So, Granado Espada

You know what’s ironic? This was originally going to be a bad review of the free MMORPG Granado Espada that I started to play 2 days ago (link goes to the site of the particular region I play on), but while I was taking screenshots and preparing for the entry, I actually learnt how to play the game properly and am shamefully enjoying it now. Damn you, grinding games and masochistic self!

Anyway, on to the game! (Very image heavy, as with other gaming blog entries!)

When you first run the game, you would notice… that the music is very loud. Like, very loud. There’s no immediate way (not even shortcuts) to turn the music volume down or off other than adjusting the whole system volume. Also, the default size of the windowed mode is 1024×768, i.e. very cluttered screen. There’s no way to change it in-game but you could go into the files (releaseuser.xml & releasegeConfig) to edit it if it annoyed you enough as it did me.

After I got the initial annoyances out of the way, I went ahead and created my family. Instead of giving each character a completely different name like in other games, GE goes by the family system where all the characters share the same family name… which is fine per se, but by the time I came up with a decent Baroque-y family name that wasn’t already taken, I’ve already heard the theme song enough to know how to play it on my violin. True story.

Unlike many other games, the male characters aren’t painful to look at; I even made my scout a male. Classes in the image (from left to right): Fighter, Wizard, Scout, Musketeer, Elementalist.

The wizard and scout blinked. Bleh.

Unfortunately, you only get to change the outfit of the characters later on in the game, not their appearance otherwise, i.e. all players of the same class and sex will have the same face.

Oh, but I did mention that the game is free, right? Apparently you are given some good 21 years to play it. Who knows if I would even live that long?

You always get disconnected if you stayed in the Barracks (character selection screen) for too long, though — at least that was what happened to me for a few times. Here I thought I was hacked already before I even got to play the first character that I only just created.

This game employs something called the Multi-Character Control (MCC) system, which, as the name implies, allows you to control multiple characters you created (up to 3) at the same time. Soloing (in the playing-alone sense) is actually possible!

Below is likely the most important bar (alt+I) with hotkeys a newbie would want to be familiar with, as it allows you to switch between controlling each character individually and controlling the team as a whole and more. I missed it at first and the characters I weren’t actively controlling were just standing there getting hit. I’m glad I eventually discovered it!

Poses (alt+X; some of which are included in the very beginning, some you earn through quests, and some you buy) make for some crazy idling and screenie fun, especially for people with vivid imagination, e.g. me!

But it’d be nice if the characters would breathe when they’re posing.

The trees are gorgeous too, except they turn transparent when you go near them, which I suppose is bad for screenies but good for combat.

Aside from what I already mentioned above, there are also a couple of other things I didn’t like about the game:

1. There’s no way to change where the unmoveable zone map (alt+Z) appears (in the middle of your screen by default) other than hacking into the files.

2. Other windows (inventory, quest, etc.) don’t stay where you move them. They always go back to their default positions when you zone to another map.

3. Chatting in-game is really annoying. You have to hit alt+C every time to expand the chat window. Enter key also works. Strange how it didn’t for me in the beginning.

4. We can’t move our characters with the keyboard (which is so because 24 keys are reserved for executing different skills of the 3 characters).

5. Melee characters can’t attack flying / levitating creatures.

6. Scouts can’t won’t automatically heal if they’re equipped with a weapon; and can’t do any damage whatsoever if they’re unequipped.

And what’s with female elementalists in MMORPGs not keeping their boobs in their dresses, anyway?

Not to mention giant vegetables and unmanned uninhabited stores?

MMORPG worlds are strange.

So, in conclusion, I hated the game at first because it takes a bit of getting used to the multiple character system; but ended up liking it because it’s free and… grinding is fun. Nooooooo.

Disclaimer: Some animals were harmed in the making of this introductory / review blog entry thingy. But hey, that crocodile attacked me first!