Black Desert Online Review

Hmm..how should I make an intro for Black Desert and not overreact. About a game that you can talk and talk, discuss every single little feature that offers... so, in the end, you will miss something important. Is it good or bad I will try and cover some of the mechanics I personally think they are worth mentioning ...meaning only touching the surface what Black Desert Online can offer to a gamer.

Black Desert Online belongs in the category of action, sandbox MMORPG with large ...no huge world to be explored. Taken the point that "now" was released the new expansion called Margoria, the land mass was tripled. For those who know how huge is this game, they know what I'm trying to prove here. Black Desert is enormous and with the clever design, it is never a boring experience, like most of the open sandbox games. The fact that every part of the world has own story is a plus. Right from the beginning, you will be overwhelmed, this isn't typical MMORPG. The mechanics in BDO are far from what we have been experiencing in other online games. However that's not the bad thing, start slowly and you will be on the right track. I'm giving this advice cause simply rushing it even from the beginning will give you such a headache and probably you will quit this game forever, believe me, Black Desert is worth of your attention.

Here comes the bad part, the tutorial in this game is not existent by me. Yes, sure you pop in the game and learn about the simple mechanics, but if you don't spend some time for reading some guides or tutorials on the net you will be lost. Maybe the intention was simply that, knowledge in this game has a huge part in the mechanics how Black Desert is played. It is confusing at moments but is rewarding in the end.

Combat feature is something I don't want to waste my time on. Explaining combat in Black Desert can be done with one word...simply awesome. Every class has a variety of awesome moves and abilities it can use, and thanks to the developers you will not see TAB-targeting here. What you do, whatever combo you successfully pull out is only because you manage to carry out. It is a huge learning curve but rewarding as I mentioned before.


One thing is not clear to me, why the developers made a nearly awesome game but they gender lock the classes. This part was the most frustrating for me, honestly, I was thinking to make a male ranger...half-elf with pointy ears and I'm staring at the monitor with simply the only option to make female ranger character. This was a great fallback for me until I entered the character creation part. I cannot stress this enough, how was the character creation tool made. It is by far the best feature I have ever seen and cannot be compared to other online games.

BDO character creation tool

Moving on.. as this is not a tutorial article I will be brief about some things you can expect from Black Desert and are worth mentioning them. From learning a thing or two about contribution points ( or investment points ), energy and skill points to life skills, workers, and overall trading economy in this game you will be stuck in BDO the moment you try to achieve everything. This is where the sandbox part comes into play, you are free to do anything you want and how you want... except the leveling part. Questing here is done in a different way, not the way like we are used in other MMORPGs. They are categorized into multiple types/groups like combat quests, life quests or fishing quest etc... giving rewards like potions, contribution points, life skill points and so on. Leveling is strictly based on grinding and it is the fastest way. Yes, everything you do in this game will give a bit of XP, but grinding the best mobs at the best place is better rewarding. For those who are not keen on grinding don't worry its counterparts with the awesome combat mechanics.

Main transportation for Valencia Desert

As I said to expect things to be difficult and frustrating sometimes. Even now I laugh the first time I tried to catch a horse, nothing was explained. What do I need, where to find a mount, why this game does not have "taxi" services or portal? And that's the beauty of BDO, from catching your first mount, or simply go and explore this beautiful world and be an adventurer is something that I appreciate a lot. When I say beauty this game can only be compared with Witcher 3, the similarities are present only this is an MMORPG. The graphics are excellent, the design of the world ...everything is perfectly placed. Until you start dropping frames cause the game is still not optimized. Sure you can run it but the pop-up glitches are present everywhere, and mostly in crowded areas.

So be on your guard, if you don't have enough decent pc configuration you will not be able to play this game. Even so, people with high-end gaming PC's are complaining about the poor optimization and huge frame drops.

Overall this game is good however some serious things need to be considered. Features like the cash shop, the lack of armor weapon variety will only draw players away from Black Desert. On the first hand, it looks like pay to win the game but it's not. I mean c'mon you can get the game for only 10$, who cares about fashion items, or pets. OK pets are needed here a lot cause they are used for the purpose of looting the items for you. Yes, Black Desert Online feels sometimes as a P2W model and I can't stress enough about how they locked some things so you will be forced to spend money.

Positive:

• Beautiful immersive world- Parkour system

• Horse breeding

• Karma system ( mostly used for PVP )

• Housing 

• Mount combat

• Good soundtrack

• Day and night cycle

• Sailing, ocean exploration

• Large-scale pvp

Negative:

• Bad tutorial 

• Optimization can be improved greatly 

• After 50lvl grinding starts to be repetitive 

• Lack of Raids and PVE content

• No armor and weapon variety

• Some game designs can be improved like NPC talking and overall translation

• Pearl shop

In the end, I can only say positive about Black Desert, don't mind the pearl shop and just enjoy the game for what it is. Even so, I mentioned for 10$ you get the full game and every patch and expansion in the future, so sure the developers need to make money and spending real money on pets or anything will only support them. Black Desert is not a World of Warcraft killer and never will be, however, it is a masterpiece of its own.

7/10

GOOD