Grand Chase
Game
Grand Chase Tour - Season 3
Back in spring 2010, SG Interactive (formerly known as
Ntreev USA) released season 3 updates for Grand Chase, a multiplayer online
brawler with cute anime flavored boys and girls that love beating the crap out
of monsters, evil villains and each other. Season 3 featured numerous updates
including a complete overhaul for missions, items and user Interfaces, plus brand new dungeons , land and tons more.
I used to play this game way back before it was even in English,
and I was pretty damn good at it, so I was more than ready to give the new
Grand Chase a go.
Tour Start
The tour started off kind of slow, as the first stop on the
tour was a trip to the game's tutorial mode. Training with the tutorial mode
has been incredibly revamped, allowing you to try out every character available
with tons of possible tweaks and combinations. Back in the day, there was only
Elesis, Lire and Arme. But now, eight new characters have joined the fight,
such as Jin the martial arts expert and Amy the divine dancer. As much as I
wanted to give everyone a try, I decided to get re-acquainted with Elesis.
Grand Chase MMORPG 16 Combo
With the time I spent fooling around with the tutorial mode,
I re-learned some of Elesis' bread n' butter combos. During this, I noticed the
"Type 1" icon hovering over the MP bar. The GM explains that some
characters have the ability to switch between two different skills sets with a
quick press of the spacebar. Skill switching opened up a whole new set of possibilities
for me, so I was pretty eager to try them in action when I had the chance.
After I finished warming up in the tutorial, I was asked to
hop on the Gorgos server and from there; we took to the equipment screen so the
GM could explain, in fine detail, all the nice features that shows how much
Grand Chase has evolved. In the previous versions of Grand Chase, stat
properties that went with your equipment were very bare bones, but now there
are tons of new stats properties to take into consideration, such as Critical
hit rate, Counterattack resistance, HP recovery rate and more.
But it doesn't end there: Some of your equipment can be stat
tweaked even further with the properties menu (on some equipment) that will let
you select several options to fit your fighting tactics.
Grand Chase Item Properties
But wait... there's even more tweaking you can do! Grand
Chase also has a card system that allows you to socket your equipment with
cards of monsters you've slain in combat. Each card holds small effects that
can be combined with other cards to create wicked combinations.
Grand Chase Monster Card
They've also added a crafting system that is familiar to
those found in MMORPGs. Simply put: You can use this system to create equipment
that can be found in the shop or equipment that can only be created by
crafting.
So many customization options, so little time! Even though I
didn't care much for any of the customization available, it was neat to know
that every detail of your character could be tweaked 'til you heart's content.
But enough talk of customization... It was time to take some
action! I joined up with GM_Bawkzie to check out some of the dungeons. We
started off slow: Over at the Trial
Forest, we beat up a
couple of mushroom dudes before heading off to defeating a giant tree monster.
Of course, these monsters weren't a challenge for us, so we jumped over to the
Wyrm's Maw dungeon to take on some more adequate enemies.
Lots of Number Free to play MMORPG
The place was crawling with fire breathing baddies and I was
itching to take them all out. Despite my confidence, I ended up dying twice
before deciding not to play like a maniac, all while GM_Bawkzie hanged back and
tore the place up without getting a scratch.
Grand Chase 1552 Combo MMORPG
After we finished our dungeon run, it was time for the main
event: PvP! But before we got started, GM_Bawkzie wanted to explain a little
bit about the skill tree system: Adopted from many other MMORPGs out there,
making use of skill trees in Grand Chase allows you to gain new skills after
mastering a few prerequisites. Skill trees are broken up into active and
passive skills.
Grand Chase Skill set MMORPG
I was also asked to try out Dio, one of the recent additions
to Grand Chase's playable characters. Dio apparently doesn't play out quite the
same as everyone else, as he relies on AP instead of MP to perform skills. Also
unlike the other Grand Chase characters: he can create each attack links from
his basic skills and specials, making him very easy to play, but difficult to
master.
Grand Chase Christmas Time
But there was one more thing I decided to ask before the
tour ended. I wanted to know what was up with the little gray dragon that
GM_Bawkzie had. Then I was told that Grand Chase featured a neat little pet system:
While most MMOs included pets that simply boosted your stats and showed off how
rich you were, pets in Grand Chase actually fight alongside you. Pets need to
be taken care off with feeding and battle experience so they can evolve and
gain new attacks.
We hopped back into another PvP battle to show off what some
of the pets could do. I had a little penguin pet by my side that shot weak
balls of fire, while GM_Bawkzie had some kind of robo maid that shot a crapton
of lasers that could stun enemies. Needless to say, it was obvious which one
would be more useful in a fight.
Grand Chase Game Master MMORPG
There were a lot of other features that were mentioned
during the tour, such as guild functions, a couples function and even a park
for players to run around and just chat.
Grand Chase Party
Overall, I had lots of fun playing Grand Chase after being
away from it for such a long time. A lot of features gave the game some much
needed depth while keeping the core gameplay simple enough for gamers of all
skill ranges to enjoy.
I had such a good time that I might even start playing
again! I may not be a total pro since I haven't been at it for a while, but I
should be good enough to beat newbs at the least, so watch out!
By Michael Sagoe (mikedot), OnRPG Journalist