Review: Guild Wars 2

Platform(s): Microsoft Windows / MAC version coming soon!
Players: Online Multi-player
Release Date: 28th August 2012 
Developers: ArenaNet
Publishers: NCSoft
Genre: Fantasy MMORPG
Price: €54.99 (no subscription fee!)

I don’t think review is the right word for this article, taking an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) apart isn’t the same as tucking into a beat em up or the latest action adventure game, there are so many elements and layers to these types of games that it could take me several thousand words and a few pages just to get beneath the surface. Luckily for you though I won’t be doing that…yet… no this review will be more of a reflection of my own experience in the world of Guild Wars 2 and Tyria, from the game mechanics and gameplay to the community and finally an overview of the whole thing followed by a gallery of my amazing adventures!

You won’t see any comparisons to other MMORPGs like World of Warcraft or Aoin in this feature either. Why? It’s pretty simple you can’t compare Guild Wars 2 to these other games, those games should be compared to Guild Wars 2, lower their heads in shame and told to go back to the drawing board and figure out where they went wrong! A once off payment with no subscription plan, a promise to focus on creating a world to lose yourself and to change the way we play in the world of MMORPGs, developers and publishers of Guild Wars 2 promised a lot and delivered way more than I could ever have expected.

Straight off the bat, Guild Wars 2 does one of the best things any game can do… it gives the player a ridiculous amount of choices in an effort to help them feel like their character is unique in a world where there might be a couple of hundred Norn Rangers with the same starting pet or Asura Elementalists with a love of fire. From gender to class, physical makeup to the colour of armour, most players will invest some thought into who they want to be but the real hard decisions come once you’ve decided on what you look like you need to ask yourself what kind of character will you be and where will your story take you.

After nearly four weeks of gameplay I have used up four out of the five character slots that are made available to you (with the option of spending some money to add additional slots for more characters which I foresee myself doing before Christmas!). Rather than give you a synopsis of each race and profession I picked, I’ll go with the first character I made, a Sylvari Mesmer by the name of Aernin.

I love magic, the idea of wielding amazing power be it Arcane, Elemental or Necromancy, it has always been my favourite class or profession to play within but rather than go for my usual path of a Water wielding elementalist (Don’t worry my second character was/is a female Sylvari with a penchant for water spells!) I chose the Mesmer profession because it seemed to be a twist on the role of the magic user. Casting illusions and phantasms, twisting the reality around enemies and allies, granting boons and punishing with conditions, I was having a field day right up until level 11.

Your characters skills change according to the weapons you are wielding, each class has specific types they can use and some hold the ability to have a secondary set to swap between during combat. In the beginning Aernin was a dual wielding sword master who could swap out a scepter and a focus, and between levels 5 and 11, I believed him to be a devastating force in combat cutting through drakes, moas, trolls and the Nightmare Court. All of that changed when the ability to unlock traits became available and I will admit to being left a little confused at first, throwing points in here, there and everywhere before finally resetting and turning to other Mesmers on the Map for advice. Taking their words of wisdom on board I built what I would now consider a monstrosity, some sort of inbred magic throwing up troglodyte barely able to maintain a Phantasm for more than a few seconds.

After you level up your character is awarded with a skill and a trait point, skills allow you to unlock secondary or utility abilities that are locked to your profession and race while traits allow you to build a character with specific focus on power, health, armour, accuracy and so on. So my first two builds didn’t work but I’d finally gotten my head around the Trait system and Aernin quickly became a devastating force once more but I’d learned how to work with his abilities and traits and after dropping the swords, I picked up a staff, I traded the focus for a pistol and he has become a one man (with three illusions) army inflicting long lasting and brutal conditions on anyone or anything that steps in his way.

When developing the game, ArenaNet said that they were doing away with the need for the ‘Holy Trinity’ of the MMORPG, that being the need for a ‘Healer’, a ‘Damage Dealer’ and a ‘Tank’ and would instead aim to make it so each player could stand on his or her own feet without having to rely on friends or fellow players to help make it through challenges and quests while also allowing groups to venture through dungeons without having to wait for necessary roles to be filled out. 

For the most part I have played Guild Wars 2 solo, I’ve teamed up with friends to explore and tackle dungeons but at no point have I felt like I can’t handle a specific task even if I have lost to a Veteran Centaur repeatedly, the game challenges you to play at your best, to think about what you are doing and how you are going to approach every situation both in terms of how you tackle combat situations but also how you progress in your own story.

So long story short, mechanics of the game are different and a little overwhelming at first but quickly become second nature and after a while you will, like I have; find that your character and the awesome power he or she wields is ready to be unleashed with skillful timing and the push of a few buttons. After investing so much time in building the character I wanted I found myself taking time to decide what course of action he would take when faced with choices laid out before me by the story I had created in the beginning. It’s my story and my Wyld Hunt will lead me to Zhaitan, the Elder Dragon  but not until I’m ready and finished exploring Tyria for myself!
 

Declan Doody

Editor-in-Chief, part-time super villain and hoarder of cats. If you can’t find me writing, I’m probably in the kitchen!