At long last the #1 Korean MMO Lost Ark is approaching Western shores, and is currently in a week of closed beta for some lucky people and some others who bought founders packs.
Last year when I was looking at new MMOs to try out, Lost Ark and New World were the ones at the top of my list... and both were to be published by Amazon Games.
I'm pretty sure we all know the current state of New World, sadly, but Lost Ark has been out for quite a long time and is raved about very positively by most people who've already played it. This is just a Western release of an already polished game. It should be fine. Fiiiiiiine.
So! Since this is a beta, I'm skipping all the cutscenes I can and ignoring anything story related. I'd prefer to discover all of that when I actually play once the game is actually released.
First of all, I'm trying out all of the classes to see which one I personally like best.
There are five initial classes to choose from. And each one of those classes has different playstyles to choose from.
Straight off the bat, I am disappointed. As much as I'd like to try out the warrior, I can't customise my avatar how I'd like.
The warrior has three playstyles to choose from: the Beserker, Paladin, and Gunlancer.
Unfortunately, I decided not to bother with this class because this game is GENDER LOCKED.
Now, I'm not a politically correct crazed person, but I do like to choose whether my character is male or female. I like my visual representative in games to be female. So this class is straight up a no-go for me until I feel like roleplaying a big burly man.
So, because of being gender locked. I decided to make all of my characters in advance to see what I could actually play whilst retaining my sexuality.
(Come on! You know you want to be a bad-arse chick wielding a mighty sword whilst bouncing around in boobalicious skimpy clothing.)
Martial Artist
So let's start with the female martial artist.
We get three advanced classes to choose from with the female martial artist.
And, to be completely blunt. All three of them feel the same to me.
I mean, I know, it's martial arts, lots of kicking and punching. But it all felt very samey and hasn't exactly resonated with me. I very quickly moved on to the next class.
Gunner
The gunner, as a female, only has one advanced class! The gunslinger.
And dayum. I really like it!
You have dual pistols, a shotgun, and a rifle, and you switch between them as you please, and they all have different abilities. There's rapid fire pew-pew-pew with the pistols, laser beams of fire with the rifle, and boom boom boom with the shotgun. The shotgun was my favourite of the three but you really have to keep switching back and forth.
The gameplay feels pretty powerful. But I'm a bit of a simple person, haha. Having sooooo many abilities and guns and having to switch and change between then... that just seems too complex for little ol' me.
Mage
The mage only has two playstyles to choose from: the Summoner and the Bard.
I am highly disappointed that there doesn't seem to be an elemental type of mage, but I gave it a go anyway.
The summoner does exactly what her name entails - summons things to do damage for her. And the bard is a support class.
The summoner didn't really do it for me. The attacks felt a bit strange and I guess it just wasn't what I really wanted. But the Bard is pretty good! I know she's not meant for really dealing damage, but the abilities seemed spiffy and intuitive and it felt good to try out. Crowd controls, knock backs, musical notes fluttering everywhere...
I like it.
Assassin
The assassin also only has two playstyles to choose from: the Shadowhunter and the Deathblade.
Now, the assassin is pretty spiffy! I actually like both of the advanced classes.
The deathblade feels very smooth and easy to manoeuvre as you slash and slice and spin around all fancy-like. And while the shadowhunter feels slightly less powerful, once you've fought enough you can transform into a big hulking demon and go hulk-smash on everything for a short time.
Overall the combat is interesting -- excepting the martial artist -- but it's worth noting that the abilities you get to try out in this little arena before you actually start the game are completely different to the abilities you get once you've chosen your class and enter the world.
The abilities are still there!! You just unlock them later on.
In this beta you start at level 10 and are put into the midst of the story, which is pretty good in that we're not spoiled straight off the bat. There are going to be things we discover for the first time when the game is actually released. More betas should be like that!
I think, for now, I'm going to focus on the Bard character. But the Deathblade did come a close second! From what I've heard about this game, it's very, very multi-character-centric so at least I'll have an excuse to try them all out.
And in a couple of days I'll talk about my first impressions of the actual game now that we're passed the character creation. 😊
Speaking of CHARACTER CREATION. It is fantastic. It looks as though different classes have slightly different options when it comes to the customisation also.
Here are my ladies whilst being created:
Mage, gunner, and assassin, in that order.
The martial artist doesn't matter. 😂
Until next time!! ❤️
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 