Blade & Soul G-Star 2010 Gameplay

In the Blade & Soul Preview I did previously there wasn't much known about the game at that time.  With a promise from the developers that this years G-Star would show a playable demo I was excited.  G-Star this year exceeded my expectations.  A lot of questions were answered and I finally got to see some actual gameplay.  I could go into lots of detail about what makes this different from the average MMO.  I think though instead of me telling you about it, I should show you.  Here is the official Blade & Soul G-Star 2010 trailer!



One of the most exciting things about that trailer is that they announced the Assassin.  They seem to be exactly what you'd expect from an Assassin, they are very agile and sneaky.  The Assassin is able to use stealth to get the jump on the enemy and even set traps.

There was also a live demo shown with lots of gameplay footage.  Finally I got to see how the game actually plays and I was impressed overall.  You use your typical w a s d f keys to move and you double tap to dash.  Your able to run pretty fast and jump 20 feet in the air and glide down almost like your flying.  The game has an auto targeting system that will target the closet enemy for you.

There are lots of different attacks, abilities, and combos that you can do in the game.  That doesn't mean that you have to learn a lot of buttons or have a cluttered UI either.  The game has a branching skill system that dynamically changes based on the context of the skill you just used or the enemy.  There are a separate set of combos and skills for when the enemy is at a range, in the air, on the ground, or knocked down.  These videos showing you the different classes and their skills will show you what I mean:


I really like the way the combat is almost like a fighting or action game.  You're able to parry, counter, air combo, grab and throw your enemies.  So far they haven't shown any PVP only PVE footage.  They have mentioned that it will have PVP but haven't disclosed any details on it yet.  Watching PVE in an MMO is a bit boring to me so hopefully we'll see some PVP action soon.  I would have liked the combat to be a little bit quicker for my tastes.  It's already a lot faster than most MMO's out there, just a little bit more and I think it would be perfect.  To be fair the gameplay was for demoing purposes and it only showed PVE, also the game isn't completed yet. 

The game is looking pretty good though for not being completed, they still have more time to add features and more polish.  Unfortunately there hasn't been any word yet for when the beta starts or a release date.  The G-Star event is still going on through the weekend so I'll add updates to this if anything major happens.  I'll leave you with one more video showing off a demonstration of the game being played with the developer talking about it:


(It's a long video you can skip to 3:00 if you want, that's when the gameplay starts.  If a translated version gets posted I'll replace this one.)

So what did you think?  Blade & Soul is looking pretty good huh?  I really hope more MMOs start to go in a more action style of gameplay.  I think it will help to revitalize the genre.  Guild Wars 2 is also looking really good, check out the preview by Nightmarz