Swordsman
by Aethyna
Nov 18, 2014 |
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RPG , MMOPublishers:
Perfect World EntertainmentGraphics:
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Martial Arts , Fantasy Setting , Mounts , Dungeon/ Instance , Player vs Player (PvP) Swordsman is a stunning martial arts MMORPG that transports you to an ancient world dominated by the martial schools. You have been tasked with defending a mighty weapon, and the choices you make and the battles you face may doom or save the world. Play Now Similar Games Played
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Summary
From the casual martial arts game to the highly popular but yet outdated 2D-scrolling Street Fighter games, martial arts-based games can be considered as a stagnating genre. However, Perfect World Entertainment took a risk and developed Swordsman, the first ever martial arts MMORPG that is inspired by a renowned novel, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, by Louis Cha as well as the movie that had spawned from the novel, The Legend of the Swordsman, starring Jet Li. In this game, players can learn one form of martial arts from 10 of the greatest schools in that fantastical era.
With your new found powers, you are tasked to uphold your school’s honour by going out into the world and do good deeds while fighting against the devious Eminence school Grandmaster, who planned to bring down all other martial arts schools, along with his horde of disciples. Through strenuous training and a will of steel, you may just rise above to be the ultimate swordsman and finally bring lasting peace to Jianghu.
Plotline
Due to being based on a wuxia novel written by Louis Cha, you can expect a Games-of-Throne-worthy plot with plenty of backstabbing, politics, sacrifice and fighting.
The story starts off with an attack from Zoh Tin, son of the Grandmaster of the Eminence school, and his team of disciples on Lone Sword village. Blinded with hunger for more power, they were willing to massacre the entire village, adults and children alike, just so they could lay their hands on the fabled ‘Iron Sword’ which of owned by the Lone Swordsman. The village elder entrusted the sword to you and bid you to flee while you can, to protect the sword and not let it fall into the wrong hands. Thankfully, a friend, a senior disciple of the Splendor school, Lynhu Tsong, appeared at the right moment when Zoh Tin caught up to you and saved you from a very possible death. From there, fuelled with a thirst for revenge, you enrolled into one of the 10 martial arts school available to strengthen your skills.
However, soon, revenge will no longer be the only thing on your mind as you realised the evil plot that the Eminence school has concocted they planned to bring the 5 great schools of martial arts to their knees by trickery or by force. The Eminence school will then usurp all 5 schools into itself and reign as the most powerful martial arts school there is in Jianghu. It is up to you to put a stop to that!
Gameplay
After logging in, you will need to first create and name your character. There are plenty of customisations available to make the character your own. Then, the game will introduce you to a brief summary of the story. The story is narrated in the Chinese language, adding to the realistic feel of the game, but there are subtitles for English-speaking players. Don’t worry though - the rest of the game, including quest text and game guide, is presented in English.
Then, after meeting with one of the antagonist, Zoh Tin, who has a very annoying voice that will cause you to dislike him even more, and witnessing the destruction of your hometown, you are saved and brought to the big city. It is here you will need to make a life-changing decision. You will need to choose a martial arts school to join. Swordsman provides plenty variety in terms of gameplay by providing 10 schools, each having their own rich history for you to choose from. The schools are separated into 5 great schools which are the earliest martial arts schools founded, namely Shaolin, Infinity, Splendor, Harmony and Eminence (you are unable to join Eminence though) and other minor schools like Zephr, Wu-Tang, House Tong, E’mei, 5 Venom as well as Sun and Moon.
Each school has their respective elemental power, for example, Zephr disciples are able to command ice while Sun and Moon disciples are wielders of the power of fire. These schools will also have a weapon of preference, for instance, House Tong specializes in the use of guns and Wu-Tang followers use two-handed swords. There are even certain schools that are gender specific The School of Shaolin only accepts men while the 5 Venom cult only accepts ladies. Once you choose a school or cult, you will need to stick with it until the end of time. Nonetheless, the game allows each player to create up to 3 characters per account, so you could enjoy the game from different gameplay perspectives.
Being a martial arts-based game, Swordsman has plenty of acrobatics that may be familiar to people who enjoy Chinese martial arts movies. Some of acrobatics include water trek (sprinting on water), air hike (running on air) and eagle glide (super-jumping then gliding down to the ground). All these cool acrobatics are extremely well animated and does help a lot during combat when used properly. You can also use these acrobatics to reach places that are harder to access, like rooftops or mountain cliffs.
Speaking about combat, the combat system in Swordsman is very intricate. There are 3 to 4 basic skills that you can use and some of those skills can act as buffs. The number of skills per style is pretty much fixed but after joining a school, you will have access to 3 more school-specific styles that will unlock themselves as you level up. Some of the styles are more suited for buffing, some are better for attacking groups of monsters (by having a whole bunch of area of effect skills) and some may be more useful if you’re the healer in a raid group. However, the best part is you can easily swap from one style to the other even if you’re in the middle of a battle. This feature, combined with well-timed dodges, makes the gameplay very fluid and definitely makes the PvP aspect of the game tougher. There is also a combat focus bar whereby every successful hit will increase it by a little. Once you get it filled up, you can unlock the devastating special skill of your school.
After hitting level 25, you will get an adorable youngster to follow you around and help you out in your journey. These companions will pick up items dropped from monsters, fix your damaged gear, allow you access to your stash, teleport you to your friend and may even get your mail for you, depending on which youngster you have. They will also help you attack the monster that you are fighting and can level up from the monsters that you’ve slayed. If you don’t like having a kid trailing you around, you can tame new companions at Beastly Hollow when you reach level 35. There is a companion stash whereby you can retire companions that you no longer need. Each player can have (including stashed companions) around 6 companions.
The quests in Swordsman are pretty easy to do because the game provides a quest tracker that includes auto-routing links. By just clicking on the link, your character will automatically mount up and head to the quest location. You can even click on a location of interest on the map and your character will move towards that location instantly. Admittedly, it’s a pretty cool feature.
You can then use the travelling duration to feast your eyes on the amazing sceneries, reorganizing your inventory or read the game guide provided. There are also some very unique quest types such as CSI-based quests whereby you will have to investigate and find all the clues in a location in order to solve the case. Although the story-specific quests end at around level 40, the world of Jianghu opens up at this time and will allow players more freedom to pursue other quests or to raid more instances.
Swordsman also has random events, such as bounty hunting, tournaments or even mini-instances that are only open for a limited duration. Sometimes, random loot chests will be spawned around Jianghu and players will flock to participate in this treasure hunt to get the special gear or items available in the chests. In terms of PvP, there are arena (1vs1 or 3vs3) and tournaments for you to bath in the blood of your enemies and uphold the pride of your school! In addition, once you hit level 30, world PvP will be unlocked in certain zones around Jianghu and you can attack another player or get attacked by another player while questing. However, most people will usually not attack you if unprovoked.
If you don’t fancy questing, raiding instances or PvPing, you can also level up your professions. These professions are the common archetypes – jeweler, smithing, herbalism, cooking and tailoring, though in Swordsman, you are allowed to learn all of them. You won’t need to depend on other people for crafting the items that you need!
However, gathering materials for crafting the items is a totally different matter and you may want to buy some materials from other players. The game has yet to implement an auction house system (although the auction house NPCs are already in place), but you can easily find sellers or buyers on the trade channel or at their vendors in major cities. Players in Swordsman are allowed to open their own vendors at major cities. Every sale that these players earn will be subjected to a tax rate and different cities will have different tax rates.
The game also offers two types of in-game currencies, notes and coins, and 1 more type of currency, Sycee, which will require real money to buy. Notes are in-game money that are bound to your character and are non-tradable. You can only use these with the game-generated vendors and trainers. Coins, on the other hand, are just the same as notes in every aspect, but coins can be traded between players. Thus, you will need coins for any dealings you have with other players.
At level 20, guilds will be unlocked. The guilds in this game can be separated into 2 types – bandit or mercenary. Guilds are associated with bandits will be able to do bandits-related quests and vice versa. Furthermore, there are turf wars in between guilds whereby zones in Jianghu can be claimed by guilds and subject the zones under their influence. Guilds can also be banded together by an alliance. Each alliance will consist of a leading guild and other minor guilds.
If you think that’s all Swordsman has to offer, well, think again! There are plenty of other features, such as wall graffiti, whereby you can place your mark on the pristine walls of a major city. The only way to truly know it all is by playing the game yourself!
Community
The 6 servers available for this game are highly populated with both high and low level players. However, Swordsman presents a feature in order to bridge the gap between high and low level players and is also very suitable for the theme of the game – tutorship program! In this program, players who are level 50 and above can recruit junior disciples and aid them in the game by giving advice and helping them out when needed. By participating in a tutorship program, both high level and low level players will earn something from it - needless to say, low level players will certainly gain obvious benefits, but high level players will earn tutorship points for every level the junior disciple get. These points can be exchanged for powerful upgrades for character skills.
Graphics/Sound
Once you logged in, you will be struck with chills and goosebumps – the music is so hauntingly beautiful. In fact, the game is filled with high quality music that is on par with music from the movies. The sound is very suitable to the game’s Chinese-theme and does its job of immersing the player into the history and scenes of ancient Jianghu excellently.
The high definition graphics in this game are also astonishing. You will never see a more picturesque and fantastical scenery of Jianghu. Although the character and monster models are pretty exquisite, the graphics are most profound in the architectures in the game. All the cities in the game practically have their own air of magnificence due to the brilliant designs and graphics. The multiple cinematics in the game further showcase the game’s wonderful illustrations.
In summary, the graphics and sound in Swordsman is nothing short of amazing. Both of them certainly provide the ‘wow factor’ to the game.
Conclusion
Swordsman is unquestionably one of a kind – it is the only martial arts-based MMORPG out there on the internet. The martial arts moves in the game are well-designed and animated. Furthermore, allowing a player to choose only 1 from 10 martial arts schools increases the game’s replayability tremendously. Swordsman also provide many unique features such as wall graffiti, switching martial arts styles in mid-combat and CSI-like quests, along with some rare but not-quite-unique ones like vending (which is similar to Ragnarok Online) and professions. There are always random events, both PvE and PvP, and bounties that makes the game lively and keeps its contents fresh. If you like martial arts and immersive MMORPGs, then you should really give this game a go – you won’t regret it!
Swordsman Blog
New Game Added: Swordsman
by Aethyna
Nov 18, 2014
Swordsman is a stunning martial arts MMORPG that transports you to an ancient world dominated by the martial schools. You have been tasked with defending a mighty weapon, and the choices you make and the battles you face may doom or save the world.
Read More
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