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The Chronicles of Spellborn Review: The Chronicles of Spellborn Review - Edit
7.7
Average
| Pros |
  
|
 Excellent customization options Innovative combat Low barrier to entry |
| Cons |
  
|
 Dated visuals Disapointing newbie experience Missing many basic features |
Personal Experience & Death
The way an MMOG handles death is often a hot topic among fans of the genre. Are the penalties too harsh? Are they too soft and give the player no reason to fear dying? The answer, at least for many hardcore fans, will determine how they view an upcoming game. I’m going to be as blunt here as I can be: I think Spellborn handles death better than any MMOG I’ve ever played.
In Spellborn you earn two types of experience, the first is towards your Fame level. This is your typical MMOG level, which caps at 50. Killing monsters and completing quests awards Fame. You also have a Personal Experience Level, also known as PeP. Your PeP level maxes out at five, with every other level adding an extra bar to your base state ranks of Physique, Morale and Concentration, and every PeP level in between giving you a bonus to your basic player statistics of Body, Mind, and Focus. By PeP five you will have a base increase of +30% damage on all attacks, +30% run speed, and +30% attack speed. Building PeP can be pretty tough and when you die, you lose an entire PeP level. The PeP system punishes you for dying, but doesn’t impede your progress. I found it to be the perfect balance as a death penalty. It’s not the end of the world when you lose a PeP level, but you begin to get addicted to the bonuses. Thus, the fear of losing them, especially when you can anticipate the time it will take to re-level your PeP definitely provides for some heart-in-throat moments.
Visuals
The various shards that make up the world of Spellborn are often a beautiful sight to behold. In general, the game seems to have a kind of dreamy Fable-esque style, with the dimensions of the architecture as well as the proportions of characters being oddly exaggerated. Also, looking up at the “sky” above provides a truly humbling view of a rock carapace marked by various large gaping holes where light shines through to the world below.
There are many shards in Spellborn, ranging from large areas you’ll be trampling through for an entire level range, to small off-shoots used for specific or special quests. While some areas can get a bit repetitive, many are varied and often exhibit wild phenomenon going on in the background. For example, travelling all throughout the shard of Quarterstone, you won’t be able to escape the sight of a large tornado like occurrence looming in the distance. Other areas, like the Mount of Heroes, simply float within the Deadspell Storm itself, which appears as beautiful vortex of light. On shards such as these, you can simply leap off the side of the world to your death. Not such a great idea, but it’s definitely unique.
;)
Character art is varied, with many different items available to wear, and even dye. Though even with the wealth of options, many players seem to at least opt for the same type of head gear: the always in style ninja hood. I didn’t, but hey, I tend to go against the grain.
Spell effects too, are quite nice. The fiery magic of the Rune Mage provides some neat eye candy, while even the ghostly effects of the many Wrathguard abilities are fun to watch as you lay waste to your foes.
Be warned though, Spellborn does use a modified version of the original Unreal engine, so while its sights are quite nice, they aren’t a technical masterpiece.
Sound
Let me just say I am a big fan of Jesper Kyd. I love the Hitman series and his compositions are truly a joy to the ears. For fans of Kyd, you will immediately recognize his style in Spellborn. The music in the game world also strikes the perfect balance of being easy on the ears, but also not overwhelming to your senses so much that you want to turn it off so you can focus on the game.
Another stand-out is the inclusion of many voiced emotes. When you create your character,you also get to select their voice track, and there are many amusing voiced emotes in the game. If you play a female character the emote /ahh in particular stands out. Try it out for yourself and find out why.
Gameplay
The gameplay is the hardest area of Spellborn to judge. But let’s start out with the first town of Hawksmouth. As I described earlier in the review, questing serves as the bulk of your gameplay experience. The problem here, especially in Hawksmouth is how old school the quests are. There are only a few mob types in the entire area, mostly consisting, of bears, wolves, boars, and some sort of bird creature I can only describe as an ostrich meets a velociraptor. Just about every quest in the first area sends you to kill one of these things for one reason or another and the respawn rates are so slow that competition for mobs harkens back to the days of EverQuest. This is not an ideal experience for players new to the game. If after you experience the combat system of Spellborn you are still on the fence about the game, the rest of the newbie experience probably won’t help you over.
Unfortunately, this really doesn’t improve even once you’ve left the first area, as the next few are eerily similar to Hawksmouth. The game only truly opens up once you leave the shard of Parliament and dock at Quarterstone.
Speaking of travel, players travel from shard to shard using Shardships, a sort of airship that is capable of travelling through the Deadspell storm. Players may “Rent a Cabin” aboard a shardship for a fee and be whisked away instantly to their destination, skipping the flight. There is also a “Join the Crew” option, which is free, but you must wait aboard the ships deck until it reaches its destination. I often chose the latter as it was free, the rides were relatively short, and even a bit dangerous. Oftentimes the ship will actually be attacked by stowaway pirates whom you have to fight off, giving you something to do on the flight. Following the excitement, you are treated to a brief cinematic depicting your destination as you approach.
When you arrive at Quarterstone, you will do a variety of quests that have you adventure through the city districts, and this is also where you will really get into your House quests, which are quite fun to do.
I described how combat works in Spellborn, but how does it fare in practice? In short, the combat experience is what helped me ignore the 8000 bear and boar quests you experience in the earlier parts of the game. Combat in Spellborn is incredibly fun no matter which way you choose to do it. Much of this has to do with the shooter mechanics and the skill deck, but there is even more reason to find combat in Spellborn fun: the AI.
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Nice review. I wish all the reviews on this site were done as well as this one.
Thanks for the compliment!
It's indeed a good game, your pro' and cons are also what I think.
It's sad the servers are so empty ... and with empty I mean empty, I met no-one ...
Very nice review. I am officially bored again and prowling about for another game and this review helps me sift through the options. I think it sounds interesting and maybe something I will try at some point, however, I do not think I will enjoy it in its current described state. No matter how good a games basic features/ideas are I do require some basic functionality that you describe as missing. I will wait another month or two and see how things are going.
This is perhaps the biggest thing most developers still have not learned. You must put out a complete game, no matter how small it is, if you wish to survive and be a success. You can always add more features and content later but the first bit at release must work and be complete in itself to make the players happy.
I believe that most developer know this, but budget leaves them not much choice. Spellborn is a complete game, but just barely. Functionality beyond the basic game play is kept very minimal. And there is not much more to do beside questing and fight in the Arena. Crafting has been made an unappealing aspect of the game. There is too little group content. But for the rest it is a great game in the making. I hope it survives. But every marketing decisions they made so far has turned against them. Some of those decisions were too stupid for words and still affect the player population in a negative way. If they continue to shoot themselves in the foot my hope for survival is not high.
Fantastic Review. Hit the Nail Right on the head.
Good review with a fair score for the product.
Very nice review, I agree with almost everything you said in there, but I would like to add one thing having played the game for 2 months.
The combat features is what makes this game interesting...just for a while though...Yes fighting in an mmo is a very important element, it is actually the most important element. And they just got it right with this game.
But does having a good fighting system enough for an MMORPG to be a success? Imo the answer is no, and TCoS does not have anything to offer to the player other than an interesting and engaging fighting system and a good lore.
If you get bored of killing stuff, then there's absolutely nothing else to do. People barely talk int his game if you are not in a guild, the crafting system is so basic that you don't even want to try it out. The auction house interface is so bad that there's no one using it and also because the weapon and armor recipes drop for everyone pretty easily, there's no point in using the auction house. There aren't enough dungeons to run if you feel like running some, there isn't enough PvPing going around because of the fact that classes are extremely unbalanced and there aren't enough people in the game.
I am surprised that you did not get into the fact that there is not much to do in this game other than go fight 20000 raptors in your gameplay paragraph, imo the lack of content and depth is something extremely important in an mmo.
My score personally would be a 6/10
And I commend you on the review, it is a very well written review.
Nice review. It's certainly one I'll try just a question of when. I figure that it might be one thats worth waiting on.
Dated visuals? Aren't they stylized, WoW would have dated visuals, if it weren't for the fact it was so stylized.
Nice review fella. :)
Dated visuals? What computer are you running it on? Granted it is the Unreal 2.5 engine, they did a HELL of a job with the art style and lighting effects to make it look just as appealing as any other modern MMO out there.
This game is pretty. It has its flaws but graphics I would never think to be one of them. Just my two cents.
Nice review mike,
I played TCoS since it's CB stage and agree with alot of your points. Even though I've been playing other games it makes me curious to see how the game would've fared at higher lvls. SInce I only had a handful of characters that I took to the lower F2P cap of 7.9 just to test the game out, your review made me curious enough to want to subscribe. I feel now that maybe I didn't give the game 100% of a chance, but I'm cheap and picky.
~Ink
From the review the UI definatly needs a patch and the netwroking issues are unpardonable. Sort that out and I think its worth a punt.
Yeah, nice review.
I'm subscribed to Acclaim servers and enjoining it a lot... i'm a bit worried about server population but this game is incredible so I hope this problem will be solved soon :(((
Another big problem is the server distribution. For some stupid territorial war against acclaim and Mindscape-Frogster I was redirected to acclaim servers (US servers) and i'm from Spain (all spanish people will be redirected there).
Now i'm level 20 and i just discovered the EU server (Mindscape-Froggster servers) and i can't switch because they are independent servers.
So european community is divided. It sucks :(!
Concerning to the game, Spellborn worth a try. I'm sure you will love it :)!
MikeB thats how you write a review my friend! Kudos, and I hope this is a formula you do not stray from as most reviewers have!
Only problem I had with your review was the less than honest quibble about the look, or graphics. Stellus hit it on the nose, this game looks pretty amazing for as old as it is, and it looks even better than some of the newer games already out! If I said anyhting positive about TCOS it would be the combat and the Graphics for sure!
Personally though, I think with all that Spellborn Int has gone through with this game, and Acclaim picking up the title as P2P, its just not gonna fly. To little to lat imo. This game will survive though if they decide to either lower the monthly fee by half, or spin to a F2P. Right now though, no one wants to pay for a beta, and this is what the game feels like all the way around! Hopefully in time that will change, but till then no one will flock to pay the $15 a month fee, when they could be paying for a number of better designed games for that price. Only thing I see going for the game is the client is free, but thats just not enough imo at this point.
Thanks for the nice review, Mike. I will definitely give this game a try. I am jsut bored as someone else here. Tried Runes of Magic and just ran into series of quests where you have to grind trees for hours. Even though it sounds like TCoS has similar quests and maybe even worse I read that it is also very story driven which attracts me the most in MMOs. Thats why I liked LOTRO and still play it for over 2 years. But need a break, so I am giving a try to TCoS this weekend. Hope my ride will be fun :).
After reading MMORPG.com's re-review of D&D Online I had given up on this website. This review has renewed my faith in MMORPG.com and their ability to put out quality reviews.
I think the Author needs to be given credit here, not mmorpg.com
It does seem like a fair review, I like that fact that he hasnt shyed away or 'salt pettled' the truth about its negative points.
But unfortunatly the content of the review leads me to conclude, as I do with most newly released mmo's, that it needs to mature a bit.
I'll be skipping this for now, there are a few other 'must-play' MMO's coming out in the next 6 months which appear higher up the 'must-play' scale.
Final score is a bit generous in my opinion, about a 6/10 I would think. And yes the game has dated visuals.
Wow's visuals are dated, stylized or not.
If you're referring to Champions, Fallen Earth, Earthrise, or Jumpgate then I think you'll be better off waiting for them to mature as well. They are all going to be quite rough at first.
Also, you could probably make level 50 in Spellborn before even one of them is released.
Good review, fair score for the product, overall a worthwhile read without a doubt ;)
Nice work MikeB.
good review =)
same pros and cons as me.
good review,
tho the cons arent really cons imo
i love pvp, so crafting i couldnt give two shits about lol and its saying the quests are the same thing over and over...isnt that with almost any MMO? go out, kill something, get rewards, rinse & repeat...
other than that, it was good :)
They are actually quite nice as you can see in the screenshots provided. Technically though, they are dated. Unreal, or even Unreal 2, is quite an old engine by todays standards.
Nice review, u took words out of my mouth. Personally i think this is good start, but need tweaking to be a good mmorpg. Fix pvp lag issues, made some more things to do other than questing and crafting. More group friendly things and most of all, make some daily events (more than demon chest). I like this game very much after 1month paying and im gonna pay for other month too (lvl30 so far). Its fun to play what is important thing to me. I never had that feeling "o my, i paid for this mmorpg and now i HAVE to play" with this game. No, so far is have been only good time.
- Oldcshool player, newbie mmorpg player
They are actually quite nice as you can see in the screenshots provided. Technically though, they are dated. Unreal, or even Unreal 2, is quite an old engine by todays standards.
The engine is the Unreal 2.5 engine that they have modified to fit their game. I hope you also realize there are only a handful of games if that which use an engine that is not dated by your standards. Although I agree with the score, I'd suggest fixing this so it doesn't seem like your information is misinformed.
Hit all the issues and bonuses right on and honestly. Though it should def have a rating higher than 7.7 compared to what some of this sites other ratings, sure 7.7 is in tone with the writing but not with the ratings of other games(side effect of different reviewers i guess).
I don't really concern myself with the opinions of others in my ratings. I felt the game ultimately was a 7.7, so that's what it got. :) If I cared about what other reviewers scored games I wouldn't really be doing fair by you all, would I? I imagine you guys don't want us to just be an echo chamber.
Though, just to indulge you, the Metacritic rating for The Chronicles of Spellborn is 76. Well within the realm of what I scored it.
I played a couple of classes up to the f2p cap, but I just felt the game wasn't worth $15/month. If I want to spend time on lame quests where I'm gathering 10 boar meats from boars that have a 1 in 3 chance of having meat on them, there are a few decent f2p mmos out there with the same type of quest grind. The game does have some nice points and if they just had a competitive pricing structure I could see myself playing this a bit.
I love the fluff reviews this site gives . No idea how they came up with such a high score with so many admitted CONS.
I don't really concern myself with the opinions of others in my ratings. I felt the game ultimately was a 7.7, so that's what it got. :) If I cared about what other reviewers scored games I wouldn't really be doing fair by you all, would I? I imagine you guys don't want us to just be an echo chamber.
No, but it would be nice to know what this rating means as compared to other ratings on this site. From what you are saying it means little. Is that a new policy? It might mean that the rating means nothing. A better game might get a lower rating or vice versa. On the other hand, what is better? But still when this site lists games according to its ranking people are led to expect the rating means something for one game relative to other games.
No, but it would be nice to know what this rating means as compared to other ratings on this site. From what you are saying it means little. Is that a new policy? It might mean that the rating means nothing. A better game might get a lower rating or vice versa. On the other hand, what is better? But still when this site lists games according to its ranking people are led to expect the rating means something for one game relative to other games.
Ratings dont matter, even a completely average MMO gets a 7 on this site.
No, but it would be nice to know what this rating means as compared to other ratings on this site. From what you are saying it means little. Is that a new policy? It might mean that the rating means nothing. A better game might get a lower rating or vice versa. On the other hand, what is better? But still when this site lists games according to its ranking people are led to expect the rating means something for one game relative to other games.
Sorry, I misread your post. I thought you were referring to other sites.
I cannot say anything in the review was innacurate ,but the OP perception of each detail is not one i agree with.
The hotbar is one that totally turned me off.It offers nothing more than a inconvenience,because yes you can preset the hotbar to use it exactly the way you would a normal one,so why the fuss to make it more complicated than need be?Then you have to rearrange the whole thing when you get new abilities,lol again waste of time,oh well one opinion versus another,i just look at the facts.
I have no idea where the hitman thing comes into play,if you did not know the Hitman developer/artists,NOBODY would have a clue that they are anything alike,not even the sounds or music.Hitman was a console game designed for tight corridors and small view areas,to keep poly counts down.Even so on the note of music,the FFXi artists utilize orchestras and renowned ones at that,so again a console game beats out TCOS here.
The combat system is nothing unique really it offers some buffs debuffs,nothing special,it could never be compared to FFXI's combat system,but then again all other games take a back seat to FFXI's combat system.The mobs try to avoid taking their back in an unrealistic fashion,they look like automated mobs rather than anything that moves realistically.No rooting is a real step back in combat play,as pretty much every game offers it.
It has been quite awhile since i played TCOS,but i don't remember customization at all,and if it offered anything unique in that area,i would have remembered it for sure.The class selction seemed ho hum as well,nothing trhat screams out play me i am different or better.
I know many people at the time of beta tried to convey how amazing the game looked,i saw it as curvey buildings the same as WOW and all were static as F2P games do it,with NPC's standing out front.
IMO the game is decent but not a 7.7,i would rate it a 6 at best,just because there are a ton of games that do everytrhing the same or better.When you build a game to garner new clients,it has to offer something the other games don't or you will not get anyone to play the game.The ONLY thing this game offers really is the cumbersome hotbar,hardly an idea worth exiting your favourite game to play TCOS.I could give the game a 7.5-8 on graphics,but that would be the ONLY part of the game that garners a score higher than 6.However if i wanted just a better looking game,i would play AOC or Vanguard or several other games that utilize nice shader work.
A very well written, informative and fair review.
However I have to echo what other people have said........dated visuals? How did you reach that conclusion? Slightly cartoony with a touch of Tim Burton to offset potential performance issues does not = dated visuals. On my machine those "dated visuals" outshone anything else currently on the mmo market.
A well written review, tho judging from my ealier beta experiences I feel the verdict is a bit overrated. I would not give Spellborn more than 6/10 myself.
For once, I totally and fundamentally HATE kiting, and games having kiting as possibility, and Spellborn goes far beyond that, it encourages kiting. Actually kiting is the only real combat strategy. Forget your skills, just kite around. Usually that will get you along much more than anything else.
The other thing is, you'll love or hate the graphics. They were totally not my thing, which is of course subjective. As bored as I am, I am certainly going to skip that game.
The game has great combat, a nice story, an interesting enough world, some fresh ideas - altogether, very worth checking out except it has no population whatsoever.
This review came too late. The game is already effectively dead. Unless they try a new marketing blitz, it's hard to believe it will ever have more than a few hundred players.
Its a shame, as i really liked this game. But dead MMO is dead MMO.
Fluff reviews? The guy writes a decent review and rates it appropriately according to how the other games are rated(high scores are the norm in this industry, get used to it) and that is all you can say?
Great review! I might give this game a try. Although, I'll wait a few months for them to work out the bugs.
I didn't mind the graphics so much, technically, they could of been better, but artistically and the style, they were great.
But you nailed the Kiting thing right on. Kind of makes that nifty skilldeck everyone claims is a god-send to combat a mute point. Regardless, tho, the combat system wasn't bad. Ranged attacks are far too common in terms of how much they are used in general throughout your career in killing stuff and really killed the combat system for me.
I just wish the leveling would of been more than delivery and kill quests. And that the XP rates for quests made more sense, the rates for rewards don't match up at all with the risk involved in half of them. Some of the hardest quests in Ringfell gave virtually no experience compared to one where you just run across the bridges on the trees to the other side of the map to deliver something. I wish it would of been less theme park, more opened ended, but I guess that was just the dev's vision.
It's worth trying out, but the lack of subscriptions isn't just because of the advertising. They lost many, many people who subscribed and played from the beta already. There's no lasting appeal past max level, no replay value. But it's worth checking out, if only to play through it once.
Some minor mistakes made by the reviewer corrected:
This storyline eventually sends you to the Mount of Heroes where you participate in a set of instanced challenges called The Vault trials.
The Vault of Trials is located on a separate shard called Atheneum.
By level cap you will have five slots per deck, and five decks total.
The total number of decks at level cap is six.
Other areas, like the Mount of Heroes, simply float within the Deadspell Storm itself, which appears as beautiful vortex of light.
Atheneum, Exarchyon and Rawhead Landing just float in the Deadspell Storm like that. Mount of Heroes does not. But the author probably never got as far as Mount of Heroes. I doubt he even got beyond Quarterstone and the first two trials in the Atheneum, but then that was probably not his job.
The review was informative but in a factual, boring sort of way. I give it a 6.5.
Whoops, sorry about that, I'll have those bits corrected. Got the names confused.
Just out of curiosity, how many reviewers make it even half way to end game content in an initial review? From my experience they are given a deadline to have the review written (often within a few weeks). I don't know where any of those places you list fit in the overall game world as I haven't played it. Overall, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an initial review out there that covers from starting spot to end game content. Often follow-ups are added or second looks are done to include new data, if anything is done.
I've tried the game, but couldn't last for more than 1 hour. Feels unfinished and to be honest just doesn't feel like an MMORPG. It feels like my friend made it on the weekend and gave me a chance to try it out...
This is a pretty good review. stunning game both in originality and graphics, but not worth paying for
Hmm, LOTRO is stunning with DirectX 10 on max graphics, Sacred 2 is quite stunning on max, Dawn of War 2 I'd say is quite stunning on Ultra High... Spellborn has 'decent' graphics I 'd say. But when you take in account everything else that decency kinda diminishes.
Am I blind, or did the Spellborn forum get deleted? I'm pretty sure there used to be one. I was going to check it out after reading the review....
Edit: Nevermind, I'm blind. The forum is in the "T" section ("THE Chronicles of the Spellborne").
denial is a river in egypt
I would never suggest that popularity = quality, or Britany Spears would be Mozart.
But in this case, the numbers do indeed....... speak for the product.
Just out of curiosity, how many reviewers make it even half way to end game content in an initial review? From my experience they are given a deadline to have the review written (often within a few weeks). I don't know where any of those places you list fit in the overall game world as I haven't played it. Overall, you'll be pretty hard pressed to find an initial review out there that covers from starting spot to end game content. Often follow-ups are added or second looks are done to include new data, if anything is done.
There are many ways to answer this, but let me begin by saying I never expected the reviewer to get to half way the game. That is what I meant by saying that that was not his job.
Next: it is not stated that this was an initial review. Maybe this should have been stated or explained, but I don't think it was meant to be an initial review, like you say.
Now, the reviewer from what I can tell never saw Ringfell Hearth; the place where the game starts to become more challenging. I would have loved to read the reviewers experience with that rather harsh zone that was not really made to be soloed, but still plenty of people do that and can tell a story or two about it. Maybe it would have made the review come a bit more alive. You can go to Ringfell Hearth at level 14, but level 18 is recommended, which is not even close to half way the game.
Last: I do not claim it is a bad review because of it. I do not even say it is a bad review at all.
There are many ways to answer this, but let me begin by saying I never expected the reviewer to get to half way the game. That is what I meant by saying that that was not his job.
Next: it is not stated that this was an initial review. Maybe this should have been stated or explained, but I don't think it was meant to be an initial review, like you say.
Now, the reviewer from what I can tell never saw Ringfell Hearth; the place where the game starts to become more challenging. I would have loved to read the reviewers experience with that rather harsh zone that was not really made to be soloed, but still plenty of people do that and can tell a story or two about it. Maybe it would have made the review come a bit more alive. You can go to Ringfell Hearth at level 14, but level 18 is recommended, which is not even close to half way the game.
Last: I do not claim it is a bad review because of it. I do not even say it is a bad review at all.
If Ringfell was the big foresty place, then yes, I did that as well. I got to level 20-25 if people are curious. :) The cap is 50, so I guess you can say I got pretty close to halfway through the game. I didn't end up in Ringfell (if thats the place I'm thinking of) until probably 18 or 19.
And yes, that place was pretty rough. :)
I also did not solo the game, I played through everything with a friend.
Hope that helps! :)
I am glad that some find this game enjoyable. I didn't.
I really like this game. I think the one part I really enjoy is that the combat isn't boring point-and-click and less passive than most MMOG.
Also, I found the graphics to be really stylish even if they are running on UE2. Same with the music, really nice.
So I find it a real shame that so few people are playing because this game has the potential to appeal to a slightly different type of MMO player too - as it does a few things quite differently.
I would really urge people to try it... nothing to loose :)
This is deffinately a marmite game. Started playing about a week ago, I will be subbing, loving it so far. Good review.
Ive been playing the free client and seriously considering buying this game, for everyone who loves MMO's but is looking for something different then WoW/WAR/EVE/EQII,..... should try this one. Why? 'Cuz u can try it free for as long as u want (until a certain lvl) , the combat system is innovative, well thought, and most of all fun. The somewhat negative aspects are the quite empty servers (hope they will grow soon) the little bit dated graphics altho the design is very ok and the absence of good PVP. But when the game becomes a succes, these problems will no doubt be solved when the time comes. =)
The game is fun and all.. but its frustrating how some of the bugs is not fixed yet... Like i can not play on the first town Hawkmonth cause as soon as it loads up, it dissconnects me, i tried everything i could think of to fix the problem, even downloaded the maps by themselves but still i can not play the game cause of that problem... no one seems to have a solution either.