Vindictus (PC) Review

Vindictus is a little bit unusual MMORPG. Instead of a big open world this game consists mostly of instanced dungeons. Nearly all quests in this game are focused on clearing these dungeons from enemies. While Guild Wars 1 takes a comparable approach, Vindictus never manages to create the feeling of a world to explore. It is a hubbased MMO in its most simplistic form. There is a hometown for all new players and a few other cities, but outside of the dungeons there just isn't much to see. (Occasional Quests in these towns, but mostly just dialogue or collecting item quests.) And the dungeons themselves are unfortunately extremely generic. The first 10 dungeons for example, look nearly identical and so the quests can get boring very fast, because they are so repetitive. 

The biggest strength of the game is its action combat system. It is implemented extremely well and a lot of fun. With a mouse click you can unleash either a light or heavy attack and at the same time activate your skills through key combinations while moving around the enemies. The combat is generally very fluent and fast paced and may be worth a look for players, who got tired of the tab target system of many other MMORPGs. Most objects in the environment can also be used as throwable weapons and there is a combo-counter that rewards players for creative combinations. It is just a shame, that the developers didn't put more effort into the presentation. 

The story of the game is actually not bad, but mostly told in text blocks and only seldomly in voiced cutscenes. As soon as you enter the quest dungeons the story doesn't really matter anymore, it is just about slaying hordes of enemies. The intro of the game was done very well and the presentation was on another level than in the rest of the game. There are 3 story seasons overall which feature multiple episodes, which consist of a bunch of quests each. So theoretically there is quite a bit of content, but as I said it unfortunately got boring pretty fast. I heard several people complain that at some later part in the game they even had to repeat the same quest dungeons over and over again to progress further in the story. The level progression till the point I played was actually quite fast, but so far Vindictus didn't really feel like a real MMORPG and more like a Solo-RPG with other human players in the hometown. All other players I met were either max level players (90%) or starters. 

PVP is possible in Vindictus and for some people even the most important part of the game. Other people feel differently and state the PVP is very unbalanced and only few players still participate. I personally didn't try it out, but I have heard it is also supposed to be at least partly pay2win in the endgame. The developer Nexon seems to have a reputation for this. 

Instead of choosing classes the player in Vindictus has to choose between different hero archetypes and their respective background stories. The Graphics were very good in 2010 and still hold up rather well in comparison to most other MMORPGs. The character models in Vindictus clearly have an Asian graphic style, which is not going to appeal to everybody. (I myself am not the biggest fan, because it always seems a bit too shiny and clean.) The soundtrack is mostly done alright, but in some areas/big parts of the dungeons there is no sound at all. One or two times I wasn't sure whether I accidentally muted the game or not. There are also some technical problems I encountered during my playtime. Occasionally there were lags and second long stuttering for no reason at all and after that the game ran smoothly for a long time, and I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with my hardware.

Pro:

- Action Combat System works extremely well

-Graphics look good

-Story is potentially interesting

-PVP seems to be fun

Contra:

-Quests and dungeons feel very repetitive

-No open world

-Possibly pay2win in the late game

-Lags and technical problems

Result:

At the end Vindictus is more of a game for short gaming sessions and definitely not a typical MMO. Outside of the PVP Aspect it can entirely be played as a solo adventure, but the storytelling is in my opinion, not strong enough in comparison to other story driven MMOs or Solo RPG Games in general. Vindictus might be worth a look for players, who like to experience an action combat system and who maybe care more about PVP than PVE, but I can not recommend it generally since there seem to be better PVE and PVP games out there.

5.5/10