Throne and Liberty represents a new big-label MMORPG launch, which is something that feels like a rare occurrence, particularly as most players are likely very set in their favorites. So naturally, when Amazon Games offered us the opportunity to try out the title in a press PTR ahead of today’s paid early access release, I signed right up. I’ve played one of the open tests previously and found some interesting enough things to want to dig in further, and honestly I’ve been hoping to see whether this game can make the splash that our genre really needs.
After about 21 levels’ worth of playtime, I’ve come to some initial thoughts about how things work in at least the early game, and I’m left a bit conflicted and somewhere in the middle: Throne and Liberty has a couple of interesting hooks, but it also falls into some unimpressive routines, especially if you’ve played other Korean MMOs.
First off, I should point out that this press build of the game felt a bit sloppy for the first few days. Texture resolutions would take some time to load in. Most of the spoken dialogue (and some of the UI elements) would bounce between English and Korean despite my choice asking for the former. There were multiple times when the anti-cheat would kick me offline for no explained reason or because I apparently had the temerity to watch the opening cutscene after leaving the tutorial.
To Amazon’s credit, a patch rolled out earlier this week after two days’ worth of maintenance that seemed to fix several of these problems but not the texture resolution issue, and apparently it also broke the Amitoi Expedition feature. So this all really felt like a test than any sort of final product, which it was, technically, but that product is now in customer hands as of today.
With that out of the way, I want to focus on the gameplay itself, which managed to feel pretty familiar in some aspects to other titles I’ve played like Lost Ark or Tarisland. I appreciate that those two comparisons probably don’t instill a great deal of confidence, but both games (more the former than the latter arguably) have some good points, and there are some comfortable gameplay aspects I’ve experienced in other K-MMOs.
For one thing, the game’s world is extremely gorgeous, with an interesting series of landscapes and fantastical visual elements. Your first step outside sees your character greeted by a giant flying whale, for example. T&L manages to create a sense of wonder and awe that brought to mind some of my first visits through Blade & Soul as opposed to the banality of locations in Elyon.
The other main gameplay element would definitely be combat, and it’s here where things feel… odd. There are two control modes – tab-target and mouselook – and I elected to go with tab-targeting since the active combat model felt a bit slippery. By default, engaging with an enemy involved either starting off with a hotbar ability or pressing the “E” key on a target to engage auto-attack, which definitely took some getting used to. Of course, you can remap those keys if you wanted to, but I didn’t really have any good mental replacement.
The rest of the combat motions for my chosen weapons (longbow and sword and shield) mostly involved hitting an ability or two when it came off cooldown and pressing the “Q” key at the right moment to defend against a larger attack, which is indicated by a blue circle that shrinks when the hit is coming. Nailing the timing seemed to have some better defensive benefit, but the timing windows for most attacks were generally forgiving. Except when I was facing those freaking Terror Bird enemies; those things have a charge attack that kicks off super fast and knocked my character on her back and saw her lie there for a few seconds when I failed to defend.
With my character basically staying in one spot during most normal fights, battles then played out like this odd mixture of passive mobile gaming auto-combat and occasional button presses, though I still had to pay attention in order to defend against those aforementioned wind-up attacks. NCsoft also made a lot of hay about the fact that characters can swap between two weapons, and that certainly is the case, but 95% of the time I had no reason to. I just placed a couple of my longbow skills on my hotbar but otherwise kept my sword out. It reminded me a lot of Guild Wars 1 hybrid builds, actually; you’ll have to decide for yourself whether that’s a good or a bad thing.
About the only time combat felt far more involved was when I entered the single-player boss challenge fights in Taedal’s Tower, which works like other multi-floor boss climbs that you’ve probably done in other games. The first few bosses I was able to take on had interesting-enough mechanics that I had to pay attention, move, and ultimately do more than just plant my feet and push skills off-cooldown. These fights gave me hope that later encounters will be similarly engaging.
Beyond combat, one of the largest portions of T&L I engaged with was the variety of progression systems. And I do mean variety: You can improve your skills by using skill books to make them stronger, which in turn makes them level up into “rare” forms. You can apply earned points to modify your abilities. You assign stat boosts. You can craft and then upgrade equipment through growth materials. You can send your pets out to gather items in Amitoi Expeditions.
It’s honestly a lot to keep track of, and inevitably I would forget something could be done; I would remember to improve my stats on every level up or recall to the Amitoi House to send my pets out for more goodies, but then I would forget that I’d been sitting on enhancement points to further change my abilities, or I had piles of books to level up my skills, or hey it’s been a while since I improved my gear maybe I should do that. I never felt truly penalized for forgetting it all, but I also very often had to stop literally everything I was doing to advance my character across these multiple vectors simply because I was busy playing.
Finally, I have to point out that I didn’t really get a chance to experience anything with other gamers. This being a press PTR, there were bare few others in the game world for me to interact with, so that meant the single public event I was a part of saw me top the leaderboard by mere dint of being alone, and the first co-op dungeon I had access to at level 20 couldn’t be engaged via matchmaking. I’d like to think these activities will be far more fun with fellow MMO players at launch.
The rest of the gameplay falls into shoulder-shrug territory. The story is OK, moving from crisis to crisis in another misguided attempt at creating excitement, all while it references an evil group of enemies. The quest steps all seem to resolve pretty easily. Travel forms are convenient but not all that thrilling, and in the case of the glide form, it’s kind of a small letdown, though I have to admit that flying freely any old time might be a bad thing.
Even with all of my impressions, I still found myself playing pretty frequently just to discover what’s next. As overwhelming as the advancement mechanics could feel, I still liked seeing where things went and feeling my character’s power slope upward. Combat probably feels more interesting if I choose a different pair of weapons (I’m considering going more magic-based upon launch). And of course, I can’t speak to what awaits at the top of it all at endgame, yet I’m interested enough to push forward and find out; it’s possible the well of upgrade materials will utterly dry out, but I also suspect prudent use of what I do get is a major factor.
I’m honestly torn here. I’m not disappointed as I was by Tarisland, but I also don’t feel quite so excited as I have been by trying other titles like TERA. Overall Throne and Liberty comes together as a melange of ideas that don’t fit together perfectly – my constant references to other MMOs is pretty much a testament to as much – yet I can’t deny that it also has some interesting things happening regardless. I suppose I really just have to really dig in and find out from start to finish once it fully releases.
