(12 votes, average: 3.83 out of 5)
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Ether Saga Online

Description: Ether Saga Online is a Free MMORPG that features cartoon style graphics along with a great tutorial and some of the best player help tools ever found in an MMO.

Ether Saga Online Review by Dan Edgely

Game play: 8/10
Graphics 8/10
Community 7/10
Audio 4/10
Overall: 67.5%

Ether Saga was developed by Perfect World Entertainment, sound familiar? They are the same people that bring you Perfect World go figure. While these are two entirely different games it is easy to say they share some of the good, bad, and ugly.

Gameplay
Ether Saga, I feel is geared towards people just coming into gaming. It looks simple and feels simple. It does get quiet challenging as you go on, quests are huge in the game and even more so as you level up. This gets annoying and really drives someone away from the massive multiplayer experience. There is some required interaction as you go on, and is simple and effective.

There is also an extensive, mount and pet system within the game. You will find no shortage of things to gallop, hover, drive,  ride you’re away along the way. Your pets also can be very beneficial to you abilities, and progression. The nice thing with the system is anyone can use a pet; there is no class-dependant on the pet system.

Combat is very similar to Perfect World, magic and hotkeys are used almost exclusively, and the combat, is solid, however gets quiet repetitive after awhile, most older players would find themselves bored with it, but it will get most newbies into the area, swinging away with the best of them.

Graphics
The first you thing you will notice with Ether Saga Online is the cartoon look of it. Not only does it look cartoony, if you look hard enough you will see that you are basically looking at a more colorful version of Perfect World. I must admit, I usually do not like cartoony looks, however this game pulled it off quiet well, the characters still have a sense of ‘adventure’ and roughness to them, but it keeps the mood up beat with the graphic style. The view and quality of the look of the game are superb. Anyone will not be disappointed with the graphics, especially if its their first massive multiplayer.

Community
The community in Ether Saga is not very common, some of the servers seemed pretty empty compared to others, I happened to try a west coast server first and it felt completely dead, even playing at peak hours. When I did communicate I found I was among the more mature people, the community is pretty young, although this isn’t bad, its ugly head shines more often than it should. Luckily you don’t need the community, Ether Saga Online is not driven by the community, and that’s a good thing, because it is rather weak compared to most other MMORPGs.

Audio
As much I tried, some of the sounds of this game really bothered me to the point of laughing. I’m not entirely sure as to why anyone would be ok with the sounds of the game to publish it. They may not bother everyone, but they really started to get to me, especially some of effects for spells and special effects. Some of the effects sounded like someone blowing their noise, or sneezing, and started to be rather distracting after a while.  The background music is standard, and is nothing terrible.

Overview
This is a great game for someone looking to break loose into the MMORPG arena, but anyone with experience would probably lose interest in a while. Adding some of the benefits of the developing company’s hit “Perfect World” does create a well deserving place with plenty to offer, but the repetitive nature of the quests are a huge turn-off especially to the experienced player.