With an English version of Blade & Soul announced, I decided it's about time that I write a comprehensive review of the game. Blade & Soul Online is one of the top games in South Korea right now and the games' hype doesn't seem to be dying down. Are you planning on playing this game once it is released in the West? Then you've come to the right place because I will be going through every single detail of the game ranging from tutorials, tips, hints, insights, and pretty much everything I can think of.

f you're a regular here at Steparu.com then you should have noticed that I stopped updating my website right after Blade & Soul was released in South Korea. I like to consider myself more of a gamer than a writer. Whenever I play a game that I really enjoy, I end up spending a lot of my time in that game until I burn out, which is what happened with Blade & Soul. I played this game hardcore for two months straight with ten hour long gaming sessions each day.

Blade & Soul is by far my favorite all time oriental MMORPG even though it has some minor flaws. The design of the world is very beautiful and fits perfectly well with the characters in the game. It's just too bad that the game feels like some kind of console port because of the small and linear maps during the first chapter of the game. Then again If I think about it isn't so bad because I could progress through the game a lot faster compared to other MMORPG's that made me travel really far for quests objectives.

I actually fell in love with the story of Blade & Soul Online, I really enjoyed the awesome cutscenes it had. There are a bunch of likeable characters that I have met through the story. As for the story, it seemed a bit cliche and linear at first because of the whole revenge thing going on. Once I reached the second and third chapters of the game, the story evolved into something bigger. I don't want to spoil it much, but the plotline becomes a lot more complicated; a lot of the characters betrayed me which made me feel like I couldn't trust anyone. The director of this game said that this game is all about betrayal so don't be too shocked later on. Then there were characters who I thought were bad guys, but weren't bad after all! The story line of Blade & Soul actually made me feel like I was part of the game,as I always found myself rushing through the main story quests because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. Unlike most MMORPG's the cutscenes in Blade & Soul are definitely worth watching. The whole game makes you feel like you're watching some kind of oriental movie flick or action anime.

Blade & Soul is powered by the Unreal Engine 3 so the world and characters are visually amazing. Each player made character is unique in its own way due to the crazy amount of sliders in the character creation process. Just to throw it in there, this game has three boob sliders! I guarantee that you will spend at least an hour creating your first character, that is if you want a unique and personalized look. Probably the second best character creation process for a MMORPG that I have ever played, with PSO2 being first. If you thought the graphics of this game looked nice from my HD 1080p videos, then you'll be more amazed when you've played the game yourself because Youtube nerfs my video quality. This game has spoiled me from reviewing and testing out other oriental games in South Korea because of the graphics alone. The only downside to the graphics is that the game does not have real time weather. Blade & Soul isn't very demanding when it comes down to graphics, so don't jump the gun and buy a new rig just for this game!

I'm not very picky when it comes down to my musical tastes and sound FX, there really wasn't anything that stood out for me in this game other than the enjoyable voice overs during cutscenes. BGMs fit perfectly well with the game's theme, except that the PvP battle music feels different. Then again it shouldn't matter just as long as it puts you in the "I'm out for blood and kill everything on sight!" mood right? Using disable skills such as trip, stun, and knock down on bosses makes you feel like you're playing some kind of slot machine game.

Bopae, Socketing, and Fashion System]

Unlike most MMORPG's Blade & Soul uses a Bopae system when it comes down to equippable armor. What is this Bopae I speak of? A Bopae is divided into 8 pieces, think of it as your armor and such. Each piece is numbered one through eight, if you end up collecting a full set you will gain that Bopae's set bonus and an eerie blue glow on your character. Bopaes' also increases your characters overall attributes and can be enchanted once. For example, if I have an extra Bopae Piece #2 that has a Critical Bonus effect on it. I can then infuse one of my Bopae Pieces with the #2 piece and gain the Critical Bonus effect on it via enchanting system. If I happen to find a better Bopae piece to enchant with, I can then re-enchant my Bopae with it overwriting the previous effect of the last Bopae I used. Enchanting is not really necessary until you hit the level 36+ mark, and from there I suggest that players enchant critical on all eight of their Bopae pieces. If you do so, it will make your leveling life easier once you get a purple gem slotted in your weapon.
As I have previously stated weapons in Blade & Soul can't be enchanted, however they can be socketed with gems. These gems play a very big role in this game, so it is a good idea to buy the best gems for your weapon. At the higher end levels the +Attack Power gems that add damage cost a fortune, so make sure you stock up on these while they are cheap. The purple gems are also really important because you can life leech HP every time you hit a critical attack. In a game without healers, this is probably one of the most amazing gems in the game.

Gem guide can be found here

Now that I have informed you about the Bopae system, the doboks in Blade & Soul does not give any stat bonuses. The doboks aka outfits are for looks only, which is why I love this game so much because I can wear any outfit I want without having to worry about gimping myself at all. It's a shame that most of the outfits in Blade & Soul Online are bind on pick up, which makes it much harder to collect all of the outfits. They also take up a lot of inventory space, at least for me because I love collecting them all. PlayNC announced that they are going to make a separate inventory just for the outfits alone. I seriously hope that they implement that feature soon because my bank and inventory is starting to get really cluttered. Please keep in mind that you can not get the extra attributes and effects on a Bopae if you are not wearing an outfit. Even though it may be visually appealing fighting naked in this game, it would actually put you in a disadvantage because your Bopae wouldn't be activated.

The controls for Blade & Soul Online are very easy to learn especially if you have played a lot of MMORPG's. W,A,S,D keys to move around, mouse moves the camera. The LMB is used for your default attack. Normal attacks usually come in sets of three. LMB for the first attack, pressing it again will perform the 2nd attack. Then pressing it one more time will perform the final attack which usually applies special effects like bleeding, depending on the class that you play. Double tapping the W key will make your character sprint on the ground, air, or water. Some classes will learn dodge and evasion techniques that can be performed by double tapping E ,Q , or S keys. The spacebar key is obviously for jumping, pressing this key again when you're in mid air will change your stance to glide mode, pressing it again for the third time will cancel glide mode. You can also hold down the S key when you're in air, this will make your character dive down without taking any fall damage. Once you have learned the ability to wall run, you can double tap the W key to run on walls, trees, obstacles and etc.

The default hotkeys for using skills in Blade & Soul are perfect because none of the hotkeys makes it past the F key on the keyboard. The default keys are as follows 1~4, Z, X, C, V, LMB, RMB, and Tab key. I have always hated games that make forces to press keys past the 5 key! All of the keys can be rebound, so if you want to roll the old school way, you can do so in the main menu. I prefer the default setup mainly because I find it a lot easier to combo with. Blade & Soul Online is about timing because you only have a second between combos, countering, parrying, and escaping from skills. For example, if you are PvPing and the other player knocks you down, then you only have one second to press the "F" key so that your character can perform an escape roll. If you miss that window, then you'll be in a lot of trouble! Another good use of the combo and timing systems in Blade & Soul is demonstrated in the short video I have below showing off one of the end game dungeons of Blade & Soul. By performing the 7 string combo shown at the beginning of the video, I was able to prevent the boss from performing a devastating jump attack on the rest of my team. With well timed counters, I was able to tank the boss until the rest of my party members killed the other boss.

One of the main reasons that players like myself enjoy playing Blade & Soul Online is because it has a very fun battle system. Players who watch videos of this game are often confused with the targeting system so let me explain how it works. First of all Blade & Soul is a semi-target action MMORPG, which means my character will auto lock onto a target that is in front of me. If I were to slightly turn to the right by a 20 degree angle, then I would still have that target locked on.Now if I were to perform a full 90 degree, then I would most likely lose control of my target. So if there are two targets stacked in front of me and I were to use a single target skill, it would target the one that is closer to me. If I were to use an AoE skill like the Kung Fu Masters Dragon Fist, it would hit both targets. Not up for the action combat? No problem! If you press the Shift+F2 key you can play this game Point and Click style.

Blade & Soul has a very intense combo system because it's all about timing your skills in PvE and PvP. I really liked how the amount of skills I had on my character felt just right. I've always hated the fact that I had two or three sets of skills in other MMORPG's. Blade & Soul Online is one of those games where you would probably skill reset a lot mainly because you want to use the perfect builds for many different kinds of situations. There are a lot of skills in the skill tree menu and some of them enhance a skill that you have learned already; depending on the upgrade it will change the animation and effect(s) it does. For example, you can sacrifice extra damage on a skill if you want to add some kind of stunning effect on it. Then there are some new skills that you learn naturally through the skill tree like the Blade Master air combos. You'll be given a choice on which kind of air combo finisher you want to learn. You can only dream that there is ultimate skill build that will work for PvP and PvE. Unfortunately, it is necessary to skill reset if you want to play the game efficiently.

-Personal tidbit, I'm glad they strayed away from the cookie cutter roles.

Tanking in Blade & Soul is really hard due to numerous reasons. For one thing, this game doesn't offer any classes that can heal other players very efficiently. The only sustain is from a few skills, potions, and life leeching gems that only proc when you hit a critical hit. Holding aggro is a pain in the butt, whoever deals the most damage will most likely pull an aggro, which leads to team wipes, and then blaming begins. No, there are no toggle keys that you can press that will make you invincible for x amount of seconds nor is there a key that you can hold down to block for long periods of time. Blade & Soul is all about how fast you can react in between boss attacks and memorizing patterns. As a tank your main job is to memorize all of the patterns, so that you can deliver massive amounts of DPS to help you hold aggro at the same time evade and parry/counter all of the bosses attacks. Not all of the boss attacks can be countered or parried, so you must also use your evasion skills by double tapping ss key for back step and the qq or ee keys for the side step. Not to scare you guys away from this game, but that's just the way it is. Of course, none of this matters much when you're poking normal trash monsters.

Personal tidbit- Personally I would have hung up on this game if it was gather specific because it gets old fast. When playing the game myself, I wanted to do those type of quests because the combat is so engaging. Just my opinion though.

Blade & Soul provided me with a lot of quests, most of them involved the usual kill mobs, collect items, and stuff. Sounds horrible right? I would have probably died of boredom but I survived through it because I had a bunch of instances to play around with while leveling up. I've only ran across a few problems while leveling and of them was running out of quests at certain levels. Then there is the level 43 mark, which is called the hell level. Once you're around level 43, the amount of quests you have will slowly diminish leaving you to grind a painful level 43 to 45. After the EXP patch was launched the amount of EXP needed to level up was halved, which was too late for players like me that went through all that trouble. It's a good thing that this game provides you with daily quests so even if you're not up for some grinding, you can just wait for your dailies to refresh and do them again the next day. PlayNC said that they will change the EXP rates in the English version of the game so I sincerely hope they fix the EXP rate of the last few levels of the game for the sake of Western audiences. I really don't mind it since I am a grind master but most MMORPG players hate to grind and like to be spoon fed. If the whole F2P thing is true, then I would really start to worry about the EXP system.

Player Vs Player in Blade & Soul Online is a lot easier to get into but the combat is a lot harder master compared to other MMORPG's. The main reason that I said that PvP is easy to get into is because weapons in this game can't be enchanted. The armors aka Bopae can only be enchanted once per piece, which has an equalizing effect on the gear difference between veteran and beginner PvPers. Which also means that this game is heavily skill based when it comes down to small scale battles. Unfortunately, this game does not have Battlegrounds or an Arena system implemented in the game yet nor any rumors of it.

People are often confused about the faction system in Blade & Soul. Once you've level 21-22 and completed a certain main story quest you'll be given an option to pick a faction of your choice. After you pick a faction, you will be given a faction outfit. If you wear this faction outfit, you will auto flag yourself for faction PvP. There are also different kinds of PvP outfits like the ones you get from the main story and such. Those outfits are mainly used if players want to setup a 1v1 duel without any interruption of getting PK'ed by faction players. If you or your friend accidentally picked the wrong faction, then you can instantly switch to the other faction by paying a small fee and talking to an NPC in the same town where you first chose your faction. The only downside to switching sides is that you lose all of your PvP ranks.

Leveling up your faction PvP rank is very important because you can unlock special kinds of equipment and special passive "Qing Gongs" skills like wall running. For those of you who are interested in forming a guild, it is a good idea to make one as early as possible because the points earned from PvP can be used to level up your guild! As of the moment, leveling up your guild only increases the amount of players that can join the guild. In the future, Blade & Soul Online will have a lot of guild perks like guild bank, custom outfits for your guild, guild skills, and etc. Lastly, you can only invite players of the same faction in the guild. If you're interested in learning more about PvP system and factions then feel free to check out one of my guildmate's

Crafting is a big deal in Blade & Soul Online it's one of the best ways to make some quick cash. Make sure you keep your crafting leveled while you are grinding because it will net you a lot of money in the end. Once you have enough money saved up, I suggest investing money into gem crafting. Nothing too special with their crafting system other than it's a snore fest. You can only have two kinds of trade skills, so make sure you don't level up some random one that you end up abandoning half way through. Potion Making, Repair Hammers, Gem Crafting, and Bopae are the ones that will always be in high demand.

The Auction House in this game is cross server, meaning that all of the servers shares one Auction House. Honestly, I find this whole sharing Auction House a bit trouble some because there are botters who can buy items in the AH faster than others. Yes, there are AH bots in this game. Another big problem with the whole share AH thingy is experienced when you pick a server that is heavily populated by bots. Check out this Destroyer bot fest video below if you don't believe me. With the cross server party system not implemented yet, a heavily bot populated server means that finding real players for you to party with will be harder. PlayNC Korea recently said that they banned bots a few days ago, but I recorded this video just today. I think PlayNC Korea needs to step up their game more, is it really that hard to go the place where I am and whip out the ban hammer?

Blade & Soul Online doesn't have healers which can pose a bit of a problem for players with a slow learners. I must admit, this game used to be really challenging when it first came out. Most of the end game dungeons were really hard to beat and required very skilled players to beat. Though with the recent patches and complaints, most of the content has been dumbed down so that other players can finally experience one of the final raid dungeons of the game called Pohwaran. With the recent patch a few weeks ago players now can enter dungeons with six players making it a lot easier to progress to the end game content of Blade & Soul. Though there is a drawback on playing the easy mode dungeons instead of the hard. For one thing there is more competition for the item you want. The items from easy mode dungeons aren't as good as hard mode ones. Sometimes more players doesn't make things as easy because it is harder to organize strategically.

The field bosses in Blade & Soul Online are a good way to get equipment for leveling. Unlike most MMORPG's everyone that hits the field boss will profit. Depending on how much damage I do to the boss, I will be able to earn up to 1-2 tokens. If I end up doing a lot of damage and deliver the finishing blow. Then I will get 3 tokens that can be used for the Wheel of Fortune. What is this Wheel of Fortune I speak of? There are Wheel of Fortunes near the field bosses that players kill. Using the tokens I received from the boss, I can spin the wheel of fortune. The Wheel of Fortune gives me that bosses weapon, bopae, costume, and random stuff.

A player's first time around in the end game dungeons of Blade & Soul requires a lot of communication and team work. This is one of the primary reasons why players often prefer to party with players who want to fully utilize the ingame voice chat system. A good opportunity to use the ingame voice system is when you want to call out your disable. Using disable skills on bosses does not work unless someone else follows up with another disable. Disables are categorized into three different kinds: green, purple, yellow, and red. For example, I would call out to the party that I will perform a tripping move. Right after using my trip skill a green shadow will appear before the boss. Now someone else in my party must quickly follow up with another tripping skill. If we both timed our skills correctly, then the boss would get knocked down. In short, disables must be followed by the same type of color. If I were to use the same green colored tripping skill and someone else used a stunning skill which is categorized in a blue color then the boss won't budge and the team attack is ruined.

Disabling bosses in this game is serious business mainly because you want to prevent the boss from performing special attacks.Everytime a boss is disabled, a Kung Fu Master can mount on the boss to deliver massive amounts of damage, or a Destroyer can grapple the boss while the rest of the party delivers crazy amounts of damage! One of the reasons why players often prefer Destroyers in parties because they can perform self disables really well without having to rely on other team members.