Ember Sword is a sandbox MMORPG that recently had its alpha play test that started April 17th 2023, to April 19th, 2023 and I had the opportunity to experience it. Developed by Bright Star Studios, Ember Sword is expected to deliver some thrilling PvP and PvE experiences. Being that it is only in alpha, there is, of course, more polish to be had as the game develops. With that said, let's hop into my first impressions.
What stood out to me when first jumping into Ember Sword was the art style and world design. The art style is unique and gives the world a cute feel to it, while houses have a nice tech motif. I love the mysterious landscape. Within each area, there are statues and technological marvels in the world that make you wonder, “what’s this”? For example, in the forest area there is a log with a walkway inside of it which made me wonder if I could go in there. The answer to that, is no, but it still makes me wonder who or what lives there. I know they're just a background, but it does not stop a person from wondering, “oh that looks neat, why is this here?” and there are so many examples of monuments like that around the world.
Weapon-Based Classes
After playing Ember Sword for a while, I saw that it lands in a similar field as RuneScape, where each weapon is its own class, and comes with preset skills. The one that I gravitated to was the pistols. The other weapons in the game at the time of the test were sword and shield, mace, and staff. The problem I had with the pistols was not being able to tell when I used a skill. Some skills for pistols could really use more of an effect that shows they are being used. Whereas with sword and shield, the character has specific attack animations, like a skill that leaps in the air and slams the ground.
On that same note, while fighting, it is hard to tell if the mobs are scaling with you or if there is no scaling. The enemies on the map showed no visible levels. The only time the battles felt a little challenging was when taking on multiple enemies at once. Specifically, the Clawbots were particularly difficult, because when they spot you, they pounce as close as possible. When you get multiple of those together, it becomes hard to walk out of those aoe attacks.
Something I liked was that you could craft your weapons or do quests that would give you upgraded weapons as a reward. In that sense, a lot of these quests feel like chain quests. You complete one, which would then have you deliver the item that you craft, and then next it would have you deliver said item to another NPC. It actually had you traveling across the map to different areas, which was a great way to explore the world and see the different zones. My favorite zone was a forest in the upper left of the map. I don’t remember the exact name, but I really loved the color palette, which gave it a sort of enchanted forest feel, with the different shades of purple and deep green, complete with that little log entrance way.
Crafting seemed rather simple in nature. I could craft potions, armor, weapons, and food. Each craft has a skill level. The more I did it, the higher the level went for that skill. The same can be said for the weapons. The more I use a particular weapon, the higher the skill level grew. Before any of the quests I had already crafted all the gear I would need, both first tier and second tier. In the alpha there were only two tiers available, but had there been a third I’m sure I would have crafted it. As far as I could tell with crafting, the stats are not randomized, they are set in stone, so when it comes to leveling up armor craft, I think it really just comes down to making each set; light, medium, and heavy.
Harness the Harvesting
Gathering materials for crafting is also pretty easy. I love that when mining a node, more often than not I got a good amount materials. I didn’t have to collect for long. The nodes had a decent respawn rate, so I did not find myself needing to go node to node in order to collect. Gathering nodes are spread out and are abundant on the different areas of the map. If you don’t want to gather, you can always buy your material from a vendor in one of the cities.
There is also PvP in the game. For the most part, I know there are arenas around the map where you can do PvP, but I did not get a chance to try this myself as, when I went to the PvP arena, I didn't really see anybody. Mostly because I imagine that they were off questing, but PVP was available during the test.
For the alpha, I had 30 minutes to play and once that 30 minutes was up, I could refresh the game and hop back in. Bright Star has some polish to put on the game as, of course, with it being alpha, there were some bugs that were prevalent. Overall I enjoyed my time. It’s great that Ember Sword gave me the ability to play my way, be it crafting, PvE or PvP. I'm looking forward to playing more during the next test, or when the game finally releases.
