Tera Review

Lets start off with that this is a Review of the Korean version of the game.

I will not help you or give any information on how to get your hands on an account, just so that’s said.

And get ready for a LONG read.

Now back to buisness :P

I’ve heard many different taughts on TERA, some positive and some negative, about the graphics, the battle system, about how the characters look, etc...

I, myself, never liked Korean grinders, I wasn’t much fund of Aion, neither was I of Lineage 2.

When I first heard about TERA, I wasn’t that interested, I saw that it was made by a Korean company and I was already sure it was going to be another Korean grinder. As the months went by, more facts was revealed and even though it all seemed interesting, in my mind, it was still just another Korean grinder. Sure the battle system is unique, the graphics are great, but still, another Korean grinder. My mind was set. Well guess what, I was wrong.

My point here is, that I think that TERA wont be getting the attention it deserves here in NA/EU. why? because people have already set their minds on passing on this game because it's just another Korean grinder, or it's just another game with boys that looks like girls, and girls running around (as good as) naked with ridiculous long legs and boobs twice the size of their heads. I’m not saying that everybody here will see it this way, but some do. I guess what I'm saying is, I’m afraid this game will fail here because of its "Themed graphic".

But lets go back a little, I wish to tell you about the game, not my taughts on why it could fail here:P so lets get started.

Let’s start with the first thing you'll encounter in TERA, which is the character creation.

You'll get tons of choices in character creation,

• 7 races (4 of them provide gender choice)

• 7 classes ( which are 2 tanks classes, two melee DPS, 2 ranged DPS and 2 support classes )

• A bunch of preset faces for every race

• A bunch of hairs, hair colors, faces, skin colors, "make ups" for each face, etc.

• Face adjustment for further customization

• A couple voice choices for each gender.

 

the only thing TERA lacks, which in my opinion is a little sad, is body customization (height, body size, etc).

After you've created your character and started the game, you'll see a short cut scene before being sent to the beginner area, where you get your first quests and start off by killing some cute monsters, but that’s nothing new, (as Remotay allways says, "Korean companies hates small cute things")

And already here, is where the game starts being interesting. As we heard many times, the battle system is supposed to be unique in this game, and it really is! IMO it's excellent! No more TAB, 1+2+1+3 battles, it's actually up to you if you hit them or misses them, it's up to you to block/dodge attacks, and if you don’t be careful, it's fatal.

Let’s compare it to Demon's souls, maybe some of you have heard about it, or played it. It’s not the games fault you die, it's yours. If you're slacking on dodging and blocking, later on in the game, you will have big problems. There are mobs who will “one hit/shot” you if you're not careful. Long range DPS feels more like a third person shooter, which is awesome. And healing is not for slackers. Healers are the hardest role in this game, you have to aim the mouse on the player you want to heal, and in a boss battle, it's much harder than it sounds, but also much more rewarding.

Let’s use an example, me and my girlfriend play together, she as a healer, me as a melee DPS. In level 20 we decided to try doing the first instance together (Shangri-la, lvl 20+) , but we couldn’t find anyone to do it with so we decided to try doing it our self. At the first few mobs we failed miserable, we decided to not give up until we finished a couple of quests inside so we continued trying, as we tried we developed various strategies, and it suddenly became easier, and we actually made it to the last boss in the instance. Don’t get me wrong, we died countless times and it took us almost 6 hours to get to that point, and this is an instance which takes about half an hour with full party:P But that we actually made it that far, was something I hadn’t seen in another game before. Let’s take RIFT beta for example, we tried the same thing there, but it was impossible. The thing with TERA is it's based on skill alone, not stats and armor, which makes it really unique in my point of view.

Teamwork in this game is so essential, with instances and later on group quests, if you're a lone wolf in MMORPG's and like playing by yourself, I’m sad to say that this game might not be the thing for you, due to the few single player quests in higher levels. But if you like partying up with others and do, what seems, the impossible, this game is the perfect game.

But that’s enough about the battle system and such, let’s move on, shall we?

My next topic is about the graphics and animations, looks and weapons.

The first thing I really got to say is that the graphics, in general, are amazing, even without the AA.

People who taught Final Fantasy XIV looked great, haven’t seen anything yet (in my opinion).

Yes, the character could look a little less...."Asian game-ish", but I think that's one of the thing that makes TERA what it is. Yes, the high elves dudes look girlish for some, and the human male looks too bulky for others. but in my opinion elves are suppose to look little more feminine than humans, in novels like Lord of the Rings, the elves are described as a very beautiful looking people, they are not suppose to look like barbarians who wants to rip your head off and eat it for dinner, they are suppose to look...well...more peaceful. Which some obviously refer as GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!! But everybody has the right to have an opinion I guess.... =_=

For me, the elves look a little more anime inspired and I really like that, because as an anime fan, I've always liked the tiny hero with the big sword who saves the day, or so on:P And I also like the human male because they look a little more manly and bulky, it gives it a nice distinction. for those who like to have something in between I guess you have the Castanic males....but even for me they do look a little queer to be honest:P

We also have the beastly AMAN, for those who like the little more bad-ass looking, which is also one of my favorites.

I am not going to post picture of every class so don’t worry, back to the issue.

You have the Eilins who looks like little girls with animal ears and tails, also very anime-ish, but even I felt a little pedophile playing one of them so I rerolled pretty fast. For the male version you have the Popori, which is a fat little animal who runs around two legs:P And last you have the Baraka, a mysterious stone-ish people who also are very unique.

Point being with all that is, that you have lots of variation between the races and what you like to play as, you can play either the beauty, or the beast.

the Armor system I also like, part wise anyways, the good thing is, all races have different armors from another, if you are a AMAN slayer, your armor won’t look anything like a human slayer's, which helps you feel unique and more different from the other people on your team. With that said, as far as I've seen, I never seen class armor, that means if you are a human Berserker, you will have the same armor as the human lancer in your party. But that might be something seen later in game.

the negative about the armors, in my opinion, is some of the looks. take the female Castanic for an example, she wears metal strings on her body, and the higher level she gets, the smaller armors she gets. Even for me, who are open minded about graphics and looks in games, this is a little disturbing actually.

Another example is my High Elf male Berserker,

Meet my main, he's a Schmuck.

I really liked the anime vampire-ish looks some of the elven faces have (not Edward sparkly vamp look!)

And I guess i already signed up for GAAAAAYYY! Comments, but screw you, I don’t care.

Back to the point, I like the looks but come on, belly button flash? REALLY? Some of these armors and looks are a little bit too easy to make fun off... what happened to my anime vamp awesome looking armor? T.T

And I do get why some of you might not be able to enjoy the game with some of these preposterous looks, but if you can, then I can assure you that you will have a hell of a good time playing TERA.

Weapons I don’t have much negative to say about, some may not like the huge looking weapons, but I do. They give TERA that unique feel instead of being as much like every other game out there.

Let’s move on to the world of TERA, and I only got one thing to say here ZOMFGAMAZING!

I won’t say anything else then this, it's beautiful, it's gigantic, it's open, and let me show you my favorite screenshot:

I guess the last thing you would want to hear about is PVP, but I’m not an expert here, I know that PVP offers 4vs4, 2vs2, duels, and in some places you can PK. but I haven’t done more than some duels actually, I think TERA is more of a PVE game with PVP than a PVE/PVP game... but as I said, I haven’t done much of this, so I can’t really state any facts there... sorry about that.

The last words I have to offer is that I've played TERA for some weeks now, and I haven’t felt like this for any game since WoW first came out so many years ago... it really feels new. I can play it from morning to evening and then when I go to bed, I look forward to  play some more the next day, I haven’t felt this way for a Game in a very long time, Gamer Nirvana as some like to call it:P Haven’t felt that in a long while. And I guess the reason I want to share this with you guys is, mainly because I’m afraid this game won’t be getting the attention it deserves when it comes out in the West, and I really wish for you people to give this game a chance, don’t let it fail like so many games have done in the past years. Take a chance with TERA, as I did, and I assure you, you won’t regret it.

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Now I'd like to apologize for the epic number of typos in this text, first, English is not my 1st language, second, this is written on a VERY crappy keyboard who likes to skip some letters, making it nearly impossible to Wright without several typos xP

Apart from that, I hope you enjoyed the read.

Also Korean TERA is not in any Beta testing now, it's released so I’m not breaking any NDA or EULA by posting this, just wanted to say that:P

This was a review of the Korean version, not the western... TERA might go through several changes upon western release.

Thanks for now.

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Edit: none of the images are working atm, going to fix that problem asap

Edit: the Images works fine now