Scarlet Blade is a free to download and free to play adult-themed, fantasy MMORPG set in the (possibly?) distant future.
You take on the roll of a Commander in charge of an “Arkana“, a bio-enhanced super human clone, created to assist the neo-humans in the future in fending off the “Narak“. The Narak are a vastly unknown and very deadly alien species apparently hellbent on destroying humanity.
However, as there were next to no survivors of the initial attack and the surface was stricken with nuclear fallout, the recently born Arkana had only one thing to rely on to brief them on their mission and current situation. An extremely intelligent AI system, code-named “Mother” was brought online and began cloning the Arkana to initiate their highly important mission.
There are two factions in Scarlet Blade, The Royal Guard (an elitist, “Everything by the books”, valorous group) and the Free Knights (often referred to as “extremists” who want to be freed once their mission is complete).
Now, my first impression of the game began with a chuckle.
I started it up and was greeted by a very… how should I put it.. Revealing concept art before I clicked the “Create Character” button. Once there, I began my intro into what would soon be a very interesting and fun few days on this newly formed earth. I quickly fell in love with the combat animation, as it was something I hadn’t seen in any other MMO I had played previous to this one.
I soon was able to look past the suggestive character models and more into what else this game had been offering me–the story.
As I mentioned before, you take the place of a bio-enhanced super human tasked with the mission to “save humanity”, for a lack of a better description, and you can learn all of this on the main webpages link to a section titled “The Story Thus Far”. As I was reading through this, I was taken into an entirely new world other than the one I had first envisioned, I found a very enthralling plot with a very descriptive set of journal entries written by the fictitious character named Sr. Researcher John Maynard. In these entries he explains to the reader that the world had come under attack from an alien species without warning and every attack they had tried failed; they were soon only left with one option. “I don’t know which government made the call, but the decision was obvious: If humanity was going down, we were taking the Narak with us.”
With a new found love for this game’s story, I soon found myself fully immersed in the game and before I realized it I had already spent four hours in the game and the tediousness I usually feel when questing in other MMOs had not occurred at all! I was shocked, to say the least, that this game which I had no real interest in initially was able to hold my attention for so long and keep me wanting to come back for more.
Now don’t let my constant gushing completely seal the deal for you, there are a few things that I have found to be quite the annoyance.
For one there’s a constant sexual theme with the whole game–for example for the first few quests your character and quest givers keep hinting towards sexual innuendo which, at times, can get quite irritating. After the 30th time, an NPC quest giver hints towards the same cheesy joke it can get old quite fast.
Another thing is the player base; even though this game is set for players 18+ years of age I sense that there are quite a few children/teens between the ages of 13 – 16 that play this game. The in game chat is, every so often, flooded with innuendos and immature remarks towards things no sensible adult would even look twice at. Either there are a lot more people like this in the world than I realized or there are some naughty children not listening to the age restriction!
Finally there are a few bugs, but that is to be expected as the game is currently only in its Open Beta phases. For example, I was in the middle of fighting a monster in a dungeon and out of nowhere my game froze for 3 seconds, when I was returned back to my character and was able to look around again the monster was still attacking me but when I pressed my hot-keys to attack back, I simply couldn’t. I inquired with other players if this had happened to them and I got a few responses saying that it was a fairly uncommon bug, usually linked to a poor network connection and to fix this issue all you had to do was jump into your in-game mech and you should be able to return to normal combat. This solution worked for a majority of the time but every so often, even this wouldn’t work and I was forced to either watch my character be senselessly murdered before me (which, since I was playing a tank, took quite some time) or relog into the game. I expect this should be fixed in the near future but if you plan on checking this game out keep it in mind.
Now, I have a few things to say about the social aspect of this game.
As I mentioned before, the chat is occasionally filled with immature bickering and remarks, but it’s not all bad. There are some players mixed in with the common rabble that actually like to take this game seriously and play it as it was intended (or at least how we feel it was intended to be played) as a story based MMORPG.
The guild system could use some tweaking–it’s hard to figure out the system on your own, and the Guild Hall could use some extra furniture or even another purpose other than to house the two NPCs in the room. Those two NPCs only serve to allow access to a guild warehouse and a donation system to help the guild progress. I have heard, but have no proof, that when you max out your guild level and rank that your Guild Hall does change and add a few things.
Now onto the party system! As I’m a solo player by nature, I haven’t had much experience with this feature but from what I’ve seen it looks to be your standard party system used in most well known MMOs. You’re part leader, or rather “Team Leader”, has all the standard options they should have (loot control, party member options, etc).
There is also currently one social area in the game where both factions in the game can hang out. The Delilah Club is what you’d expect from the name, a night club, where members from both factions can go and hang out. When standing on one of the dance floors in the game your character will begin to dance (each class has their own) and will continue to do so until you either sit down or move off of the dance floor. It features its own unique club music which I have found to be quite entertaining and suits the theme well. It costs one gold to enter, each time you enter.
The current level cap in the game is 29, but the skill system indicates that there will be a level cap increase in the future.
When this increase will take place I have yet to find out. PvP in Scarlet Blade isn’t the most unique I’ve seen, but it still ranks pretty high on that scale. Currently there are only two PvP arenas in the game, which take place in 2 hour intervals. Janus is a small scale map which allows for plenty of exposure to the enemy team.
You’re tasked with destroying 3 towers on the map (the destruction of which will reward your team with additional score points) and after the 3 towers are destroyed, it becomes your basic Team Deathmatch type battle. Turnpike is a larger scaled map in which your objectives now include destroying the enemies 3 treasure boxes (the destruction of which will reward your team with a large scale item drop and additional score points) and afterwards, just like Janus, it becomes your typical Team Deathmatch battle. Battlefields are separated by level intervals, so don’t worry about being outclassed!
Conclusion
All in all, Scarlet Blade is an awesome experience, even if you only decide to play for a little while. I highly suggest checking this game out (if you are within the age restriction) if you can put up with a satirical amount of sexual content, nudity, adult language and small portions of immature players!
