Seven Souls Online (PC) - Preview

We had an opportunity to sit down with the developers of the upcoming free-to-play MMO, Seven Souls Online, and check out some of the features that they're working on refining for its North American release. While it has recently run a closed beta, it will be entering an open beta very soon, so if you're interested in a stylish action RPG MMO, you might want to check it out at http://www.sevensoulsonline.com/ to apply for your free account. They have made it clear that they're trying to avoid the pitfalls that most free to play MMO's suffer, most notably by taking an active stance against cheaters and bots.

Making a character was surprisingly simple yet deep for a free-to-play game, giving you plenty of options for class, style, and appearance. There are three classes to chose from. Each of these three classes also has three of their own unique weapons and play styles to choose from for 9 distinct ways to play. Once you're done picking the basics, you can then customize your characters' appearance right down to such stats as “lip protrusion”. There aren't many games that offer that kind of customization outside of the WWE wrestling games or more expensive MMOs. While the customization options are pretty robust to begin with, they promise additional updates in the future to further customize your character.

 

Once you've made your character, you get to begin to explore the world of the Seven Souls. While what we saw was only a small area of the game - one of the dozen or so regions - there will be two regions for the open beta and as far as we could tell, the world is proving to be pretty expansive for a free-to-play MMO with some pretty asian-inspired architecture. As they've promised, the story is very much an East-meets-West affair, and they say that some of the regions introduced in the full edition of the game will be Western inspired, though we were primarily shown the Eastern inspired worlds. They were sure to make it clear that this was very important in the localization of the game for Western audiences.

Combat is proving to be a pretty strategic and rewarding affair. By using a variety of attacks and swapping weapons on the fly your combo multiplier steadily improves and gives you access to stronger and more elaborate attacks; they actually had an instance of one beta-player getting a combo ranking of over 800, so clearly the skilled players will be well rewarded. In addition to the combo system, there's also what is called Rage Mode, wherein your avatar gains a demonic appearance, giving you an additional 2x damage multiplier which lasts until your rage meter drains. Players also have special instant kill attacks.

 

Once you get to level 10, you are given the option of using the cube system: an item combination feature that allows you to mix weapons and armor with enhancement jewels to level up your armor and skills in addition to leveling up your character. Doing this comes with an inherent risk of losing the items in play, but if the merge succeeds the rewards are great. This, alongside the in-game slots machine, are great examples of high-risk, high-payout gambles that can either keep the player on his toes or scare him into playing it safe. There's also somewhat of an in-game card mini-game wherein you collect cards from slain enemies to apply to your own character, adding additional buffs and enchantments. These cards can be traded in game or merged in a style similar to the cube system.

While most of the game seems to be typical MMO fare, they seem to be putting more emphasis on group battles and sieges of enemy factions. PvP may be a free-for-all affair but the co-op missions are very similar to raids. We were shown a massive battle where a group of players (in this case, just the one developer) were against an entire regiment of enemy troops they had to fight off, then eventually make their way to the imposing general that commanded the army. The entire mission had a cinematic flair to it, or at least that's what they wanted us to think.

 

As mentioned before, Seven Souls Online is taking a pretty serious approach to keeping the game fair for authentic players. While the security features were mostly simple, one measure was pretty interesting. Any player bot or human that kills the same enemy or spends too much time in one area will have their experience take cut bit by bit until it's not worth the time it takes to get it. Not only are they implementing security features to limit the number and influence of cheaters, but they're also working heavily with their early players to fix the bugs and make their game the best it can be. They were so serious about ensuring the game worked that they offered a contest to users who brought forth the most important bug reports by rewarding them with free iPad 2's.

Seven Souls Online is currently in closed beta; an open beta will be launching in the near future.