I’ve been playing Tarisland for several weeks, running through the fantasy MMORPG with a Mage, a Paladin, and a Phantom Necro. All three are maxed out now in the best gear available at the time of writing, so I’m here to report back on the mid to late game.
As a dedicated World of Warcraft player and fantasy nerd, it’s been a solid experience overall. While I certainly have my issues with Tarisland, the experience as a whole has been fun and it’s worth taking a look at.
If you missed the Review In Progress, take a look at it here, where I covered the character creation process and early game content, which I won’t be diving into too much in this main review.
Level Up
One of my main gripes with Tarisland is that I found the introductory process slow. I leveled three characters to max for this review, aiming to tackle different types of content with each one, and I was hoping for a unique experience with all three.
Unfortunately, the only difference I found is that my Paladin used a hammer while my other characters cast spells. While the characters feel decently unique in combat, leveling is very linear in Tarisland and I found myself zoning out significantly during my third run from 1 to 40. Overall, Tarisland is not a difficult game, except for a few end-game PvE encounters, and leveling felt lightning fast.
In every major fight, the game will prompt you on boss mechanics and there’s a quest marker which walks you step-by-step to every location. It’s not really possible to fail a skill-based quest, and despite the lack of XP from killing mobs, I hit max level quickly.
Story Time
One reason that may have contributed to the speediness of leveling is that I ended up skipping a fair few lore cutscenes after I’d leveled up my first character.
I mentioned in my Review In Progress that I found the quest design interesting - this remains true. The team did a great job with creating quest type variety, but the lore felt unengaging. Sadly, this remained the case as I approached end-game content.
I found Tarisland’s story to be uninspiring. As I write this, no particular quests, characters, or PVE encounters stand out to me as particularly interesting. There were a few fun puzzles and character interactions, but most of my enjoyment enjoyment in Tarisland came from boss battles. As someone who enjoys story-driven games, I felt let down.
Some character interactions were a little immersion-breaking, too, like a Gnoll shouting “GG” when I killed it. Funny, but quite weird in what was meant to be a somewhat serious quest.
In my opinion, a good MMORPG is carried by its lore and how it presents its world. While PvP and PvE content are undoubtedly important, an MMORPG (especially a fantasy one) without a solid story ends up feeling empty over time.
I wasn’t impressed by Tarisland’s story, which is a shame as I loved the world design and overall aesthetic of the game. Despite a few visual quirks and “tap to skip” being present in every cutscene, the game looked good and performed well.
Boss Rush
One aspect that carried the Tarisland experience for me is the variety of content. I skew towards PvE content in every MMO (although I did try every game mode) so I was incredibly excited to get into Dungeons and Raids for the first time.
The experience did not disappoint. There are some engaging boss fights in Tarisland, using a variety of mechanics and puzzle-like attacks to help keep players on their toes. There wasn’t too much trash to clear in the PvE encounters either, which I personally loved.
The experience felt streamlined and fun, and it was also fairly easy to engage with new content. The game prompts you on boss mechanics as mentioned, making it hard to mess up, and there’s an in-game guide with detailed advice on boss mechanics.
I’m not a PvP fan by any means but I did explore the content on offer. With my limited experience in this style of play, I felt that the inclusion of Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Trial Grounds was positive. Combat rotations are pretty simple in Tarisland, making PvP very dependent on speed and reaction time.
Some folk may not enjoy the fact that there’s a daily cap on how many rewards you can get from PvP and from Elite Dungeons. Time-gated rewards are never popular in MMORPGs and the fan reaction that I’ve observed for this so far has been negative.
Alongside standard PvP and PvE content, there’s a variety of other content types. These include:
- Arcane Realm. Similar to Mythic content in World of Warcraft, decent PvE content with rotating affixes and punchy bosses to keep things interesting.
- Universal Hall. A linear boss battle mode which continually gets harder, requiring you to pick up mandatory debuffs for each level.
- Dark Invasion. World quests, providing a slew of mobs to defeat alongside regular quest content.
- World Bosses. Giant bosses that can be found in static locations, dropping solid rewards and requiring little coordination with other players.
- Seasonal Events. The Starlight Amusement Park (feeling similar to a certain island of a dark lunar variety) provided fun mini-games and quests.
The crafting system was also decently interesting, providing a way to earn gold and gear up characters quickly. There weren’t a huge amount of professions to choose from, but it did the trick and had useful introductory quests.
Money, Money, Money
Something that I’ve seen a lot of discussion about in recent weeks is whether Tarisland is pay-to-win. On paper, there is a P2W element, but it’s not the worst example of it in the MMORPG community by a long shot.
You can purchase Crystals in the game which can be swapped for Gold, which can in turn be used to obtain high level gear and tools to empower your items with. There are also Monthly Tickets which provide benefits like free Trade Center listings and XP boosts. Aside from this, the paid options in Tarisland are for cosmetics and aesthetic items.
Gold isn’t overly hard to come by in Tarisland, so as a free-to-play user, I didn’t mind this too much while playing. Users buying Crystals will obviously be able to access high level gear quicker, but I still maxed out my character quickly without spending any money.
A gold-selling community has also popped up in the world chat already, which is morbidly funny to see, considering how new the game is.
There’s also a gacha system in Tarisland which may be a sticking point for some. The currency for the Prayer system can be unlocked via content or bought with Back-in-Time Tokens, which are provided during maintenance or game down-time. I searched for a way to buy gacha currency with Crystals, but couldn’t see this listed as an option in the shop.
Monetization in MMORPGs is always going to be a sore point in the community. I didn’t personally find that the paid elements of Tarisland interfered with my experience, but I would’ve preferred to see the paid options being purely cosmetic.
Overall Rating
All in all, I did enjoy my time with Tarisland.
It certainly has its quirks and flaws, but as a player who enjoys PvE content, I found it fun and engaging. 40 felt like the perfect level cap for Tarisland to start with, too, as the leveling was decent enough yet quick to get through. I was also impressed by the variety of content on offer.
That being said, there are elements of Tarisland that are lacking. The story was mediocre and the characters were not memorable, and aside from certain Elite Dungeons or Challenge runs, the game felt exceptionally easy.
There was nothing in the game that felt particularly Tarisland-coded, and I don’t feel the game has a strong identity yet. I do believe that the game has potential to expand and grow in the future, though.
For now, I’d recommend it for PvE fans who aren’t too fussed about story-driven content and for new MMORPG fans who’d like a free game to sink a few hours into. It’s not ground-breaking by any means, but it was quite fun and offered a good alternative to my usual games.
