Cabal Online: Observations

Smirch

I tend to avoid Korean games. If the characters look even the slightest bit anime I run for the hills. I normally lean towards MMOs developed in the US or at least with US sensibilities...aka no small cute monkey-squirrel creatures, no cash shops, and absolutely NO grindfests.

That being said I've actually found a Korean game that I like. While Cabal Online definitely has several aspects that I normally avoid they all get washed away once combat comes into play.

 

GOOD:

Games are made or lost on the combat mechanics in my opinion. CO has one of the best setups I've ever seen. It's fast, interesting, beautiful at times, and most of all, when you are fighting you feel a connection with the rhythm of your character. There are no jerky animations. One move leads into the next and the one after to create a huge heaping helping of whup-ass.

Even playing the normally squishy and bird boned Wizard class you feel like a cage fighter. Sure you can attack at range but if that mob comes into melee distance you are putting all sorts of pain on it through frozen backhands and fiery uppercuts.

 

BAD:

The downside is that all the Korean elements are still there. Cash shops (booooo), player merchants that clog the town landscape, static key bindings, and for some puzzling reason Koreans don't seem to mind if their characters don't jump and cannot strafe whatsoever (WTH?!?)

 Character movement is cumbersome at times. The point and click to move mechanic has never been a good one and even though you can WASD to move, the game will still want to override it with point and click at times. Having no jump is not only lazy but just plain goofy.

Finally, the cash shop in this game. Ugh. Well the upside is that there are no game-breaking swords, spells, or armor sets in there. It mostly consists of quality of life items like free rez items, exp boosts and the like, but just having a shop where things can be bought for real world currency makes the game itself feel less fantastic than it should be.

 

SUMMARY:

While it will surely devolve into a grindfest, I can't help but have fun feeling like a superhero from the excellent action based combat system of this game.

It's not a game I can see myself putting WoW-hours into but it's definitely a good break from the normal MMO.