And so we come to the world of Divine Souls, the free to play action MMORPG developed by Gameprix and published by Outspark. In case you don't know about it, here we are to review it for you.

“The Zeplar Engine changed everything. The discovery of the Divine Matter made it possible. When Dr. Charles Burke placed a tiny amount of the shimmering liquid into a small engine, his starship was able to travel to the ends of the galaxy. We hoped the new technology would bring a new era of peace and trade between the planets. We were wrong. The breakthrough of Divine Matter and creation of the Zeplar Engine turned into something more sinister than we could ever have imagined.



The government dispatched a group of elite warriors, known as Polaris, to investigate. Slasher mercenaries from the Grey Army were sent to help in the effort. Finally, the Sorcerers of the Four Rings sent their most powerful Mages to support the investigation as well.”

Let’s begin with its system requirements. Divine Souls features a high quality graphics based on the GameBryo engine; however, it runs smoother on almost all types of computers. You will need at least a low-standard computer: Pentium 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 3GB hard disk space and Nvidia Geforce FX5700 (or ATI Radeon 9800) graphic chard. It will be enough to enjoy its amazing graphics. You will appreciate in our full HD videos and our screenshots.

Well, after downloading the client and the updating process (right now, we have a 3GB file), you will be at the window launcher, where you can register yourself, read news and events information, game guides, check the forums, ranking, store and the media: nothing unusual. Once you login, you will be taken to the select localization region, server and channels screen. Once you choose yours (the only election that really matters is your “continent” (Europe or North America), finally, you will be on the characters screen.

In this respect, character creation, the game falters slightly. Divine Souls offers three characters with no race or sex choices. But you can customize your aspect: face, hair, color, etc. The three characters are: Fighter, Slasher and Mage. Fighters are males, naturals when it comes to melee combat. With their powerful gauntlet, they can pummel their enemies with a flurry of punches or execute various attacks while grappling. Slashers, females, use chain swords to deal damage to multiple opponents. They are extremely agile and attack with lighting speed. Finally, Mages, females, are not only practitioners of magic, but also wield a magical cannon staff. They are combination of long range and close quarter combat skills.

Take a look at our character creation video, in Full HD quality, right here.

Whatever will be your choice, you will get a hack&slash feel. If you enjoy games like God of War, Devil may cry, Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta, you will enjoy Divine Souls for sure. In our last Full experience (Forsaken World) we chose a ranged class, so here we picked a melee one. But don’t worry, because we gave a try to all the characters and filmed full HD videos of each one.

Divine Souls highlights a very deep rich tutorial. And at the tutorial area is where your adventure will start. First of all, you have to choose your control mode: keyboard or mouse. Control mode is easy to change during the game through F5 and F6 keys anytime after tutorial, so don’t worry. But for your own good, we recommend you Mouse mode, the usual. Probably, you will find Keyboard mode extremely hard to control. Instead, Mouse mode is easy to use and control. With your mouse you will control the view and the main attacks. And you will move your character with the standard keys: WASD. Later, you can access to a gamepad control mode (if you own a pad, obviously). Through the tutorial lessons, you will learn the basic moves and dynamics of Divine Souls. From the very beginning, you will enjoy the action hack&slash combat.

Take a look at our tutorial video, in Full HD quality, right here.

After killing a few mobs and a giant chimaera boss, you will arrive to the Elonde Forest camp, the main area from which you can enter different zones, dungeons and instances. Tutorial continues with the basics of questing. With the T key, you can talk to characters with an exclamation point. And thanks to the quest list on the screen, you can auto-route your character to the dungeon or the npc you have to talk to. The first quest drives you to the first dungeon, Forest of Mist, available to 1-4 level characters. Once you enter, a window will pop up with different options. You have to choose difficulty (easy, normal and hard) and two more elections for groups: dice setting (no, magic, rare and unique) and item pick up (in order, random and free).

Our first impression is good. As you can see, Divine Souls offers a quite intuitive and simple interface. Character info bars at the top left corner, map at the top right corner, and quick bar bottom center. The background music is a bit repetitive but it changes when you enter in combat. Graphics are spectacular and the dynamic lights give a feel of reality.

Combat is really fun and fluid. You will have to memorize a list of combos to use, but it isn’t really hard. Pressing the K key, a list of combo moves will appear. For example, to do a special combo move, you have to press left click, left click, left click and left click. Or you can grab an enemy pressing the E key, jump pressing the Space key, and hit it with another combo move in the air.

Essentially, you enter a dungeon and have to make your way through it, killing everything you find in your way. Questing looks easy. Dungeons have different areas. Once you clean one, you can move to the next. Sometimes, mobs will drop coins and items to equip. At the last dungeon area, you will face a final boss. And, then, you will move to Bonus stage, a mini game where you can win different items.

Take a look in Full HD quality at the gameplay experience, featuring the three playable characters.

Players can join 3 friends in quests through more than twenty dungeons against a hundred unique monsters, earning PVE achievements. And, as you can appreciate, each character has a different weapon. Fighters use a Power Fist, a fearsome weapon for both offense and defense. Slashers use a chain-sword, perfect for mid ranged combat. The chain-sword can be used to not only slash enemies, but also to pick them up and slam them into the ground. Mages use a cannon staff, which can fire off a variety of attacks from afar. Each class has a unique fighting style and skills, as unique strengths and weaknesses.

But isn’t everything about combos. There are skills as well. Playing, you will find skill books, dropped from monsters. And you can learn skills from the skill master npc. When you purchase a skill, you will have the option of clicking on the "Practice Room" button to test out your new skills and combos. In the Practice Room, you will be able to try out the skills/combos in an empty room, or against an enemy of your choice and difficulty.

Let's talk about the Cash Shop, a digital store within Divine Souls. By clicking on the “Cash Shop” button located above the action hotkey bar, you will gain access to the huge catalog of items. You can select between different tabs, (i.e. event, costume, item), to find what kind of item you wish to purchase. Almost all items are aesthetic, like shirts of helmets, so you don’t have to be worried about other players if you don’t want to buy items. The virtual coin is called SparkCash, which you can recharge on the payment page.

All clothing and weapons are “enchantable”. To enchant, you will need to purchase Divine Stones. There are three kinds of Divine Stones. Each stone enchants a specific classification of item: Lower Divine Stones enchant regular and green items, Low Divine Stones enchant blue items, and Divine Stones enchant the rare purple items.

PVP is available to all players, no matter what level. All you need to do is head towards the PvP arena and walk into the portal, or you can click on the PVP icon in the upper right corner (quite easy). Inside, you will be able to search for matches or start one of your own. You can customize PvP settings as well, such as number of team players and maps.

The arenas support 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 matches. You must defeat your opponents while dodging deadly traps and using the environment to their advantage. Winning, you increase your PVP rank and fame, unlocking PVP achievements and earning PVP rewards.

CONCLUSION

With the extraordinary hack&slash component, Divine Souls is a very good Action MMO. Combat is spectacular, very visual with great combo moves, and the most important thing: fun. If we have to say something bad, perhaps it is that dungeons can become a bit repetitive with the time.

During this experience, we have not had any problems at all with the client: no crash or lag. It has been a quite good gameplay experience. We do recommend everyone to give it a try. And do not remember is best feature: free to play. You won't regret it.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 15th, 2011 at 3:11 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.