Pros: Decent enough graphics, well composed music, gameplay is simple and casual
Cons: Gameplay is tedious and repetitive, we’ve seen it all before, poorly implemented PVP, less features than other RPGs
------------------------------
R2Games just released their newest Asian developed RPG and we took out a little time to give it a go and see how it compared to their other titles. Thundercall is a very classic style RPG that we’ve seen from the publishers before, a very familiar “demons are invading the world and the gods need you to help them” storyline followed by levels of upgrading gear to improve your Battle Rating (BR) and trying to earn “Wings”. It was a game we’d seen a dozen other times under a different title, but just a little worse in places.
Right off the bat was the classes; traditionally we’d see three (Warrior, Healer/Mage and Ranger/Assassin being the norm), however in Thundercall they’d made the bold choice of only having two classes, furthermore they were gender locked so you could either play the female Mage or the male Warrior. Other than a star rating for Attack, Defense and Difficulty (Warrior 1 star, Mage 5 star) there was no information on the characters, and so we figured we’d try our hands at the “difficult” Mage.
Loading into the game we were informed we had to save a Goddess from Demons, such a common trope with these Asian developed RPGs, a quick battle showed us that combat had some skill based elements with us using the mouse to move around the map and the number keys to cast our spells, which would target wherever our mouse cursor was. We were pleasantly surprised with the Combat system, fully expecting a soul crushing AFK system where the game plays itself and so it set us up for a good mood and some higher expectations.
Stepping into the main quest hub, and by “main quest hub” we mean “pretty sure the only quest hub” as it was filled with high levels donning purple wings and riding mounts, we were struck by the inescapable fact that everyone looked the same. Every Mage looked the same and was wearing the same armor, likewise every Warrior looked the same, highlighting the absolute lack of customization that we were going to experience on our journey to whichever level we decided to grind up to.
The area, and those instanced staged zones we travelled to, looked good and the graphics for the backgrounds were top notch as is usually the case with these games, the characters models and animations were a little more on the unimpressive side unfortunately. Likewise with the game’s sound; where the music was a symphonic composition that highlighted the games theme and set a tone, the actual sound effects were of such low quality it was very distracting and almost laughable how bad they were. The excessive grunting of enemies every time you hit them was a particular highlight for us, the deep throaty grunting sounding extremely…. x-rated.
This was one of the big issues with the game: where they nearly got something right they managed to ruin it by doing something else bad, good backgrounds bad characters, good music bad sound effects. Even combat, our shining star, wouldn’t escape this fate. Burning through the game we managed to ultimately reach level 30 and on that journey had fought through quite a few stages as the “5 Star Difficulty” Mage, we’d hoped for having to keep out of range of enemies or be punished for it if we didnt, we’d hoped for having to manage our mana carefully, the reality was that everything was so weak that it was so much easier for us to create a train of enemies, get them all to chase us to the end of the level, and just kill them all in one go with all our AOE spells. So difficult.
The clue that combat might not be quite as skill based and challenging as we’d thought was that you can AFK it, let the AI take over your character and complete the stages for you, though obviously this was reserved for VIP players who’d dropped cash into the game. Yes the game has the classic Diamonds premium currency system, refreshing stamina, and VIP tiers, the biggest joke was at certain levels being rewarded with a “Gift Pack”, a loot chest that would give us some cool items… but we had to spend Diamonds to open it. Not much of a gift if you ask us, it’s like waking up on Christmas morning being given all your presents and then being handed the invoice to pay for them all.
Back to combat. Our biggest annoyance wasn’t that the combat was easy, we’re sure the difficulty ramps way up at end game and things aren’t killed quite as easily, our disappointment was that we were looking forward to trying out combat in PVP which we managed to unlock at level 30 in the form of the Arena. We’d hoped to try dodging around the battlefield against other players, watching our mana and timing our attacks. Nope. You choose your opponent and the two of you are summoned into the arena and they just start automatically fighting, no moving around, just unleashing every attack onto each other that they have and it being a completely non-optional AFK battle. For everything they do right, they do something bad.
Between easy PVE and AFK PVP the rest of the “features” pretty much revolved around the many different Upgrade systems to increase your BR, whether upgrading weapons, upgrading mounts, upgrading pets, upgrading skills… it was all essentially exactly the same thing: collect a specific material needed for that “feature” then click “upgrade” to make yourself stronger. There was no difference between the different systems.
That is the biggest issue with the game; it’s all be done before, but better. The game has utilized many of the staple features we see in these Asian RPGs, the same names (Forge, Goddesses, Arena, Boss Rush, etc.) as well as fairly familiar lore/storyline and, from what we could tell, added absolutely nothing original. The game is lost in a sea of similarly themed and styled RPGs that it becomes unnoticeable, it doesn’t stand out from the crowd and just seems like more of a cash grab “quick churn out another identical game so that players can to try and level up in this one now and spend money doing it”. If it’s the first RPG you’ve ever played, well the inclusion of skill focused combat is at least an improvement, but if you play these games a lot then Thundercall is probably one you can consider skipping.
Deja tu comentario
You must be logged in to post a comment.