Review: Prius Online

Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here! Hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving holiday. I know I did. With the semester exams ending tonight, I figured I'd start to review the games I've been playing over the past month or so. I've been playing two games as of late, Prius Online and ARGO Online. I'll start with Prius since I played it first. So let's get started.

Game Basics:

Title: Prius Online (Also known as Anima Redux)

Publisher: gPotato

Genre: Fantasy Adventure MMORPG
Website: http://prius.gpotato.com/

Cost: Free-to-play, pay for extra features

Ratings:
Graphics: 4/5
Character Customization: 2/5
Beginning/Tutorial: 1/3
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.: 3/5
Story, Quests, Content: 3/5

Level I Gave Up At: 24

I really don't know why I keep playing games done by gPotato. They really aren't that good. In fact, they usually suck. It's like being hit upside the head with a hammer and keep going back to the person who hits you to get hit again. But I digress. Prius Online (Also known as Anima Redux, from what I understand) seemed to be a really interesting game. At least, the website made it seem that way. Their major selling point was a three-character system, in which you control two other people besides your created character and each have their own skills, inventory, etc. etc.. This was nothing new to me, to be honest; Sword of the New World (Granado Espada) had done this several years ago and I think they did it a hell of a lot better than Prius does. And no, before you ask, you can't really choose who the other two characters you play as are. The first one you get is a little girl-like creature named Anima, through a quest chain at level 10. 

(Yes, I know she looks like pedo bait. She probably is.)

Basically, the story is that you came back from the dead and have lost all your memories. At level 10, you go to find your Anima, who is really friggin' excited to see you, but she doesn't remember who you are or anything else about the world. I can't remember the reason why she loses all of her memories and things, but your interactions with her, what you tell her to do, and other things influence her personality and mood. The Anima (who you can rename if you like) is basically your crafting bitch; she collects things for you and cooks things for you. All crafting is done, in some part, by the Anima. She can also fight, has her own inventory slots (though it is only costume-based inventory and doesn't actually influence her stats or abilities, from what I understand), and helps you out in quests. You can interact with her directly by talking to her, responding to things she says, and giving her gifts. She has some limited customization, in terms of hair and (I think) facial features.

It sounds really cool, in theory.

But that's just in theory. In truth, while she's cute to interact with, and often makes (admittedly) really adorable facial expressions and animations, if you tell her what to do too often, she'll get pissed, throw a bitchy hissy fit, and refuse to do what you say for up to 10 minutes, unless you give her a gift (Which you can only do once an hour, so if you piss her off in that cooldown, sucks to be you). Her response times are often incredibly slow, as if she is thinking about the order you just gave her.

Character: "Go collect that stick."
Anima: "........" [Ten seconds later] "Durr, okay!"

[shuffles off]

"..." [five seconds later]

[shuffles back]

"Check out this awesome stick! 8D"

To be fair, she (And the Anima is ONLY a she, which irritates me a little) can react quickly in battle sometimes, depending on the situation. But she's also a dumbass. I can't tell you how many times I've had my Anima wander off, find a twig amongst a group of really angry aggressive monsters (without my knowledge), and I hear off in the distance "It's hurrrrrtiiiiiiing meeeeeeeee! -whine-" It can be really frustrating that she is so stupid. Why on EARTH would you go into hostile territory for a fucking flower?! And then SIT near those hostile monsters long enough to let them attack you!?

In terms of combat, Anima's skills (From what I've seen) are fairly weak and she doesn't really use them efficiently. I played the Minstrel (only healer class) and  as soon as I got attacked, rather than fighting with me, she decided that it'd be a good idea to waste her mana and heal me when I got a scratch. I can heal myself just fine, you little squirt! You're more useful to me attacking the monster instead!

The other character that you get is through a quest chain at level 30, called the Gigas. 

 

I legitimately have no information regarding the Gigas. I gave up playing before I could get one. From what I understand, there are multiple kinds of Gigas and they work more as a summon than a character itself. I also understand that people use the Gigas more than the Anima in combat. Hell, it certainly looks a lot more intimidating than the friggin' Anima! If I had to pick one to fight alongside me, I'd definitely choose the Gigas. It might be total shit but it at least looks more threatening than a small child with abnormally large eyes. 

The rest of the gameplay is... well, kinda hit or miss. It really depends on what we're talking about. In terms of races and classes, I love and yet hate it. There are four races to choose from, with one female-exclusive race. Each race has two classes: one male-specific and one female-specific. ...You can kinda see where I'm going with this, right? There's MAJOR FUCKING GENDER LOCKING. It's not even FUNNY. I'll break it down in a chart-like fashion for you. 

Race	Male Class	Female Class
Hume (Humans)	Elemental Mage	Gun Shooter
Lon (For all you furries)	Berserkers (fist-based attacks)	Archer
Ayin (the prettiest things on the planet)	Two-handed swordsman	One-handed sword & shield
Beriah (Er… Elf-like creatures)	Non-existent	Minstrels (Healers and Mages)

 I'll only talk about the Beriah, since they're the only healing class/race available. They basically are a female-only race who care about nothing but art and the beauty of nature and all that stuff associated with elven-like races in virtually every other game. It's nothing new. I wonder how the reproduce, but that's a tangental discussion. At any rate, if you're playing a Beriah Minstrel, odds are, you'll become a healer. There is a magic-based DPS talent branch and abilities that allow you to stand on your own in terms of attack and defense. Not very well if you're facing multiple monsters, to be honest, since you're rather squishy, but well enough. What I liked about the Minstrel class is that you get two skills that heal you for a small percentage of your attack on the monster, either healing HP or MP. It's a barely significant percentage but it can be a lifesaver. Your heals are decently proportional to your health and you get one or two heal spells and one or two heal-over-time spells (I honestly can't recall the specific numbers at this point) in your lower levels. When you get to a certain point, you can either become an orchestrator (a healer) or a siren (a mage). 

The graphics are really well done, I think, for gPotato. They're not as good as, say, Aion or RIFT, but they're comparable to most other MMOs on the market. Check out this screenshot and I think you'll get what I mean. 

 

Some of the quests were really interesting, too. At least in comparison to other MMOs that I know of. You had to go help some other artists discovering their talents, help some with certain errands or projects, and other things like that. They were simple and perhaps stupid when doing them, but they made you feel more involved in the environment. 

My biggest complaint with the game was also the questing system. It was just the fact that at the beginning levels there were so many quests available that I felt the list would be never ending. But by the time I got to level 18 or 19, I was struggling to find enough quests to do. I was completing quests that were four levels ahead of my own because I didn't have anything better to do. It was like the game's leveling design just suddenly punched me in the gut and stood over me laughing while I rolled around in pain. It got boring to grind, frankly, because the monsters gave so little exp that it was unbearable to keep going. I really wanted to see what the Gigas was like at level 30 but I wasn't motivated to spend the next 10 hours trying to get from level 24 to level 30 because, frankly, I had more entertaining things to do. 

My overall opinion is that it's a decent game, especially coming from gPotato. That being said, I found a lot of problems with the game, from the gender-locked class system (which, while explained in-game fairly well, still pisses me off), to the virtual failure of the multi-character control system, to the lack of quests and heavy, painful grinding. It's worth at least trying out, since it's really a pretty world where it is obvious that the developers spent time on things. But I'd rather they spent more time on the issues that are so glaringly obvious, as it really ruined the game for me.

I know that giving up so early is kinda stupid, since I never did any dungeons or proper healing with a party. I never got to experience the Gigas or other awesome features the game could have offered. But I feel that the boredom spent trying to get to that awesomeness wasn't worth it. At least, not in my opinion.

And that's all I have to say about the game, really. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or anything, feel free to email me, write on my Facebook or Twitter (links on the side!) or reply here. The feedback is always welcome. I'll be writing a review on ARGO Online soon, hopefully by the end of this week. Hope you guys enjoyed! :D