Free Korean MMOs are notorious for being grindfests with little to show for your time at the end of the day. With that in mind, a lot of MMO gamers might catch a glimpse of Atlantica Online and simply ignore it. After all, it’s got the same anime-style graphics as all the other games; it’s free; and doesn’t look at all compelling at first glance.
But here’s the kicker: Atlantica Online has turn-based combat and is actually quite different to probably anything else you’ve ever played out of Korea. Don’t believe me? Keep reading this review…
If you think of Final Fantasy or other console-based Japanese RPGs, you’re on the right track with Atlantica Online. Take those style of games, stick them in an MMO context, along the lines of an environment like Guild Wars, and you’re halfway there.
You start the game by selecting your main character (choosing between archers, spearmen and even gun and guitar-toting characters), and then recruiting a few party members (or “mercenaries”) before embarking on one of many kill/fetch quests, such as “kill ‘x’ monsters” or “kill monsters to find ‘x’ item(s)”. Don’t worry; these quests are simply to teach you the basics of the game and get you up to speed with what is, essentially, a PvP experience once you blast through the first phase of the game.
Starting in “Division 18”, your goal is to work towards “Division 1” through fighting other players in an arena environment. When not fighting in the arena, you can travel the countryside – which is essentially an alternate version of Earth, with fantasy-style areas named after real world places, such as Beijing, Moscow and even Detroit.
Combat is very cool. You are given 30 seconds to make all the moves you can across up to nine party characters before the balance turns to your opponent and they get 30 seconds to hammer you – so while the game is turn-based, it’s still fast and you really need to be on the ball to maximise your strategy against your opponent.
In all, this is a solid strategy game with some strong PvP and guild elements. On the downside, the setting is a little bizarre and a touch cutesy, like most games coming out of Korea. If you can see past that, however, this is a very, very good free game and, I guarantee, quite different to what you’re used to seeing produced out of Asia.
I played atlantica online for over a year and a half.Had a rather good time, got my character to lvl 126 and decided to call it quits after I finally noticed that although it is a free to play game the gms and devs alike have shown that the main focus was adding things to item mall rather than what the community actually wanted or suggested.Understandably I know they must make money to keep afloat but if one plays the game a while and gets their character to 100+ they will begin to notice that in order to play the game “comfortably” they would need or want a warrior or hero pack and blessing license and that is going to cost you 30$ a month if buying the 30 day option.Furthermore atlas ore started to become more and more part of the game which is yet another item mall item.Yes you can buy the items via in game money but for a very considerable amount.As a high lvl player I had a good amount of money saved but the cost was overwhelming and it seemed only a handful or maybe a few handfuls of people were actually able to repeatedly able to purchase these items with in game money.Nonetheless I have moved on in a search for other games to play.Though the game has really good graphics and many quests to keep you busy it is in my opinion that once you get to be “high” lvl be prepared to be an item maller if you wish to be amongst the successful players.