Lineage 2 Review

Lineage 2 is a Korean MMORPG not really unique but offers a lot of imaginative features. It’s set in an entirely medieval setting. If you watch old King Arthur movies, you’ll know what I mean (yung mga naka sobrang bigat na armor na din a makalakad – akala mo rin kinalawang nalang – yokyokyok). It offers the standard medieval fantasy thrills; swords, magic, dragons! There are four races; Dark Elf, Elf, Human and Orc. There may be a fifth in the coming expansions, as rumored. Each race offers a different set of jobs and each job branches of to more powerful 2nd and eventually 3rd jobs (parang nakita ko na to dati ah).

Lineage 2 South East Asia went open beta on August 1, 2007 and has had a very rocky start as most MMOS would understandably have. Although they did make the opening go a little smoother for people (namigay ng weapons woot~). I’m surprised that they did not open Lineage 2 starting from the very first expansion. Instead they threw everysingle expansion ‘til “Interlude” at the players. Medyo nakakagulat nga eh, biglang sobrang daming features na simula palang.

For the graphics Lineage 2 is absolutely beautiful! Considering it is using the old Unreal 2004 engine. This is the same engine used in Rainbow Six 3, Unreal 2 and Splinter Cell. For internet cafes that have low-mid power level machines, the game still is playable and is still visually stunning despite the low settings (mag-upgrade na kasi!). When castle raids start though, I highly recommend either play on the lowest resolution with no effects and shadows (pinakamababa na). Playing with hundreds of people running on thousands of polygons could melt your old PCs.

We pinoys love to make our characters look good in MMORPGs. In Lineage2, “talagang porma mga tol!” Every single character in Lineage2 looks like the just stepped out of the modeling ramp and onto your monitors. Kahit yung mga Orc na dapat pangit parang mga body-builder. (Sa mga nangangarap na magkakatawan gaya ng kay Batista mag orc na kayo.) Lahat ng sobrang hilig pumorma, mag-L2 na!

The musical score falls flat in my opinion. It tries to be epic sounding but in such inappropriate times, yung hinahabol ka ng sandamak-mak na mumu at ayaw mong mamatay tapos ang music parang labanan ng langit at impyerno. The sound effects are mediocre. The weapon sounds are nice but hearing a monster make their “hurt” sounds over and over can get really annoying. (pagnaglaro kayo hanapin niyo ang mga lizardmen, ang ingay nila paghinahampas niyo).

Lineage 2 is relatively easy to learn to play. You get small tutorial quests after making your character and everything ramps up from there, including item questing and questing for adena (yan ang pera sa Lineage 2). Quests are fairly straightforward to a certain degree. Some are very innovative and some look the same as other MMOS. Pero, meron paring, “takbo ka dito, tapos balikan mo ako, tapos takbo ka na naman ditto, tapos balik ka sakin.”

One complaint is, amp! Ang laki ng MAP! You can warp to where you want to go but warping takes a LOT, as in pambutas wallet tipo, of adena. So you see most people running to where they want to go. In this game you will spend a huge amount of time traveling on foot. Which pisses me off since you need to traverse 6 mins worth of distance just to get to your leveling place at times.

Speaking of adena, let me say this frankly, it is the rarest item in game! Gaining adena is very hard! To make matters worse, you need adena for everything! You need adena for your equips, for warping, for pet food (yes may pet), for consumables (potion, antidote, etc). Ito ha isipin niyo, ang isang desenteng espada para sa mga low levelers is like 770k adena. A monster your level drops like 100 adena. So that means you need to kill 7,700 of these monsters and they don’t even drop adena everytime! Not only that, when you want a better sword when you level up to the next job, you’ll need 1.5m adena. So nangyayari, nag-next job ka na lang, di mo pa nabibili ang espada na mas akma para sayo dahil 500k adena palang nasa wallet mo!

Despite these difficulties, gameplay in Lineage 2 is commendable, especially Raids. There are two kinds, boss raids and castle raids (pvp!) Boss raids are fairly easy. You make a good team, try and kill that big mumu. Castle raids are a different thing when it comes out in the next patches. This will be army on army. Its not easy to get a castle, you’ll need siege equipment like rams to knock down castle doors, archer classes can fire from ramparts, so basically it’s WAR! If anything this will be the game’s best asset. A lot of international players play Lineage 2 just for this.

Knowing that Lineage 2 still has a bundle of expansions coming out in the next few months (years pa nga ata eh), the game will go on for a long long time! Parang puno na nga ng features, dadakdakan pa! Longevity wise, this is a game that is worth playing. Content are still coming in and they won’t stop for quite a while.

All in all, Lineage 2 is a great game compared to the “less-than-decent” games that we have in the Philippines now. Although this game is something no casual gamer should try. It needs total commitment to truly enjoy. Adventurers aren’t really that well supported as well. This game is centered on PVP and power gaining. So, kayo mga hardcore PVPers and siegers/raiders, magugustuhan niyo ito! Lalo na siguro pag nakasakay na kayo ng dragon. (Oh yes, puede sumakay bebeh!)

Developer: NCsoft
Publisher: Asian Media Development Group
Genre: Fantasy MMORPG
Minimum System Requirements: Windows ME/2000/XP/Vista, Intel PIII 800MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, NVidia Geforce 2 / ATI Radeon 8500 Video Card, internet connection, 8GB HDD space