SCORE:
Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 6
Sound: 6
Overall: 5.5
Pros: A vibrant and thrilling world brought to life by amazing environmental graphics.
Cons: Anything new to add to this already tired genre.
Last week, we playtested the latest release from R2Games, Kingdom Rift, first and foremost in order to find out whether it would be just another adaptation in a new look but with analogous features (which admittedly is tremendously successful with their audience) or this new MMO RPG actually would have anything different to offer than other titels in the company’s portfolio.
When we logged in to the game, we were welcomed by a screen offering the choice between 3 different classes: a spell caster, a ranged and a close-quarter combatant, which immediately triggered the initial thought of "oh, actually seems as if we’re going to be served the identical kind of game we’ve come accustomed to with R2Games."
Kingdom Rift was, as we had expected and feared, quite an automated thing where characters keep running from one NPC to another in order to pick out quests that send them battling their way through incredible amounts of foes that are hardly able to inflict the slightest scratch on the player’s hero. We looted numerous items that we didn’t had the foggiest idea of what they were meant for and burned through the levels as if having reason to fear they would go out of fashion. Once again a tested and proven formula and a peculiarly tremendously successful one.
With Kingdom Rift, the developers pursued plans to make the combat more Diablo-styled, meaning that you’ll cut through NPCs in the live open world instead using formations in instance-based battles. Nevertheless, the familiar "BR" value was still very prevailing and each item gained, each level acquired, each skill unlocked, each piece of gear upgraded or goddess rescued contributes to your BR increase.
During our approximately 20-minutes long trial, we were able to play through the initial 25 levels of content (we ignore the actual level cap,though), gradually unlocking one feature after another, ranging from various mechanics to reward pop-ups. As usual, this constantly begs the question of why do they even bother doing this? Due to the fact that the levelling process is that rapid, they also could just have made all core features available right from the start, for players would anyway spend their first hour of gameplay with questing before actually exploring these other features.
Kingdom Rift once more revolves around the classic kingdom being in danger, the player being the chosen one and the only person capable of saving the realm from complete obliteration. We have to honestly admit that the story-driven elements don’t appear to be that bad. The translation of the dialogues is at least done in a satisfying way (which is true for the entirety of the company’s MMOs) and all in all, the game looks quite amazing thanks to its immersive and imaginative environments and backgrounds. In our opinion, it’s never the actual RPG element of the game that is the issue, but rather the automated features/ AFK mode that spoils the fun and detracts from the game.
In this instance our main character (a warrior by the way) automatically ran from place to place, killing enemies by the score and the only interaction we were required was to click the Accept button to claim our rewards we were literally showered with regardless of what we were doing. The ability to turn combat off just appears useless to us, since combat isn’t predominantly challenging or tactical or, to be honest, fun... so why bother?
We could help the feeling that the game’s initial levels were just meant to be burned through while you grind levels, to the point where there is a complete AFK feature allowing characters to stand in the centre of nearby spawning enemies killing them over and over and over and over and over until the AFK feature is turned off. Most enemies around your level will be all but do enough damage to be a threat, but your AFK feature still allows you to set when to use heal and magic MP renewing potions. One question remains... where is the gameplay?
Nonetheless, in our opinion, Kingdom Rift probably counts among the better MMORPGs from publisher. Those who like this kind of automated MMO games will love it for sure. In case you’re interested in finding out more, please stay tuned for an in-depth profile as well as a first look commentary video we’ll come up with pretty soon.
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