Created by Ndoors, Atlantica Online came some months ago with the responsibility of giving fresh air to the already beaten to death market of PvP oriented MMOs. Actually, this intent was not as advertised and screamed on the forums as Warhammer Online's "All PvP" mood. Still, everything the game showed prior to its beta lead to believing that it would be a PvP oriented game.

Atlantica Online doesn't puts the minimum effort on creating a dynamic, plausible environment. You cannot jump, enter in the water, the cities are void of anything other than fellow players and random wandering NPCs, you don't actually need to walk around to visit a town's facilities, there is no aggro range on any world mob, you may see, at the same time and close to each other: fairies, winged white tigers, yellow horned foxes, undead armors and the occasional fellow player. Is this bad? It depends...if you are not interested in role playing and playing a MMOG that looks like a graphic online competition platform, you'll love Atlantica Online's straightforwardness. Not even Warhammer Online is so "into the spot". Now that i explained my opening statement, let's get to a more detailed review...

Atlantica works with the premise that the player is a descendant of an Atlantean and that, discovering about his past, sets on a journey to save the world (from what?) and to uncover the mysteries of Atlantis. Meanwhile, he will travel to the edge of the world and have the aid of other, by no mere accident, descendants of the Atlantean civilization and of mercenaries. I can say that Ndoors blended elements from every pop and major world's culture into a game and set the goal in a mysterious one, which is Atlantis. In Atlantica Online, you travel all the world (by foot, mounts or teleportation) visiting mainstream places like Taipei, Rome, San Francisco, Kyoto, Sapporo, Beijing, Egypt and the like. Actually, you can cross the entire fictitious Korean peninsula on foot in less than two minutes. Amazing.
I can confess that it's been sometime that i felt so overpowered and, well, bored.

It's not because it's a bad game, but it sounded like the developers had to create some kind if background and, in a lack of effort to make a consistent surrounding, made you go "80 days around the world" in order to create diversity. Well, none can say that Atlantica Online isn't diverse. From mobs to scenario, everything is totally diverse. I swear you may find mostly anything on your way to the highest level. So far, the white bat-winged tigers scared me enough. One thing most background creators out there forget, be them on HQs, cartoons, games and the like is that a god among other gods is just another god. There's no point on making someone feel special if you are going to send him to a multitude of other special ones like him.

The game's background and scenarios feel like a happy LSD trip on which random memories are taken from your subconscious mind and poorly linked together in a way that barely makes sense, but that can be remembered due to the intensity of the experience.
Character creation follows these two guidelines: appearance and main weapon. You are not allowed to change a lot in your character, which only emphasizes my theory that AO is a game to look like a game. In a place where the main point is grinding and PvPing, will it matter if your character is black, blue or long haired? Nope, that's just stuff for role players, blasted bastards! Cough...cough....
Olde Orwin is a role player, mind you.
After choosing both your appearance and main weapon upon a variety of roles, since each weapon has an almost unique way of behaving on combat, you take awareness of yourself in a mystic place that, according to the NPC, is a dream. Yes, i was right from the beginning! Still, no mention to the LSD was found! Talking about roles, there's no way to know which weapon brings you which role, i don't even believe that the DPS, Tank, Healer and Buffer main roles that we are so used to are that popular on Asia, which explains why the AO's unique tactical, FF VII like combat, isn't worried about this. Atlantica Online feels like coming straight away from Korea to your doorstep. It's getting more and more evident to me that Asians treat games like games and nothing else. Role playing and caring about background details and a "wow, this could be real" environment is something ocidental-based. And before we move on, the weapons usable now are Sword, Axe, Spear, Gun, Bow, Cannon, Staff, Guitar and a Power Saw. Most mercenaries have unique fighting styles and weapons. Yes, you can attack someone using a guitar. May the Atlantis have mercy on us.

The interface is good, commands and options can be a little clumsy at first, but it's not as hard as EVE Online, believe me. In 1 hour or so, i felt comfortable on using most of the interface and finding my away around...talking about this, did you know that laziness got so high around that you can auto-move around? Yes, there is, i praise them for this, a great auto-mover system that has paths to basically everywhere around, which means if you don't know where to locate a monster that drops a specific item for your quest, just press alt+r and it will take you there! Why should you explore for yourself if the PC can do it for you? There's even an auto-battle mode, my friends. Soon, it seems, all you will need to do is watch the character gain levels.
Ok, i'm a little sarcastic today, but happy to see that the auto-movement system didn't make me stumble on any rocks, it's really good. I wasn't expecting it to be so good, actually. Praise Ndoors!

Graphics are good, surroundings are colorful and the game's unexpected's easy going with requirements. I've seen far more uglier and smaller games to be more demanding concerning hardware. I'm also happy for the way they worked the programming out. Soundtrack, yes the soundtrack! Ye Olde Orwin is a singer, you don't know it! As a musician, Orwin believes he is happy with the sound's quality. The soundtrack goes from traditional heavy metal to lyrical inspired melodies, going through traditional songs of the countries used as a reference to the cities and scenarios.
Talking about cities...upon arrival, you find yourself in a almost empty city with a range of services lying in a menu. Other than the traveling NPCs that go from place to place and from the random selling NPCs inside the towns, they are devoid of life. OK, we have the random player who sits there and says nothing, but player communication is something weird on Atlantica. Like on EVE online, player avatars almost don't interact. Communication is made through chat windows. I believe this has something to do with the auto-sufficiency that the idea of playing as a group gives. So far, there were four mercenaries with my character.

Talking about them, one big, major flaw is that they all look the same. If you hire a gunner mercenary, you will find yourself surrounded by beautiful twin, almost Siamese sisters who look, speak and act the same. This can get pretty boring after the 80+ level, but it's something you are going to get along with. Talking about women, and i must state that there's nothing wrong with being surrounded by pretty women, even when they look the same, is that the game if full of fan-service. Women, like so much everywhere else, have less clothes than they should have in a similar real world situation. And guess, most female NPCs have huge breasts! Whoooray... ok, i'm sad for having seen this on so many other games and to know that this kind of sexism actually scares potential female players away.
But hey, youngsters: if you want multiple PvP modes, deep korean grinding with rewards for your effort, low rate items that will make you mad in order to get them and armor sets that can be upgraded and that stack together for special effects, not to mention the dungeons, guild controlled and runned towns, guild wars and everything else you have seen in your traditional korean-like grinding MMOG, you'll find it there. Few bugs, stable game, hardcore tactical action. It's a matter of style, i think you are either like it or despise it. I also believe that it's one of the best free 3rd person MMOs out there. Nothing against item shops, actually. Constant updates and good interaction between players and developers make up to any other "flaws" that the korean grinding MMO style has to show.
Do i recommend it? Hey, it's free, it can be a good time-killer. But don't put all your chips on it, it can get repetitive on medium and end games. Forgot to mention: time killing is suicide, beware.

The Good: Solid graphics - Stable client - Few noticeable bugs - Strong PvP - Variety of classes and mercenaries - Light hardware requirements

The Bad: Poor character customization - Lack of interaction between players - Flawed background - Too much emphasis on grinding


Review by Orwin, Freemmogamer.com - Posted Mar 10, 2009