Perfect World International is the first MMORPG that Perfect World Entertainment brought over to the US. Perfect World is based off the same game in China that is a huge hit in that country. It went into open beta on Aug 19th, 2008 and has become one of the bigger free MMORPGs available. It has released a few expansions and the 3rd expansion, Genesis, will be coming out on March 2nd, 2011.
Perfect World takes place in the world of Pan Gu. There were three races that controlled their parts of the world and fought each other for territory. However, the emergence of the wraiths in Pan Gu forced the races to set aside their differences and work together to save the world. A fourth race was introduced in the 2nd expansion and a fifth will be introduced in Genesis.
Each race has two distinct classes. The humans have the Blademaster, a master of weapons, and the Wizard, a master of magic. The elves, who can fly at level 1, have the Archer, who attacks physically from long range, and the Cleric, the healer who can also throw out some damage. Untamed players will have the Barbarian, a brute force tank, and the Venomancer, a magic class that comes with a vicious pet. The tideborn have the Assassin, a dagger quick damage class, and the Psychic, a magic class that has strong and quick damage abilities. The newest race which will be introduced in Genesis is the Seeker, a melee character with a two handed sword, and the Mystic, who has magical damage and healing combinations to go with their own pets.
Gameplay in Perfect World is fairly similar to most MMORPGs. Players will grab quests with the usually kill so many mobs or collect items. There are also dungeons called FBs every 10 levels or so. As you reach higher levels there is more dungeons like HH where players can go to obtain drops for better gears. This helps because after a while quests will dry up and there will be a lot more grinding. The only real way to speed this up is to use hyperstones bought from the cash shop which will speed up your exp gain.
PvP is a large part of this game and the largest part of PvP in Perfect World is Territory Wars. Guilds will fight over the 20+ parts of the world map to be able to own that land. There are some benefits to owning land including free ports to that land. The wars are large 80 vs. 80 combat including towers that fire bolts at you and a base that you must protect from the other army. There are catapults that must be brought from your base to the opposing team’s base to be able to do any damage. Attackers must defeat the enemy base in the three hours or else the defending team holds onto the territory. As part of the new expansion, there will be a map wipe so that all the territories will be fair game to all the guilds again.
Character customization is another huge strength of Perfect World. The details of the character creation is one of the most in depth UIs you will find in any game, free or pay. You can make your character very unique and it would be hard to find anyone that looks exactly like you unless you choose one of the defaults. As you level up you’ll be able to choose where to allocate your stats from one of four categories. This will change how your character players greatly as you can be a glass cannon with no health or focus more on health and lose some of your damage. There is also plenty of fashion and dye to play with to make your character stand out in the crowd. Players also can choose from many different mounts and flying mounts to get around the world.
Perfect World does use a cash shop since it is free to play, and there are many items in the cash shop that will help you in the game. There are charms that will automatically give you full hp and mp when your hp/mp reach a certain percentage, items to increase your refining rate, materials for crafting, mounts, pets, fashion, and many other items. At the higher end the cash shop becomes even more important. For many people the charms are a big requirement especially for PvP and Territory Wars. There is an auction house where you can buy cash shop gold using in game coin, though the prices are pretty high for a new player.
Overall, Perfect World is a game worth trying out just for the many cool features like the character creation, the flying mounts, fashion, and the gameplay. While the high end can be pretty hard to obtain and might require a good deal of cash shop usage, there are still many elements for the more casual player to explore and have fun with.
(4.18 out of 5)
Gerald