After a brief hiatus from gaming, I decided this past Friday would be the opportune time to return to mmorpgs. That, coupled with Rift’s incoming switch to free-to-play and Raptr’s promotion to get the full edition of the game early (and the recently released expansion Storm Legion with a 30-day membership to boot) pushed me to try out Rift for the first time.
Character Creation
As usual, I’ll start by talking about character creation. The character starts off with a very important choice. You are able to pick the Defiants or the Guardians. The Guardians are a religious group and follow the gods in the game (the Vigil) whereas the Defiants have turned there back on the gods. I chose the guardians as I enjoy honor and loyalty, and that’s what it felt like. The character can choose from a Warrior, Cleric, Mage, or Rogue. I always choose to be a tank, so I chose the warrior. You then go through a few more unimportant options, and then proceed to customize your character’s appearance and can then jump into the tutorial. Overall, the process was somewhat simplistic, which I somewhat enjoy as it allows me to jump into the game play quicker.
The Tutorial
Then you jump into the game. The tutorial (for the Guardians, at least) had me fight off an evil man trying to get through rifts, to conquer Telara. The tutorial is somewhat quick and teaches you the basics of the game. It did not seem to be that Rift had a steep learning curve. I jumped in game and before long I was swinging at undead. After the tutorial (and your sacrifice), the real fun begins.
You are resurrected by a beach by the gods to fight, but not just evil creatures, but the opposite side. I purposely joined a PvE server so I would not have to deal with PvP, but interestingly enough right when I jumped in to the open world a guy started attacking the nearby NPCs! Luckily, it wasn’t long before me and another guy fought him off. That is where my experience with PvP ends, but I did note that small “advance camps” of Defiants can be fought off, similar to the game’s Rifts, where the game got it’s name from. Rifts are small tears in the plane of existence that allow creatures from another plane to slip through. You fight off several waves of mobs and then a boss and proceed to seal the rifts, which I must say is the highlight of the game. I suppose that is why it is the game’s centerpiece.
The Combat
The combat overall was fun, although nothing special. The classic hack-and-slash framework was there, but even though there wasn’t much special about the combat, it honestly wasn’t that bad and I have no complaints about it.
As for character advancement, you get to choose from several souls and every time you level you get soul points. They are in the “classic” tree-style format. No surprise there. There is not much special about them, other than they have a different name then enhancements, but at the same time they aren’t horrid or anything, so no big deal
Overall
I really enjoyed Rift. Overall, there wasn’t much wrong with it, and my main complaint would be that the game doesn’t have many defining characteristics besides the rifts, which I enjoyed. With Rift’s free-to-play launch evident, I would strongly recommend jumping into the lite version and getting a head start if you plan on it, or even if you don’t I would recommend trying it out. Who knows, you may just enjoy it.
