PC Review: Atlantica Online

We’ve been covering Atlantica Online here at GameSHOUT since the first closed beta and now that it’s finished its journey to final release it’s time for our review of the game. Be sure to check out our preview, where I’ve already covered most of the mechanics of the game, and part one and two of our interview with the Atlantica Developers too!

Atlantica Online is a free to play turn-based-strategy online game. It’s online-only, which means you need to sign up and log in to play, but it’s completely free to make an account, to download, and to play, so there’s no need for a trial or demo. The game makes its money from an item mall, where you can buy bonus things to help you on your way.

The item mall has a lot of items that are useful but not necessary, such as scrolls you can use in combat to revive fallen soldiers or decimate groups of opponents. There’s also a treasure box with random goodies inside. But the real draw of the item mall is the licenses. You see, many features in the game, such as seeing the enemy health bars, being able to use the auto-battle mode, or teleporting to previously visited locations are governed by licenses.

The teleport license in particular is hard to live without, though the game is still perfectly playable for the patient. So there’s a pretty good draw to the item mall for that, at least. There are plenty of choices: you can buy just the teleport license in 30, 60, or 90 day versions, or you can buy it as part of a license package. The premium license package that includes all five licenses will cost you about $15, about on par with the monthly fees for most subscription-based MMOs.

The item mall also fixed one of the major problems in online games: buying money online. You see, the individual teleport license can be traded in-game. So if you want to convert real money into in-game cash, just buy some extra licenses and sell them in-game. Conversely, this means that you can get all the benefits of the item mall without spending real money on it, provided you can farm up enough in-game cash for the licenses you want.

The biggest down-side to the item mall is that you don’t directly buy stuff with money. Instead, you buy ‘Gcoins’ and buy the various item mall items with those coins. Of course, coins can only be bought in bundles of 1000 per $10. So if you want to buy the 30-day license package for 1499 Gcoins, you have to spend $20 for 2000 Gcoins. Make of that what you will.

In our interviews with the Atlantica Developers, we talked about a lot of the features of the game and got their opinions on them. One issue that remains strongly in my mind, however, is the division between the game’s three core elements: single player, cooperative multiplayer, and competitive multiplayer. Ultimately, these three don’t interact well in Atlantica Online.

The game has a single-player campaign that is essentially a single giant string of quests. Its fun, the quest line gives a coherent storyline to the entire game, and it keeps the players focused on their next goal without ever wondering where to go next. But it ends up feeling VERY single-player. You can, of course, team up with another player, but only for certain parts; many boss fights are in instanced zones that only you alone can enter.

The cooperative gameplay crops up in certain side quests involving ‘shadow’ dungeons where you face larger groups of tougher monsters. Usually, these side quests are for gaining access to new mercenaries, so there are frequently players looking for groups for these quests. But there are no end-game grouping activities, akin to raiding in other MMOs, to keep the co-op fun. The main co-op happens in the guild and town systems. Players form guilds together, and guilds can take over towns, and players work together to improve their guild and town.

The competitive multiplayer aspect can tie into the guild and town system, as guilds can bind together into nations and nations can declare war against each other. But the real PvP is in the Free League and Weekly Championships, where players duke it out one on one in a series of battles. The biggest issue with the Free League is that players of different levels end up being matched against one another, so you often see level 80s steamroll level 30 players. This is probably primarily an aspect of the lack of players participating in the Free Leagues so far, but strict tiers that would prevent players fighting outside of their level bracket would be a welcome addition, especially because you add a merc to your army every 10 levels. Even a fight between a 39 and a 40 is brutal, because the 40 has an extra merc and a whole new tier of gear to equip.

Atlantica Online is fun, flexible, and the item mall system means you can spend as much or as little of your real money to advance. Thankfully, nothing in the item mall drastically unbalances the game or is necessary for enjoying the game, though the teleport license is hard to live without if you like zipping around like I do. There are plenty of mercs to chose from, so you can spend a lot of time customizing your army, and the strategic fighting in the game remains fun after so many months. The market is vibrant and there are great opportunities for crafting in the game as well, an aspect a lot of players enjoy.

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Sadly, after grinding up from level 1 to level 65, I find myself getting bored with the game. Your main hero never evolves or gains new skills or abilities. You start the game as one of the basic merc types and you can never become something special or different. Along the way you can recruit more interesting mercs, but your main hero is still the same as ever. The quests are also pretty invariable, limited primarily to killing or looting a lot of something, with lots of fed-ex filler. Combat itself is still fun, but there’s nothing new to work towards, no motivation to keep on grinding through the levels.

So what does it boil down to? Is it fun: yes. Worth the free download? Most definitely. Will you play it for a few months? Probably. Item mall worth it? Yup. Will you still be playing it a year or two from now? I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to start it up and find out for yourself!

Score: 8.7 (out of 10)

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