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SUN: Soul of the Ultimate Nation E3 Review - WEBZEN |
WEBZEN was difficult to lock down this year, with tons of hype around their games. Messages were left, emails were sent, and we made a last stand effort to arrange an appointment with a WEBZEN rep but all was for not. We did however get a chance to check out SUN as it was being demoed on quite a few machines in their booth. Here’s what we discovered…
Graphics
The graphics for SUN are quite stunning but the choices for character customization are very limiting. During Gameplay SUN seemed to support quite a few models on the screen at the same time as mobs were generally encountered in larger groups. Every edge seemed jaggy though and we’re hoping that Anti-Aliasing was turned off. If you haven’t yet checked out any of the character design for this game, it’s definitely worth seeing. The renders and hand painted material being released for this game are absolutely amazing. Translating that to modeling and texturing seems to loose a bit but the graphics still look great in game. The spell and skill effects are also very clean but seem to lack some variety… The color palette is almost always the same.
Questing
Where is it? Soul of the Ultimate Nation seems to definitely display its roots as being primarily focused on PvP aspects rather than questing. SUN’s version of questing appears to function something like this a cross between Guildwars and something completely new. First you undertake a mission for a certain instanced area. Once that mission has been completed you unlock that area for hunting missions, competitive hunting missions, and PvP battles. That’s about the extent of questing in this game. Do not expect story driven quests strings or any other variety of quests…
Gameplay
The controls were extremely awkward and one can only guess they will be changing this before a US release. It’s click to move and to use skills you have to right click on the skill bar. It was extremely frustrating as single clicking on the skill bar would remove the skill from the bar. In the heat of battle you can quickly become annoyed. Gameplay is very straight forward with everything focusing around PvP or competitive PvE. Once again, if you are a PvP fanatic, this game may be exactly what you’re looking for.
With no open world to explore and no quest strings required to level, you may find yourself grinding the same areas for hunting mission after hunting mission. Interestingly enough however, they have supposedly added in voice support for launch which would be crux for such a PvP based game.
Character Progression
This was not covered in any form at E3. The characters you could choose from were pre-built and had their skills already set. There were a variety of skills to choose from all with varying levels or ranks. You do earn experience from each kill in battle and ending a mission or challenge does give you bonus XP. My best guess is following the main story line you will run into areas which are either blocked from you for a certain level or the monsters may become to difficult without additional leveling. You would then return to previous areas and complete additional challenges on the same maps in order to level up and/or gain better gear.
Gear
The texturing looks excellent for the armor types and weapons on different characters but in the demo able version I was unable to locate new gear.
Overall
Overall this game looks to be excellent for PvPers out there but may be a bit weak on the content side for questing and traditional RPG gamers. Their official pitch includes “Awesome Technology”, “Unique Game System”, and “Stylish Battles”. They also mention “Fresh Content and Adventures” but nothing about having a seamless world of any sort or about a rich questing system. GameAmp will continue to watch this title with an open eye and mind and report back to you as soon we hear anything additional on SUN. We certainly invite you to check out all the promotional videos, renders, and concept artwork for SUN as it’s some of, if not THE best out there. |
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