Choose My Adventure: A class switch reignites the combat chops of Blade & Soul NEO

It was touch and go there for a little while, but man am I glad that the voting for Blade & Soul NEO went the way it did because my enjoyment of the game has ramped up quite a bit.

The voting ended with the suggestion for me to re-roll in the game with a more technical class and without any of the free purple goodies. I recall that the Assassin was a pretty demanding and involved class, so that was what I decided to go with, and for once my memories didn’t lie to me; this class is just as fun and involved as I remembered.

A lot of the Assassin’s kit, as one might expect out of the class name, is about taking out single targets as quickly as possible. That primarily means that I have to react to attacks a bit more and capitalize on the openings that I make for myself. So it’s more of the Blade Master counter stance stuff, only with tighter windows and more payoff over just mere defense. In fact, counterattacking is the Assassin’s bread and butter.

I’m not going to come off as an expert in this class, but it’s become very clear to me over the course of this journey that I have to unleash hell the second I’ve got an opening to enter my counter state. This, in turn, has required me to pay a little more attention to the animations of the enemies I’m fighting, which also means that I’ve got to actually sit up and invest myself in combat.

And I’m not talking just a couple of little tricks here and there. Sure, there are a pair of regular combos that I use in regular rotation, but then I can choose to unleash a spinning slash, or trip up my target to smash down on them with a massive aerial stomp. Or I can backdash and then close back into melee distance for a pair of big swipes, followed up by an immediate darting attack. The point is the Assassin gives me a lot of tools, and having a lot of tools is what keeps me coming back to the fights with a smile.

And that is a very good thing considering the story still drags on.

I’m actually nearing a point in the main story that I recall bouncing off of when I first was playing B&S more casually. I mostly recall this because I got to the scene where my character first uses the Dragon Pulses to windwalk, which featured some of the cooler cinematography from the game’s engine and easily one of this MMO’s finest pieces of music. So as you can tell, smashing the “F” key to get through the cutscenes and get into the combat has been the modus operandi, and it’s been very successful in reinvigorating my time in-game.

So then that kind of begs the question once more of what NEO is really bringing to the table for those who have been here before. More and more this game is feeling like the best option for those who have never played B&S at all instead of some way to relive the game.

Most of that comes from the fact that gearing up and improving skills continues to feel streamlined, which is most definitely a good thing considering what I recall about the gearing system in this MMORPG. I don’t think I’ve really dug in to all of the hard granular details here, but the UI surrounding gear, soul shards, and accessories just feels… better. Or at least an improvement over the original.

I’ll also point out that a lot of my time in game has indeed been solo as I run through the figurative and sometimes literal tunnels of the game’s leveling path. The only time that I really interacted with others was when one of the side quests commanded me to kill a zone boss. And I’m using the term “interaction” very lightly here; it was less like a coordinated effort and more like a curb stomping of some poor frog creature.

Still, I am having a pretty good time thanks to the Assassin. And I’m glad that I’m starting to enter new-to-me territory in the game’s move through the levels. But then that does prsent a problem for this column in that I’m not really sure what poll choices to offer. This was an expected outcome, of course – it’s the issue that I often run in to when themepark MMOs are the month’s game – but this one feels particularly gnarly. Especially since there are two more weeks left in this month to push through.

So then this does lead me into the only real poll choice that I have at the point of the story that I’m at. I have gotten the item I need to enter this game’s faction-based PvP, which basically works like a flag system only it’s with a gorgeous ao dai instead of a UI toggle. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am not really into PvP whatsoever, but I also do admit that there is a small bit of curiosity in knowing just how absolutely cracked this game can be when another player is the aggressor. Especially considering all of the buttons I’ve got at my disposal.

Now I will point out before I post the poll that I reserve the right to remove this flag at any time, particularly if it starts to impede on my sense of progression or fun. I also reserve the right to just ignore the poll choice completely should I feel like I’m being run over or interrupted from the mission of progressing as far as possible. But I also leave this choice to you in the end. Purely out of morbid and likely dumb curiosity as well as an admission that this game is really on-rails, like holy crap you guys.

 Loading ...

Polls will once more close at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, March 14th. For now, I’m going to consider what the hell to do about this game for two weeks more. I really misjudged how much of a straight line this game can be.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.