kept forgetting the combinations.
It wasn’t the fault of the game, it just speaks to the amount of combinations available. Just switching between left mouse click and right mouse click is eight moves. Add directional keys with the spacebar or another key the game designates and you could easily have 20+ ways to chop your foes.
There's so many ways to customize your character!
It is important to use the full varieties of moves because some attacks allow you to evade and others give you space between you and your enemy. Otherwise, you could cut baddies up the same way but you will likely drink more potions. You get a generous amount of them but enemies will give you a reason to pop a flask.
Black Desert Online has a ton of quests but, like Devilian, it’s hard to stay attentive to the story. The foundations of the plot are poorly established so quests quickly become insignificant errands. Though the combat makes these errands exciting.
It doesn’t help localization fumbles in another Korean MMO. Some characters say things that make you cringe and you want to say to the character “We don’t talk like that.” However, thanks to contextual cutscenes that introduce characters, I become that much more invested. But character development seems to stop there.
Graphics look amazing
You can do a ton of things in this world. You can do MMO staples such as participate with Guilds, engage in PvP, craft, and cook. But you can also fish, tame wild animals and turn them into mounts, create things with alchemy, buy and decorate homes, auction goods, garden, among a variety of other things. The question is: If you just wanted to tailor your experience around taming animals, for example, would it be worthwhile?
Answering that question is difficult because many of the tutorials were turned off. They can be hard to understand without guidance. Taming horses should be as simple as catching a Pokemon, but it takes four or five steps to create a mount. Even if you do receive a mount through activities, you have to reach a stable first. You can’t just summon it. Everything has an extra step where you might think it’s just plug and play. It’s the reason why consoles haven’t died and it’s the reason why some people might be put off by the complexity of accomplishing, what should be, simple tasks.
To be fair, everything in the final version might be sufficiently explained and easy to understand, even if it were to require some effort, but as of now, that’s not the case.
Where you might lose at least one hour of your time is character creation. The game isn’t finished yet, but this still might be the best character creation ever. You can sculpt the body, the face, and hair. You can place tattoos on the body and add reflection to the skin, and change the colour of pretty much anything, though that is limited to preset colours for whatever reason. The only thing you can’t do is design your own clothes. Otherwise, I had to force myself to stop fooling with all the options so I could start the game.
Peek-a-boo
Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, characters are gender-locked and ethnicity-locked. Never the end of the world in my eyes but I always find it difficult to name female characters, and I am a fan of options but it doesn’t hurt the experience.
One thing that surprised me is how easy it was to use the mouse and keyboard. I am an unashamed Gamepad user and in a game with this much action, I typically default to a Gamepad. But I thoroughly enjoyed tapping the keys and clicking the mouse.
There’s so much to like about Black Desert Online including the fact that Pearl Abyss is taking the pay-to-own approach in the West. It likely won’t trump any major MMO’s on the market, but there is plenty to be excited about. I am concerned about all of the content and how meaningful it will be, but with a ton of quests, engaging content, and beautiful well-optimized graphics, you’ve got to keep an eye on this game.
