This game seems underwhelming in just about every way. I don't know if I was expecting more than is reasonable, but I honestly wish I still had my $60.
The skill bar is too simplistic. It's more or less a button mashing session to kill things. In PvP, it's arguable that you want to plan skill use rather simply activating longer cooldown spells immediately as they come of cooldown, but honestly the net result of a win or loss in a fight comes down to sheer numbers. Any conflict larger than 1 v 1 ends up coming down to a indeciferable mess of every class spamming their multiple effects spells constantly into the fray, hoping to make enough of an impact to eventually wear down their opponents. There's no tact to any of it.
The questing hubs are a total flop. They take away from any sense of setting out on am actual quest and make it more like a condensed arcade type area where you continually kill stuff or click on glowing objects to get the progress bar to fill. The events are interesting in concept and scale, but the climax is still usually just one large "boss" that everyone focuses, spamming attacks and walking out of the fire until it falls. Otherwise it's very trivial "pick up the water and put it on the corn" type stuff that serves as a cheap substitute for interactive content.
There is a "main" storyline to pursue. It's in zoned areas though, and it's not really that interesting. The cutscenes are an interesting artistic choice, but the actual story is pretty much crap imo. It's not compelling and the way the world is essentially static other than in the zones areas completely takes away from any sense of what you're doing having any significance.
The exploration areas and jumping puzzles are a mere distraction. They are often frustrating and yield small rewards for the time you will spend falling and repeating the same jumps ad nauseum until you reach the end. If you find intrinsic value in this sort of thing, I guess you'll like it. There's no reason for someone who doesn't see this as immediately interesting to partake in this portion of the game.
The WvW areas are barren. It's a long walk to get to any real conflict on the map, and you're liable to dying in very unfair ways due to focus by mobs or other players once you reach the mass of people funneled to one point. It's not satisfying in any way to break into castles and structures - the gates take far too long, and it's essentially a zerg.
Overall, it's like the game just doesn't give that feeling of being a badass in any way. You're just a sliver more damage in PvE and PvP. The quest zones are just mass gatherings of people spamming at enemies and items. Swapping weapon, attunement, etc. doesn't greatly change your playstyle. Content all scales with you, so the actual difficulty is pretty much flat across the board (aside from requiring more people to add damage numbers when fighting harder enemies). No class roles takes away from any sense of specific purpose in fights. Everything is one homgenous experience trying to be repackaged in various ways.
It might ok if you play it casually. For myself, I wanted something with a bit more depth in terms of the way you interact with the game. There's a fair amount of depth in terms of rating, guilds, etc. but as far as the pure gameplay is concerned, it's quite dry.
I'd give it an 8/10 because while I pretty much just ranted, it's got a reasonable amount of polish and tries something a little different in the genre. Considering there's no subscription as well, you'll probably get an excellent return in entertainment hours compared to the cost.
The skill bar is too simplistic. It's more or less a button mashing session to kill things. In PvP, it's arguable that you want to plan skill use rather simply activating longer cooldown spells immediately as they come of cooldown, but honestly the net result of a win or loss in a fight comes down to sheer numbers. Any conflict larger than 1 v 1 ends up coming down to a indeciferable mess of every class spamming their multiple effects spells constantly into the fray, hoping to make enough of an impact to eventually wear down their opponents. There's no tact to any of it.
The questing hubs are a total flop. They take away from any sense of setting out on am actual quest and make it more like a condensed arcade type area where you continually kill stuff or click on glowing objects to get the progress bar to fill. The events are interesting in concept and scale, but the climax is still usually just one large "boss" that everyone focuses, spamming attacks and walking out of the fire until it falls. Otherwise it's very trivial "pick up the water and put it on the corn" type stuff that serves as a cheap substitute for interactive content.
There is a "main" storyline to pursue. It's in zoned areas though, and it's not really that interesting. The cutscenes are an interesting artistic choice, but the actual story is pretty much crap imo. It's not compelling and the way the world is essentially static other than in the zones areas completely takes away from any sense of what you're doing having any significance.
The exploration areas and jumping puzzles are a mere distraction. They are often frustrating and yield small rewards for the time you will spend falling and repeating the same jumps ad nauseum until you reach the end. If you find intrinsic value in this sort of thing, I guess you'll like it. There's no reason for someone who doesn't see this as immediately interesting to partake in this portion of the game.
The WvW areas are barren. It's a long walk to get to any real conflict on the map, and you're liable to dying in very unfair ways due to focus by mobs or other players once you reach the mass of people funneled to one point. It's not satisfying in any way to break into castles and structures - the gates take far too long, and it's essentially a zerg.
Overall, it's like the game just doesn't give that feeling of being a badass in any way. You're just a sliver more damage in PvE and PvP. The quest zones are just mass gatherings of people spamming at enemies and items. Swapping weapon, attunement, etc. doesn't greatly change your playstyle. Content all scales with you, so the actual difficulty is pretty much flat across the board (aside from requiring more people to add damage numbers when fighting harder enemies). No class roles takes away from any sense of specific purpose in fights. Everything is one homgenous experience trying to be repackaged in various ways.
It might ok if you play it casually. For myself, I wanted something with a bit more depth in terms of the way you interact with the game. There's a fair amount of depth in terms of rating, guilds, etc. but as far as the pure gameplay is concerned, it's quite dry.
I'd give it an 8/10 because while I pretty much just ranted, it's got a reasonable amount of polish and tries something a little different in the genre. Considering there's no subscription as well, you'll probably get an excellent return in entertainment hours compared to the cost.
