The MMO world is saturated with many different titles. Some games shine with their brilliant delivery and aesthetics, while some games don’t make the cut. Rappelz can be considered one of the latter. We can definitely call Rappelz a classic, being a 2 year old game. However, not all classics are worth playing anymore in this day and age. Rappelz still has a huge playerbase and frequent updates, but it doesn’t hide the fact that the game has nothing innovative or revolutionary.

The Rappelz site offers a general plot for the game, dividing your character selection to three races: Deva, Gaia, and Asura. Each race has three different jobs and specific progressions, but it all falls to three common stereotypes: melee, caster and summoner classes. Sadly, the site’s story is insignificant to the game. Quests offer no real content about the Rappelz story, and instead give you dialogues of the quest giver’s personal whim. Like most MMORPGs, Rappelz inevitably turns into a grind game once you reach higher levels.

Players start out at a very slow pace. The game requires the character selection screen to be locked with a different password, a thankful precautionary measure similar to Requiem: Bloodymare, disabling any further access from any attempted hacking. As your character sets foot in-game, the NPC gives a short welcome and the start of a long yet rewarding tutorial quest chain. Luckily, for those impatient, the tutorials can be skipped by teleporting out of the island and into the mainland. Once your character reaches level 10, the first job change is unlocked.

Character building is very basic. Stats are automatically distributed according to your profession. Progressing job levels and enhancing equipment are the only chances to provide stat modifiers. On the other hand, job points earned from quest rewards and grinding are spent on increasing job levels and specific skill levels. However, higher progressions of the skill and job level require insanely large amounts of job points, forcing your character to keep grinding for hours on end. Rappelz also offers the staple item upgrading and socketing, nothing remotely special, since the later parts of the game will inevitably require the use of upgraded equips. In addition, a rare energy called “Lak” can be collected and exchanged for chips, items that increase physical or magical damage for a certain duration. The Lak system is a nice touch, but it only strengthens the fact that Rappelz is a boring grind.

The game gives emphasis on the pet and guild war features. All players have access to pet summoning and command skills up to a certain extent, thus enabling the familiar to aid the character offensively and defensively. Advanced pet skills are left to the summoner class. Guild wars, on the other hand, provide a unique twist in the form of dungeon territories, instead of towns. Otherwise, the benefits seem all too the same, reaping the taxes and having free entrance privileges.

A game of more than 2 years old is definitely showing signs of its age. Visuals are bland and bleak, much like an old Playstation 2 game. Sounds could have been done better, but it does complement the overall ambience of the game. Add that to the monotonous gameplay and you’ve got a game that should’ve been shelved a long time ago. Loyalists and MMORPG purists may derive short pleasure from it, but for new players, pass this one up.

Graphics: 6
Sound: 6
Gameplay: 5
Story: 1
Final Score: 5/10