Some quick things before I actually get the review started. I've decided to work on some new artwork for the blog. I'm not sure if I want to redo my logo but I do plan to do some art for smilies and the like, so keep an eye out for that! I'm also trying out some "spoiler" style tags, so that the content of the reviews is short for those who want shortness, and if others want more detail, they can read as they please. I'm also trying out anchor tags, so you can click the headers of each section to jump to them automatically on the page, to make it easier for you guys. Let me know if you guys like these features or if there's anything else you'd like me to try out!
Without further ado, ON WITH THE REVIEW!
Game Basics:
Title: Granado Espada (aka, Sword of the New World)Publisher: T3Fun
Genre: Fantasy MMO
Website: http://ge.t3fun.com/Home/Home.aspx
Cost: Free to Play, pay for items in shop and extra features (I think)
Ratings:
Graphics: 4/5
Character Customization: 1/5
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.: 2/5
Beginning/Tutorial: 2/3
Story, Quests, Content: 1/5
Graphics and Such
Granado Espada has some gorgeous graphics and overall esthetics. When I first saw it around 2008 or so (I think? It was a long time ago when the game first released in the west), I remember it was one of the things that really drew me to the game. The colors weren't too saturated, it wasn't too stylized, it was just... pleasing on the eyes. The NPCs and PCs blended with the environments, the character designs were unique and interesting without being too unusual, and the monster designs were, for the most part, really awesome. Why wasps were bigger than crocodiles is a mystery to me, but I won't question it.For more details, click here!
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| Taken from the Wikipedia page on Granado Espada |
JUST LOOK AT THIS EYE CANDY. Granted, the attire is a little strange (and not very strange as far as MMO standards are concerned), but everything just blends so well together and detailed just enough without being overdone and it's just so. friggin. beautiful. The graphics were the same when I first played this game and looking back on it, I'm both surprised and pleased that the level of detail and overall quality is as good as it is.
The user interface is a little clunky too. Not so much that it removed me from the gaming experience, but enough that I did note it several times. I'm a big fan of WASD-movement and, unfortunately, GE decided to do the whole "Sorry, you only get the click-to-move system! Enjoy!" thing. I don't like it when I go to click on an NPC and my characters decide to run through (and/or past) the NPC because I was a hair off. And since I can't really click that far way from me, I have to constantly click and it gets very annoying, very quickly. There are also different combat systems that're only available from one small panel around the chat interface that not only is really hard to get done right (lots of "Click this icon. Now click some area in the environment you want to have this effect on. Wait, you wanted to actually do something? I'm sorry. Try again!" from the game) but it's also very easy to get rid of that panel accidentally. I swear I tried for like, 5-10 minutes, trying to get the panel to show back up.
On a side note, even though this isn't part of the graphics, it still falls under aesthetics-- the soundtrack for this game is AMAZING. Seriously. It's legitimately the thing I enjoy most about this game. I even went out of my way to find it online to listen to, even after I had stopped playing the game, when I first played it. It is beautiful. Granted, the quality of the actual sound files isn't wonderful but it's definitely worth trying to find it, if you like game music.
To go back to the top of the review, click here.
Character Customization
One of my main gripes about the game was the lack of aesthetic customization. For all of the beauty that Granado Espada brings to the player, you'd think there'd be some variety, right? Wrong. All of the characters look virtually identical; you can choose, upon creation, from two face types and your gender. That's it. You would think that the game would at least offer a few different hair options or skin tones, but no, we're not so lucky. The good thing is that you can determine what gender your characters are (save for the card NPCs you get, which I'll explain later). Still, you think they would have offered some diversity in the character creation at some point, seeing as the game's been around for quite a while. Yes, you can have those cash-shop costumes and your characters' appearance changes with their equipment, but visually, it's just off-putting when I see someone else identical to my character running around.
Class Skills, Character Development, etc.
In terms of healers, Granado Espada offers the Scout class as its healer. The Scout uses daggers as weapons for offense and goes unarmed for actual healing. I know, that sounds weird. What happens in GE is each class uses "Stances" to decide what skills they use. Each stance is dependent on what weapons are equipped (or none , in some cases).For more details, click here!
When I first played the Scout, I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the class. It was refreshing to have a healing class that wasn't entirely squishy, relied on staves or maces, and could actually be really capable of providing offense if needed. For a lot of games, if you want to provide the most healing, you need to sacrifice a lot of offense to do so. With GE's Stance system, that problem is just about eliminated. I'm honestly surprised that the Scout uses melee weapons for offense. I guess I'm just so used to having magic-based healers that the idea of anything else is strange to me. Keep in mind, though, that if you want to be a healer, you have to be unarmed before you engage in combat. Last time I checked, I don't think you can swap weapons mid-fight. You can swap stances if they use the same weapons, though, so it's not like you're stuck in buff mode for an entire fight.
The Scout has two healing-based Stances, to my knowledge. The first one you'll get is your basic healer's repertoire, such as healing spells, resurrection, and other skills. The second is your buff Stance. The buffs in this game are a little different than those in other games. They don't last nearly as long as others do and require items to be cast, if I remember correctly. Having buffs early on can be very useful, especially for some boss fights you encounter, so don't stick to one Stance, max its skills out, and then move on. Make sure you have a healthy balance between both Stances.
To go back to the top of the review, click here.The Scout has two healing-based Stances, to my knowledge. The first one you'll get is your basic healer's repertoire, such as healing spells, resurrection, and other skills. The second is your buff Stance. The buffs in this game are a little different than those in other games. They don't last nearly as long as others do and require items to be cast, if I remember correctly. Having buffs early on can be very useful, especially for some boss fights you encounter, so don't stick to one Stance, max its skills out, and then move on. Make sure you have a healthy balance between both Stances.
Tutorials and Things
I don't have much to say about this because, honestly, the tutorials and such were relatively straight-forward and such. The game shows you just about everything you need to know to play the game.Story, Quests, Content, etc.
Perhaps the weakest point about Granado Espada, for me, is the content. The game's concepts and mechanics are really awesome, but the story is just... not there. At least, it's not as compelling as other games. You literally start out in some random town, where the mayor claims you're some explorer and you've come to "the New World" to make a name for yourself. Where you are, where you came from, how you got there... All of that is a mystery. The quests are rather typical and forgettable, too. I stopped reading them after a few of them because, honestly, they weren't all that interesting.The reason I had decided to play this game originally was the one mechanic that I hadn't seen before in MMOs: controlling multiple characters. Yes, you control, at once, up to three characters simultaneously in a squad. You can solo, too, and play only one character. But why play one when you could play three, right? It IS really interesting and it works well.
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| taken from MMOHut, obviously. |
Another interesting feature is the NPC card system. Basically, you can recruit various NPCs to your squad. If they like you, they literally give you their card and you can use them in your squad. I have gotten several NPC cards but, honestly, I never felt compelled to play them, so I can't actually comment on how useful they are. Some quests require you to have a specific NPC in your squad, so I guess they're needed at some point.
For more information on this, click here!
I feel like this game is just very empty and not very compelling to be in. Yes, it looks nice, but I see players so rarely that it often feels like it's just me that's playing on the servers. The storyline isn't really compelling because I don't know where I am, what my real motivations are, or anything. The quests aren't really interesting, either. Some of the NPCs are interesting (like, you fight a small 8 year old boy because he thinks you're trying to make a move on his crush, a much older lady, Bernelli. There's an NPC who's obsessed with fashion and has a stereotypical French accent.) but it's not enough to really make me feel like playing the game.
And, to top it off, the game is very grind-based. While that's not a problem for me, there is ONE problem: auto-attack. Yes, your squad can literally sit in one spot on a map and attack any living thing that comes near them on their own. And Granado Espada recently introduced a pet system that gives you a free pet automatically. What does this pet do, you ask? It picks up items for you, all on its own. So, yes, you can literally sit your squad down with your pet out and farm without having to do a blessed thing. I literally left my characters alone for a half-hour, walked away from my computer, and when I returned, they had leveled up quite a bit and I had a nifty stash of loot from my pet chicken (yes, the pet I mentioned is a baby chicken. I was tempted to call it "Nugget" but then I remembered hearing that Honey Boo Boo did the same thing and so I abandoned that idea as quickly as I was capable). It's nice but then there's no point in playing the game, really, because I'm not actually playing it. I just leave it be and it runs on its own.
And, to top it off, the game is very grind-based. While that's not a problem for me, there is ONE problem: auto-attack. Yes, your squad can literally sit in one spot on a map and attack any living thing that comes near them on their own. And Granado Espada recently introduced a pet system that gives you a free pet automatically. What does this pet do, you ask? It picks up items for you, all on its own. So, yes, you can literally sit your squad down with your pet out and farm without having to do a blessed thing. I literally left my characters alone for a half-hour, walked away from my computer, and when I returned, they had leveled up quite a bit and I had a nifty stash of loot from my pet chicken (yes, the pet I mentioned is a baby chicken. I was tempted to call it "Nugget" but then I remembered hearing that Honey Boo Boo did the same thing and so I abandoned that idea as quickly as I was capable). It's nice but then there's no point in playing the game, really, because I'm not actually playing it. I just leave it be and it runs on its own.
To go back to the top of the review, click here.
Ending Thoughts
Granado Espada had the potential to be a good game. It had pretty good graphics, I loved the music, and the idea of having a squad of characters and being able to recruit the NPCs were nice ideas. But the game's content was just so lackluster. I like the idea of auto-attacking but I feel like it's just far too easily abused and it's almost like the game encourages the auto-attack-and-camp-a-spot behavior because of the dense and quick-spawning monsters in maps. If you plan your squad right, you're virtually invincible. I literally had two of my characters die once, from leveling from 1-25 and my Scout was able to resurrect them both very quickly. I would love it if the squad mechanics were carried into other games or if this game had worked on better storylines and content. It felt like the developers just focused on the combat mechanics and graphics and left everything else by the wayside.
I've played this game twice now and I've never had a single reason to be playing beside any other person, which is a big point of MMOs, if not arguably, the biggest. And that's disappointing. Actually, that's a good word to describe this game: disappointing. It had the capabilities to be a good game but it just wasn't, which is sad. Still, if you don't mind grind-central games, I'd recommend trying it out, just for the experience. It's by no means a bad game, I just got bored very quickly.
Have any questions, comments, considerations, etc? Have a game you'd like me to review or try out? Feel free to let me know! I like hearing from everyone. My next review'll be of Eden Eternal and after then... I'm not sure. Feel free to like my page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, and all that good stuff.
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