Customer Reviews

Champions Online

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

*Updated 11/29/2010*

I just wanted to add a quick note that this game will be free to play soon if they haven't already made the switch. It won't be 100% free as none of these "free to play" MMORPGs truly are, but you will be able to access the bulk of the game for no monthly fee soon. I would highly recommend checking this out for the low low price of free and perhaps then opt in to some of the priced content.

Overall, I am still pleased with the game and maintain my rating of it. As an avid WoW player I don't feel that Champions Online is going to be a game for me which will replace WoW by any means but I am pleasantly surprised by how fun it is to play. It has so far served me quite well as a respectably good distraction.

You start off by making your character. The promises Cryptic made in regards to the depth of customization were delivered in spades. In terms of looks you are limited to various costume pieces, of which there are many, but the majority of them can be altered in several ways including material, color, and patterns. I was a little disappointed to find that certain costume pieces can't be used with others (chest armor + cape = no?) but with the shear level of options it was a fading disappointment as I moved on to other cool ideas. I'm immensely satisfied with the creation features. Other costume items can be unlocked through gameplay via random drops, PvP, and such. These unlocked costume items are currently only available to the character which unlocks them but you can change your costume around after creation.

For your powers you can choose from pretty generic comic book archetypes like a fire user, or super strength, or telekinesis etc. You also have the option to custom tailor your power set which at creation allows you to choose one "energy builder" (a spammable basic attack which builds energy) from any archetype, and then another actual power from any of the archetypes (an attack which uses stored energy, think mana). This again allows for quite a bit of customization but there is an obvious limitation of 2 abilities upon creation.

Following power selection you pick a talent which basically gives you a sizable stat bonus. There are plenty of different combinations to choose from. The stat system is drawn from the Champions pen and paper game and comes across as a little vague and foreign compared to other games but if you take their stat recommendations and hover your stats it's pretty easy to figure what you need and what you're getting. Stats affect various powers and builds in different ways but there are some core benefits to each. For example my main character derives their damage from endurance which also effects my energy pool but on another character of mine endurance simply affects my energy pool and Ego grants me my damage.

Alright, on to gameplay.

My first look at the game left me a little gutted by how low the quality was. Following that I had to double check the settings to make sure something wasn't wrong and sure enough the game defaulted to much lower graphics setting and resolution than my PC was capable of. So after turning the settings up I went about my busines. The graphical styling probably isn't for everybody and doesn't scale down very well at all but on high settings I feel that they are actually quite good. At lower settings a lot of the nuances which I feel polish the look of the game are lost and in turn makes the game look exponentially worse the lower you go. If you don't have a great computer and highly value the look of the games you play you may want to pass this over but otherwise I feel that the game performs and looks great on higher settings and is certainly playable otherwise.

So off to great adventures.

The game can be played natively with a wired X-Box 360 controller, a wireless 360 controller for Windows, or a keyboard. I have wired 360 controllers for just this reason so I will be playing that way. This has worked well for me thus far but there are some annoyances in using a controller. Many of these issues have been addressed in patches but it still seems awkward and somewhat undoable to select from multiple NPCs and/or objects using the controller.

Questing is pretty typical, find people with big yellow exclamation points, take their quests, pound some aliens,???, profit. It doesn't bug me much but I imagine some folks were hoping for a change of pace. You won't find the questing in this game particularly refreshing unfortunately. You can get quests by finding items certain items, stumbling up an area granting a local quest (Fallout 3 radio transmission style), take part in "public quests" Warhammer Online style, and then your run of the mill quest hub. I have been encountering sporadic glitches with quests like not being able to take them and there are a couple of the public quests which are undoable right now. The vast majority of them work flawlessly, and an increasing number have been fixed in patches, but again this game isn't without its faults.

Combat is very active and plays much more like an action game than basically any other MMORPG. You can run/jump/fly/teleport in and pound on whatever you're attacking because with the way you build energy (attacking) and your general abundance of energy it seems as though you're always able to keep your head in the combat. The challenge level of enemies in an area can often be quite erratic, an issue which has been methodically addressed in patches. Blocking and playing defensively can be a much more integral part of combat than other games. You can see enemies charge there attacks and that's generally a sign that something dangerous is about to hit you. In these situations it can be quite devastating to not take a defensive action so again this is an element of combat which adds to the immersion of most fights.

You can equip armor, weapons, and such. Equipment itself doesn't change your look that I know of, but again certain pieces of equipment do unlock costume pieces. You can change your costume for a nominal fee at any point in the game and you can actually save multiple costumes. There are 3 equipment fields which are science, arms, and mystic. Each type has one primary equipment slot and 2 secondary slots. Aside from that you can basically consider them unique slots like any other paper-doll equipment method you've seen before. You also have a bar for "devices" which are like items with charges and trinkets that do interesting things. I haven't messed with them much but you can get things that give you various buffs or do attacks as well as healing items which can be nice.

After a bit of questing you will eventually gain levels. At that point you'll have various points saved up. At set levels you can get points for new powers, new travel powers, new talents, and new power advantage points. Again you can choose powers from any school provided you meet the requirement which is typically "X non-energy building powers from this school or X+3 non-energy builders from a different school". Powers come in all different types so you can mix and match defensive and offensive powers from all over. Travel powers are pretty self explanatory, that's where you get flight, teleportation, super jumping, super speed... They're all quite varied, I chose teleportation which allows me to zip in and out of combat with the downside of not being able to attack while teleporting vs. flying which allows you to shoot enemies from the air. Talents are just like at character creation only there are many more of them at this point and obviously off many more stat options. Power advantages allow you to take powers you already have and modify them in certain ways (like WoW glyphs sort of). Each power has very different things you can do to it so again there's a lot of customization to be had here. Powers and talents can be undone via the "Retcon" option but you'll still want to be very careful of your decisions. Unlike other games where you re-do your whole tree, in Champions you buy your powers back one by one in order with a cost based on your level. Typically this is going to be far more money than you have to backtrack all the way through your choices.

There is also crafting. Initially I dismissed crafting a pretty worthless but I've come to find it's quite easy and yields some pretty solid rewards. It isn't as grindy as crafting professions in other games and you come across enough materials as you quest to make it so that you typically have, or are close to having whatever it is you're looking to build. Materials are gathered my breaking down various equipment pieces you gather (called research) like WoW's disenchanting or by finding boxes, crates, or artifacts relevant to your profession. Researching can give you several points and quite a large amount of materials so I've found that it makes leveling your profession more of a way to supplement your adventures vs. a race to highest skill and best stuff.

The nemesis system is pretty neat, once you hit level 25 you get to make your rival. You can create the way they look and make some pretty general choices about how they act and what their powers are. Once this is done you will randomly encounter their henchmen and periodically get quests to foil his various nefarious capers. It's kind of an interesting sensation of "when and where will they strike again" that adds a very unique dynamic to wandering around the world.

My experience with PvP so far has been lackluster. I'm a casual hardcore PvPer if such a thing exists. I enjoy it, and can take it quite seriously when I participate, but for the most part it's just another thing to do for me rather than the focus of a game. With that said in Champions it often feels that the battle is decided beforehand in how well the player chose their powers/advantages giving an endge to theorycrafters over skilled PvPers. I don't really want to go as far as to say some stuff is just broken, but there are definitely powers which have very specific answers to them and in many cases you'll find there isn't anything you can do about it. There are some pretty specific things which need to be nerfed through the floor, but on the whole I do feel that most power sets are competitive. I feel that they're at least on the right track with PvP but it does need quite a bit of work before hardcore PvP players will find much amusement with it I think. The spirit of the game is that you can be any hero you want to be but that philosophy simply doesn't translate well to PvP at the moment.

Lairs/dungeons/instances are pretty cool although there doesn't seem to be very many. You don't necessarily have to fit a role such as tanking, healing, or DPS depending on the group but those are options available and many people can function as dual purposes. I find this to be quite fun, again it keeps the focus on action which is refreshing and appropriate for the game. Just as an example the groups I've found myself in have mostly been I guess what I would consider DPS. 5 of us enter in to a dungeon and start killing everything in sight. In the event that somebody starts to get attacked by a tougher mob the player generally had some defensive options available to them until the rest of the team could bail them out. For me I found myself falling back to a blocking power, healing abilities, and life draining. This typically didn't need to be maintained for very long, and was very effective for that time, because eventually one of the other team members pulls the aggro off you and a cycle of threat juggling persists. People do die, especially when caught off guard or simply having no survival options, so perhaps a traditional team (Tank + Heal + DPS) would work much more efficiently but I like that they've kept the composition choice up to the players.

On the note of lairs I will voice my one major complaint about the game thus far and that's the shard zoning. The way the game works is rather than a single congruent world there are instanced zones (sometimes called "shards") which a limited number of people are allowed to be in. Generally during peak hours this is about 70ish players with a max of 100 I believe. This would be all fine and dandy but the level variation found within those zones makes it very difficult to find people working on the same stuff as you such as dungeons and quests. You can switch shards freely but there are no shared chat channels or anything so if you're attempting to hop around for help there's no real logical way of doing it. While I have no qualms with the system itself I feel that they should at least have a few shared chat channels for looking for group type requests.

Pros:
Highly customizable
Very active gameplay
A surprising number of people playing

Cons:
Perhaps performance issues
Nothing particularly new, just repacked ideas

All things considered it's a pretty fun game. I don't know that I would recommend it for everybody but my experience with it thus far has been mostly positive.

I was talked into playing Champions Online by a friend who is into hero games. I'm not really into those games, but MMOs are always more fun when you play with people you know. The game is fun at first, but quickly loses its luster as there is no real depth, nothing new, only a few areas to play in, and you are forced to replay the same areas over and over if you start a new character.

It's possible the game will get better, but they clearly shipped too soon. They've apparently lost a large number of customers too, because they've already sent out emails to those of that canceled asking us to try the "new content and new powerset this weekend for free." A game that is less than two months old and is already giving out free play time does not bode well.

Champions Online was completely changed on the day of launch. Some like the change some don't, but either way it is a completely different experience than it was during the head start period.

According to an interview of the creators, "We decided to swing hard in the other direction so it's like now there isn't enough content for levels, so we really made a big adjustment but we could tell we were close. From there we know we can go back in the other direction and ease off of those changes." Yet according to developer comments they now have the game right where they want it to be. This makes writing a review fairly hard.

In my view, the game before the change was fantastic. The game after the change is average. Theoretically they will move the pointer back to the fantastic side, but who knows?

My advice is to hold off a few months before purchasing and see what the game turns into. Since there is so much flux right now you might not be buying what you think you were buying.

Overall, the character creation is very nice although you are not told that certain combinations are impossible. For example you can't both have a chest piece and have a cap. They are mutually exclusive. There is no notice given so if you don't already know these types of things exist you end up in trouble. The fact that when you change one type of item, it erases your choices of other items without telling you is inexcusable. Now, if you already have a planned look and go from the front to the end, you can pretty much get that look with only a few compromises, but testing out variations often leads to frustration as components disappear and reappear in what, to you, appear to be randomly.

The choice of powers is nice, but after the change, you will probably end up with a set of powers that don't work well enough in the game to be effective. You sort of have to already know what works and what doesn't at this time. Again, parts of the company say it will change, parts don't.

The missions that I've done (maybe 20% - 30% of the content) are mostly interesting. There is lots of fun "tongue in cheek" comedy. Fairly interesting story lines that made me want to see what happens next. For example, who doesn't love Foxbat?

Traveling in game is done (after the first tutorial section) by picking your travel power. Flight is the easiest and most convenient but other have their place. The launch day changed reduced all travel speed to a light jog so don't expect to get across an area quickly.

The in game crafting is fairly interesting but is totally undocumented. Good luck figuring it out on your own. You will have to do research on the online forums to learn how it works. Which brings me to the documentation.

The box contains zero documentation. In fact, the in game manual (basically a hand full of legalese and credits) asks you to click on the paper itself to accept the license. The manual is theoretically provided online at their website. You should defiantly peruse it before you decide to get the game or not. The problem is, the thing they have up there won't really help you much in the game. The tutorial sections on the game cover more. And what isn't covered in game (for example crafting) is never covered at all. If you want information about anything beyond the basics, you have to find it in the game forums.

If you do decide want to play the game from scratch right now. I think you should just jump in with a character similar to your final design, but without really spending tons of time detailing the look and powers. Get through the two tutorial sections and see how the powers you've chosen work out for you. Then change them up for that character and continue until you get a feel for what powers you really prefer. Then, go back and make your 'real' character. Right now there is only a subset of powers you can use and still be able to advance playing the game without joining teams. Currently the only way to learn about this game is to actually play it.

This was the Superman of comic book games, unfortunately on day one, they turned the Sun red and gave every enemy a hunk of kryptonite. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to turn the Sun back to yellow or at least a nice orange.

It has by far the best character creation system for any MMO with being able to choose all sorts of ways to do things. Just about everything you can think of a Hero can do they seem to have made a way you can do it in game. It is very amusing to pick up an SUV and bring it over and start smashing NPCs with it like a club. Great wooden dialog you would expect from comic book heroes :)

I find it entertaining but the lack of a large online base everything is thrown into small sort of instance servers (typically about 20-30 people), so it's just not going to hold you as its going to tend to be a lot of soloing. So I would say buy it just to create characters but expect the entertainment to only last about 2 months.

After paying $[...] for this on Steam... I received 30 days of free game play. I was quite excited, as I'd just finished Fallout 3 and needed a good MMO fix. I couldn't decide between this and AION but this convinced me more as I had already played City of Heroes / Villains.

Anyway I dont want to re-write everything that everyone else has already written. The bottom line is that after playing the game for 28 days...and many, many headaches I decided not to renew my subscription.

The game concept is grand. Seriously, awesome idea. An MMO where you customize your heroes from top to bottom. The customization screens are great, plenty of features / options to choose from. However, it also includes the following (For only $14.99 per month):

*** You can read the forums for all of these issues before you buy. Highly recommended that you read them ***

- Glitched quests. There are quests where you must escort characters and they glitch out / freeze.
- There are instances that MUST be completed in order to continue the game... however the NPCs that you rely on freeze or glitch out, rendering your progress useless. 2 in particular come to mind, Lemuria Crisis and one of the Nemesis missions (Where your nemesis has been killed and lies on the floor but you get nothing, no credit, no items, not even a mission finished deal to acknowledge)
- Glitched items / loot - Dr. Destroyer, one of the game bosses, if defeated has to drop his head... which you then take to prove you've finished that hour-long quest and can progress... on occasion, not always, the head does not drop. So you and your party have just wasted an hour or so of your time and must redo.
- Major rubberbanding (lag)
- NO MMO. No seriously, Im not kidding. The whole game can be solo'ed. This should not make anyone happy as it doesnt promote multiplayer gaming. 90% of the quests dont require more than one player to complete... with the exception of 5-6 major bosses, there really is no need to party up.
- Unsharable quests. What does this mean? Well, its a very non-linear game in that you can have 20 pending missions or quests at one time... however if you DO happen to party up with someone who has done some of those quests, leading into other quests that you dont yet have, you dont get to complete those as well or vice versa. That person only gets XP for the mobs you kill but not for helping you complete yours. Sharing the quests might fix a lot of problems... who knows if they will change that.
- Horrible server uptime. The servers are up and running 75-80% of the time... the other 25% of the time, they are "fixing" something. (Such as right now, that I am taking the time out to write this review...)
- Many more issues I am just too lazy to write about. Like I said, dont take my word for it... register on their forums and go read the 400 or so threads with all the technical issues the game has.

Bottom line, is it worth $14.99 per month? Is it worth paying THEM to beta-test their product? No. Is the game fun? At times... and it could be more fun once all these problems are solved... If you must absolutely purchase this game... Wait a couple of months until these problems have been resolved.

Even I might consider returning to the game... in about 6 months time, assuming all these ridiculous problems are fixed.

Cheers and good luck!

I really wanted to like this MMO. After 5 years of WoW, I wanted something new and exciting and they delivered it with the open beta. Then after release the nerf bat swung hard and fast after release which derailed the fun. Also, the broken quest links, content gaps, unbalanced bosses and unresponsive keyboard made me realize that this game was becoming another source of stress. Maybe they will get it together but I had enough so I canceled it yesterday.

This was a bait and switch game and people should be aware of all the issues before they invest on it.

Ciao

The character generation system is fun to play with, since you can customize your character's powers and appearance quite a lot. Unfortunately, after spending nearly an hour working on a character, you bring it out into a world where you must immediately avert an apocalypse!
I chose to go with typical MMO controls, then tweaked them to what I'm used to. However, movement is clumsy and targeting opponents is difficult at best. I found my opponents were a mixed bag, some of which I could defeat easily, while others standing right next to them would wipe the floor with me. I also discovered that some of my characters were all attack and no defense, which meant that if I didn't defeat my opponents quickly, I was overwhelmed and died.
When I finally managed to get through the beginning scenario, I was given the choice of averting one of two apocalypses. Since I had designed several characters, I sent some to one and others to the the second. The quests were pretty much variations of the ones I'd done in the beginning scenario, but I could now fly, in one way or another. I mentioned earlier that movement was clumsy. Let's just say that flying amplifies that clumsiness to near-uselessness in tight quarters. And since your fighting ability is penalized while you're flying, you turn it off just before you begin combat, so no move-by's or move-through's.
CO's mission statement seems to be averting one apocalypse, then the next, then the next. Personally, I was hoping for a bit more of the "mean streets of the metropolis" approach. The overkill of these scenarios quickly became boring, to the point where I lost most of my interest in the game before a single one of my characters reached 10th level.
CO is also still undergoing massive revisions by the developers, constantly tweaking powers and opponents, so the villain you fought yesterday and killed easily will today easily kill you instead. I have heard that the vast majority of this game can be handled solo, which I don't necessarily find a major drawback, but if all but the toughest supervillains can be defeated without a group, then there's not much incentive to join up with anyone else. The artificial team-ups of some scenario "group" quests is laughable, because just by being in the instance, you're a participant whether or not you even want to do any of its goals.
The graphics are designed more to look like 4-color comics, but it's very easy to turn that feature off and get something that looks less garish. But it still looks overdone, so don't try to go for subtle looks when designing your character, because they disappear once you start playing.
I have not gotten to the PvP section yet, nor am I really looking forward to it. I despise PvP, so anytime I'm forced to do it in an MMO, I try to get it overwith as quickly as possible.
I'd recommend CO for the character creation, which is loads of fun, but not so much for gameplay, which is clunky, repetitive, and given to overwrought hyperbole. When creating the character is more fun than actually playing it, there's something seriously wrong with the game.

I've been playing since the last day of beta and all the way through the 'head start' so hopefully folks will have an idea of how much experience I have in the game.

Pros:

- The game is very fast-paced, and full of action. If you're tired of standing in one place waiting for every power you have to come off a cooldown so you can hit it again... then this game may be for you.

- The character creator is terrifically versatile. I can't possibly count how many various combinations of costuming are available but I assure you there is likely something for everyone. You will also unlock additional costume pieces as you go through the game, find 'power replacement' items, etc. As you advance in levels you will gain additional costume slots that you can also customize, allowing you to switch between these costumes on the fly in the field. Another interesting note - various part locations will allow you to set one piece for the right and another for the left (example - huge shoulder pad on the left and a smaller pad on the right) to create even more diversity.

- Customizable frameworks - While admittedly not every power combination is great the fact that you can pretty much pick and choose the powers you want as you level is something that really makes me feel in control of my character's progression. I'm not 'locked' into a preset track "Oh, I'm level xx, I get the ability that this class always gets at level xx".

- I love the comic book feel of the game. The comic book line style graphic option will possibly turn some people off (in which case they can turn IT off) but for me it makes me feel like I'm playing in a 3d comic book. Love it.

- Only one main server. This is too awesome. Now I don't have to play the server dance as more and more of my friends start playing - "Oh you made your toon on Buggerhead server? Crap man... my main is on Snotsville". You log on, find which instance of which zone your bud is in and switch to it. Good times.

- Nemesis - At level 25 you get to create your own Nemesis who will attack you randomly with waves of henchmen and villains. How cool is that??

Cons:

- Documentation - there are so many things that just aren't documented very well - crafting comes to mind as well as the powers themselves. While it's awesome that you can progress your powers more or less however you'd like for the most part you sorta have to guess what they'll do - or brave the forums... (EDIT: They've added an "In-Game" manual as well as a downloadable manual. This will hopefully help out)

- The community - Totally a mixed bag here. There are some guys(and gals) who are great - helpful and insightful, but to read the forums they seem to be the minority. The forums are full of angry and pretty childish posts bemoaning the state of a game that is barely a week old. Demanding a dozen changes done yesterday and making outrageous claims about how ridiculous the devs are. It's old. And sadly it seems to be a majority of the threads I've read. The community playing the game doesn't seem to be too much better. Between people waiting for you to pull the mobs off the item you need so they can snag it themselves to them deliberately destroying something you're working on (had this happen three times and even got messages to the effect of "That's what you get for (insert random imagined slight"). The only upside to this if you do find yourself with griefers you can change the instance you're in. In general it just seems worse than it is in many of the other games I've played.

- Early-game bugs/design issue - it's a new game and there are a decent amount of bugs right now. There are also a fair amount of design issues - the respeccing system (called retconning) is a bit ridiculous right now. Many of the bugs and a lot of the design issues have been acknowledged by the devs and they have said they are working on a solution - I have no reason to doubt that they won't come up with something.

Conclusion - it's a fantastically fun, albeit rocky play experience. I am overall disappointed more with some aspects of the community than anything else. The game has the potential to really grow into something amazing. It's already pretty fraggin good in my opinion.

Sadly, this game was a huge disappointment. I don't understand why they went with the corny "comic book" look to the game. It was something that worked for Freedom Force, but doesn't work, at all, for this. Champions was a PnP RPG, where you create a superhero, not a comic book character. It looks terrible, even after you adjust the graphics to make it look a little bit less like a comic book.

With the Champions PnP system you could create any character that you could think of. It was an extremely complex system where you were only limited by your imagination. In this online version, you are severely limited in this area. However, you do get a good selection of abilities to choose from, and I understand that certain things had to be sacrificed for game balance and ease of use. Power selection is a bit less restrictive than City of Heroes. There are also a ton of character creation options. Again, probably more than City of Heroes.

Unfortunately, the game play really goes down hill. It's just boring. First, the tutorial is all text based, with blocks of small colored text on a colored background. The text is too small, and there is too much of it jammed together. combined with the poor color choices of the text and background make it very hard to read. The real problem is probably due to them putting the text into a small box on the side of the window instead of using more of the screen, like in a chat bubble. The tutorial should have you learn more by doing rather than box after box of text.

Starting out, you just have a couple of basic powers, much like you do in City of Heroes, typically one fast and weak, the other slower, but more powerful. One interesting thing with Champions Online, is that the more powerful ability can be charged up, by holding the key down, to do more damage. In reality, it wasn't all that interesting since you pretty much need to use it charged up, so it is really just a gimmick that loses its appeal quickly. The combat animations were ok for some, and terrible for others. After coming from City of Heroes, and a dozen or so other MMORPG's, I was use to quality animations, and was a little shocked at how bad some of these were. A martial artist, for example, you would expect to have graceful, flowing animations. This was not the case. They were choppy and static. I guess they were going for the comic book feel, where you see the character in one pose in one frame, and another pose in the next frame, and so on. It was just like that. The character would just skip from one pose to another, skipping the flow that would be in between, like a series of stiil pictures strung together. Initially I thought it might be lag, but it was consistent in where it happened. It looked cheesy, and I don't get it. People want to play as superheroes, not comic book characters. The ranged moves didn't look nearly as bad, but were still lacking. City of Heroes is far superior with its animations and special effects.

The missions themselves were uninspired. I'm used to, and expect, the "go here, do that, and return..." type missions in MMO's, but for some reason they seemed even more boring in this game. I expected this to be an improvement over City of Heroes. Being based on the Champions PnP RPG, I expected it to have more of a superhero feel than CoH, not less. City of Heroes certainly has it's own flaws, but it does do certain things right. I think they tried too hard to make Champions different than CoH, when what they should have done was copy what worked well, and improve on/replace what didn't. I really wanted to like this, but too many things kept piling up, that I didn't like. At one point, while I was running around the city, I realized that I was just going through the motions, and I wasn't having fun. At that point I logged out and didn't go back.

It is really difficult at fall in love with this game if you are not a fanatic with the super heroes stories.Those who used to live for long in Paragon city in the city oh heros and villains know very well what I mean.It is true that the game reminds you every moment that you are a comic hero,it is also true that from the first day till now many important improvments have been made.What is not true is that the game will make you feel bored not only with the advanced pvp options but also with the option for solo gaming when you dont find the right people to team up with.Crafting options are really fascinating and there is an unlimited number of weapons and powers to make your super hero/heroine really unique.The character building set is very flexible and you will have lots of fun customizing your hero.Then you are ready to travel to desert or to Canada(?) and then to Millenium city as you go to higher levels.The jungles of Monster island and Lemuria are for even more advanced levels.In Lemuria you will experience the underwater world with your hero fighting the evil in an amazing background that you will never forget.What you will not find in this games are gnomes orcs etc but anyway we had lots of them the last years.
I loved it and I strongly recomend it!