Some would argue that comparing Bless Unleashed with Bless Online post mortem is a moot point. For those that may have missed the rise and eventual fall of Bless Online, there are many theories out there as to why it failed to catch on, some of which were outlined as major detractors in our Bless Online Review. After the announcement of Bless Unleashed, many gamers out there questioned whether “porting” Bless to consoles was just another ploy to keep a failing intellectual property running, or if this was an honest attempt at something new. The answer may be more complicated than you might think.
If you have tried Bless Online, heard about its hardships anecdotally, or simply read some reviews, you may know that Neowiz charged several attempts in multiple regions to find its niche. Neowiz even went so far as to change the combat to a more action oriented, combo-centric form of gameplay for the westernized version. Upon the announcement of Bless Unleashed, we learned that, not only would the new game have an updated engine, but it would also be developed by a completely separate development team. Despite the announcement, Bless Unleashed has failed, at least to some degree, to differentiate itself from the abject collapse that was Bless Online. It’s important to note that there are differences, though, and Bless Unleashed is not the game PC players once knew, for better or for worse.
As the reviewer who handled the western release of Bless Online, I was happy to pass the reins to one of our other capable staff members, but not before I dipped my toes into the Unleashed waters before me. What I found, compared to the PC rendition of Bless was certainly a mixed bag. For those of you who wonder what one can expect from Bless Unleashed the following are some of my thoughts depicting the differences between the two games, and whether those disparities were better or worse.
The Combat
In general, most players can expect to spend the majority of their time in MMOs these days, in combat. In the westernized version of Bless Online, Neowiz decided a combo system would be more exciting, and more beneficial than simply executing abilities how and when you wanted. To me, this created a supremely disjointed feel to combat. On my mage, some ranged combinations also had melee skills attached to them, which made it confusing as to when and how you were supposed to deploy them.
In Bless Unleashed combat is not the same, but it has some similarities. Most of what you end up doing in combat are variations of your weapon skills, with special abilities thrown in as needed. I opted to change the button combinations from the secondary triggers, which felt unnatural, to the X, Y and B buttons which made consistent combos much more enjoyable. The combat, for the most part, feels much more fluid, and branching combo trees give you several options in combat, even though, most of the time you’ll be sticking to a single combination repeatedly, for much of your general swashbuckling.
Eventually in Bless Unleashed you unlock combat blessings which unlock new skill sets to use. This isn’t entirely different to how Bless Online opened up their skill and combo trees, but it is certainly less confusing that it was in Bless Online. In fact, some would say, it’s even a little too simplistic, with the way skills are unlocked. All in all, Bless Unleashed feels like a much more thoughtful and accomplished action combat system, that isn’t quite as polished as Black Desert or Tera but is certainly a major step in the right direction.
Winner: Bless Unleashed
Visuals and Performance
Despite Bless Online running on a mostly outdated engine, I don’t think you would find anyone out there that spent a substantial amount of time playing, say that the game looked bad. Visually, Bless Online had some sharp edges and some low-quality textures at times, but it looked pretty good. Apart from some hiccups here and there, mostly when you ventured into highly populated areas (which was scarce the longer the game ran on for), there were few complaints when it game to the actual performance of the game.
Strangely enough, in Bless Unleashed running the Unreal Engine 4, the game looks great in most cases, but performance has to be graded on a sliding scale, simply because, you never really know what to expect. Sure, you have a few textures that are questionable, but character models and lighting were pretty impressive, seeing as how I’m on an older Xbox One (not an S or X model) and most of the enemies I fought, areas I traveled by, and players I ran into looked pretty great – when I could see them.
Therein lies one important distinction between the performance of Bless Online and Bless Unleashed. Many times, especially in highly populated areas of Bless Unleashed I wouldn’t see any character models, or… well, anything. I had to wait until the forge loaded, as I walked around aimlessly over a quest marker, before I could continue on my quest. Some quest givers would display as a blue orb, before their character models appeared. Mobs would sometimes appear, and dies immediately, as other players were killing them, but I couldn’t see the players, or even the mobs at times, until after they were dead.
I would love to point my finger at the Xbox One and say, “This is your fault!” Alas, I cannot. This is the same Xbox I’ve played many online games on with few issues, and my research, of watching other game streams, showed similar issues from gamers running the Xbox One X (despite some faster load times, but still, the issues persisted). Could this be due to the fact that there is only one server at this time and too many players at the lower levels? I wouldn’t doubt it, but it does point to the possibility that, had this originally released on PC where performance may have been optimized a little better, these issues wouldn’t exist. I’m going to give this one a push, if I had to pick a winner today, it would be the old Bless Online, but Bless Unleashed does look better, and the performance issues are annoying, but not necessarily game breaking.
Winner: Tie
The Cash Shop
Cash shops are sometimes tough to quantify as to what is really “better” when you’re generally comparing convenience and cosmetic items. When Bless Online originally released, it had planned to be a Buy to Play title, with a purely cosmetic cash shop. Prior to launch, Bless Online migrated to a Free to Play monetization scheme, which actually didn’t change too much in the way players could earn and spend Lumena. You did notice an increase in the number of cosmetic items and packs that became available in the Lumena only store, and there were several account services that you could only purchase via the cash shop, but, considering the closest you could get to being a “pay to win” item revolved around the “peace pledges” that unflagged you for non-consensual PvP, the cash shop was relatively tame, especially for a game on the verge of collapse.
By comparison, Bless Unleashed is extraordinarily similar, just without the “peace pledges” to keep you out of PvP. PvP works differently in Bless Unleashed and while I haven’t specifically been able to partake, as it appears it’s only meant for characters over 30, from Bless’s game guide, it seems to be a flag and PK system, that won’t rely on people being forced to opt out if they aren’t interested, but rather, non-consensual PvPers will take hefty penalties for killing players who are uninterested in fighting back.
Aside from that, most of what is listed on the cash shop requires Lumena to purchase. Some items that you can buy, such as star seed boosts, will let you resurrect in place, while other items, such as bag space upgrades actually come in handy as basic quality of life features. Bag space is definitely in short supply, and even prior to level 10, with several bag space upgrades under my belt, I felt like I didn’t have enough, so it’s clear that bag space is a premium-feature players may be interested in, if they don’t feel like micromanaging their inventories. Current costs for Lumena are, 19.99 for 2K Lumena, or 10K for 99.99. It may not directly be Pay 2 Win, but having money can definitely change your experience outside of simple cosmetics. Because the inventory is so restrictive early on, and you can’t just simply earn more space quickly without looking for it, I’ll have to toss this up to a tie.
Winner: Tie
Final Thoughts
Granted, there are quite a few things in the game I have yet to get to and test. I am not at max level, and end game is still far into the horizon for me, as I’m still enjoying some of the early leveling game. The group battles from open world enemies in Bless Unleashed is actually quite enjoyable, when you find enough players to take on those huge monsters. I have to say, the Console crowd doesn’t seem to care much about the unsuccessful attempts of the former Bless Online games. I feel bad that I was so surprised to see comments on the in-game chat channel that stated plainly, “This game rocks” with zero sarcasm present.
In fact, in a way, Bless Unleashed does kind of rock a bit. It’s nowhere close to some of the larger, more polished titles, but it is by no means the slog that Bless Online was. I’m actually looking forward to getting back into the game and leveling my crusader a bit more. Another sight that I really enjoyed seeing is that, GM’s are actually prevalent in the game at this time, and they converse with players, and help out with questions or problems as they arise. I doubt that will keep on indefinitely, but I can’t recall the last time I saw a GM in game that actually contributed to the game, instead of standing there stoically, while everyone swarmed around them just because they exist. I’m not going to say that Bless Unleashed will become the success it was always looking to be, but I’m not here to cast any disparaging remarks either. I do have a hope for Bless Unleashed, and that is, they learned from their past mistakes, and they turn their new endeavor into something worthy of coming back to.
