Worst MMO Ever? - Elsword

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Anime? check
Pay to win? check
Excessive amount of systems? check
actually quite enjoyable despite this? check
Elsword is a 2.5d sidescrolling beat-em-up MMO which is actually extremely fun to play, but incredibly expensive expensive to play at a high level.
Thank you to the Patreon supporters and Twitch subs for keeping the channel alive!

[@tarastargaze3833]

'It feels like it was written by a teenager going through a goth phase' You're playing Raven.

[@MajorSquiggles]

That's so Raven.

[@simpingfor2d98]

He's the good boy, turned bad boy because of a sad backstory, aka, losting the love of his life, and then meeting an elf who just remember him about her :D This cant be more anime and a 15 yearls old OC

[@hugmonger]

Raven Enoby Darkness Dementia Way

[@polvocorrupto]

I thought he said Raiden.

[@goreobsessed2308]

He always plays the edgy emo and make fun of then it's great cognitive dissonance

[@lentoglacier1457]

As someone who played Elsword for like actual 10 years of my life, i'd like to point out that there is literally not a single person who plays this game that doesn't acknowledge the fact that this game is in fact pay to win.

[@victoriaanastaciamoreirago4710]

The same

[@peshiii97]

I literally said the same thing once in an Elsword group and the die hard fans got angry towards me lol

[@ColdEmperor]

If Pokémon have taught us anything….. die hard fans shouldn’t be taken seriously.

[@EpicGamer-fl7fn]

literally hurts because at its core, this game fuckin rocks. It is geniuenly one of the most fun games i have played, which is why even when im not playing it anymore for years i still somewhat follow whats happening update-wise. It hurts even more that Void Elsword was shutdown because of this. Like holy shit, this was literally "Elsword but without any pay2win bullshit" . So it really fucking sucks.

[@CoffeeArtThings]

@@EpicGamer-fl7fn this video made me want to hop on void and play a bit until i saw this, that really blows

[@hovsep56]

The coolest thing i liked was that each character actually ages when getting a job advancement.

[@hq1082]

With the exception of Eve pretty much everyone ages. Eve just gets system upgrades and alters her appearance.

[@Webberjo]

I played Elsword's CBT and can confirm, it was a lot simpler back then, and surprisingly not pay to win. As more content was added though, pay to win features started becoming more relevant. One monetization feature, stamina, was removed though. The game used to limit how much you could play it by consuming stamina every time you did a dungeon, and stamina potions would restore a portion of it.

[@kasane1337]

I'm glad I didn't join the Elsword CBT, to me that would have been way too painful.

[@fadillah6014]

Why Asian game become like this? I remember most games in this is actually good, but now everything has exclusive stuff must to pay to progress.

[@pafista]

I miss the good old days. Back when Secret Dungeon and Henir farming were the only things you had to do. When raids were introduced, I was fine with that. But good lord the sheer amount of different types of dungeons, systems, armors, ultimate weapons, ERP etc etc etc.

[@saske11711]

I agree stamina systems really are Cock and Ball Torture

[@TravisOuttaHell]

it's designed around the PC cafe culture in Korea (running out of stamina = they gotta leave the computer for someone else).

[@tylerlee328]

Used to play the sh it out of this game. Nothing was more embarrassing than losing your class armor and showing everyone you were poor lmaooo

[@Jin-ln7qn]

Lol this was so fking true

[@YaBoiSebas]

They really should’ve just made the class costumes permanent, I never understood why they put the timer on there.

[@Jin-ln7qn]

@@YaBoiSebas it’s to incentivize people from buying costumes. It makes sense I guess but either way people would need to buy IB sets to get better effects later on anyways so makes me sad. Tbh if they made a set for every class that is permanent and buyable I’d buy lol

[@MioMillefeuille]

This was why I bought my Eve that ballerina costume 😂😂

[@MioMillefeuille]

@@Jin-ln7qn there was a time where they released permanent Promotion Job costumes (magic wardrobe) during the visual updates. Only in KR though-

[@lenz2906]

Elsword is one of those games that has lived for so long that you can see the moments when a dev team left the game to a new one, so the design philosophy starts to attach itself so much to the monetization and the power systems that it becomes a new game that's not nearly as good as the original, but it generates more money so all is good. It's a shame since you can see the core gameplay holding the entire thing together and later on the combat system becomes so much more complex and rich, with an infinite skill ceiling where each class justifies itself, being a completely different experienced compared to the previous ones, but then you start to see the way it was handled during the years and you get depressed when even the dungeons/pve content can't keep up with your power/feature creep. Honestly, it's a shame. Played this for what feels 7-8 years, so I saw it change over the years, always hoping it would get better. It never did, but I wish someone could pick up Elsword's core components and put them to good use into a different game. They have no business being stucked into a game that has been treated so poorly, despite being an actual goldmine.

[@Lzver2243]

Like literally if i didnt love how the combat plays in this as well as PVP To death i wouldnt go back so many times

[@royalbeer4234]

Genuinely curious about the "infinite skill ceiling". Played during up till Ara release on EU servers. Back in the day the game's combat was way smaller scale, cancels were a thing, k/d counting was a thing, there was a significant amount of tech that wasn't limited to movement (even though everybody just spammed hinpopo like a fucking ape), but then they kept on stripping characters from their identities case n point - Raven. BM, RF, VC became essentially the same class, actives became universal, everybody has access to a stupid amount of k/d reduction. Newer and newer skills became AOE clusterfuck bullshit. The game's pvp from what I look at now, seems like a pure pre-nerf WS S1 loop bullshit, where all you do one loop, spam actives, melt the fucking opposition. To me ara was a sign of things to come with her stupid fucking range, seemed to spiral even further afterwards.

[@kindklan8020]

ya'll ever heard of closers? nope? just me? okay then i guess

[@ShadowCrescent]

@@royalbeer4234 Yea, Ara was (and still) is that kind of character... Then Laby came along for the ride.

[@yukihimex62]

I used to love this game to death back in the day, but now I think its trash specifically for the very reason you mentioned.

[@the_furry_inside_your_walls639]

I've noticed a common theme with Korean MMO's. They're always a mess of egregious monetization practices, bad story telling, mediocre upgrade systems, and amazing gameplay, all tied together with a nice little anime-esque bow on top.

[@felipe8511]

but compared to chinese mmos like perfect world, they are still playable because of the good gameplay design

[@tastycastle1976]

@@felipe8511 For example: Mabinogi(2004). I can tackle any quest or task using any class I want (that I can switch at will), using auction armor and dyes for the armor to make my character look like a villain from anime Idaten Deities and use every skill I learned on this character over the course of my whole game(some skills got their own quests). You can also use auction to buy inventory slots, dolls that pick up items for you, weapons etc., ANYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT USING IN-GAME CURRENCY WHICH IS RELATIVELY EASY TO FARM. The graphics are bad, the combat is wacky but there's no equal to this game TO THIS DAY in terms of character progression.

[@shawnjavery]

@@tastycastle1976 damn didn't expect an idaten dieties reference here. Such a slept on anime.

[@tastycastle1976]

@@shawnjavery This anime as a whole just oozes STYLE. From character designs to backgrounds it just looks phenomenal) (Nickel cosplay looks frikkin great in Mabinogi)

[@_zealos_8213]

@@tastycastle1976 It makes me so happy for someone to acknowledge Mabi without me having to look for it. Also, Idaten Dieties... _nice._

[@wavelength3856]

Former longtime player here, and your precise breakdown of what's beautiful and what's horrific about Elsword is spot-on. It's a gem that's drowning under its own weight, a lily gilded and suffocated by systems bloat. I have no doubt some of these were driven by monetization, but others (like disenchanting and identification) really seemed like they were in there "because MMO's are supposed to have it I guess?". I tried my best to just ignore all that and just enjoy the fluid, visceral fighting in dungeons and explorable areas - until the game forced me to free up inventory space over and over, check whatever ridiculous attendance event kept chirping in my notifications, click through quests that required replaying the same dungeon a bunch of times to advance the plot, and min-max 40 different stats to avoid being two-shot by late game bosses. Every play session had genuine high moments, but they were uncommon peaks in a landscape of frustration and tedium. Also love your call that the reason the plot feels so vapid is that there's no "involvement" with the player or their character. In a guilty pleasure sort of way, I actually kind of liked being drip-fed static scenes of a trashy shonen anime the first time through, playing as Rena - but when I played from the "perspective" of another character and realized I was just watching the same exact scenes the second time around, which didn't even have my chosen character anywhere to be found in those scenes - any illusion that I should care was shattered. I feel like if an MMO can take the 2D Anime Co-Op Beat-Em-Up approach of Elsword and Grand Chase, but thoughtfully build up every other element of the game around that core, it would make for an all-time great game.

[@dieptrieu6564]

It's hard to told story through 2d game, tbh. This is the best that they can do. Beside, who the hell care about these stories, anyway. We are here for the combat and gameplay. If the game wasn't choke full of p2w stuffs and being grindy af, it would be a very good game regardless of stories

[@Boomslayer19]

as someone who played this too i have a question was there always that many characters i only remember 6 of them aka elsword aisha rena the three original and later on raven eve an chung

[@wavelength3856]

@@Boomslayer19 As you suspected, they added most of the characters over time.

[@mentalpopcorn2304]

Honestly being 2 shot by end game bosses is just the game. Heck, being 1 shot is normal. The meta tends to be all damage no defense, trading survivability for damage.

[@SinaelDOverom]

@@dieptrieu6564 Being 2D has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of good stories in 2D platformers (Dust: Elysian Tale, Megaman Zero series etc.)

[@vkknoell]

regarding the story, the game actually had way more dungeons(and they were longer too) in the early regions and each had to be done thrice in increasing levels of difficulty with snippets of story in between. There were also more fields like the bridge. It all got removed over the years to make it easier to level characters, so the story has been compressed to what it is now.

[@louderthenvisual]

yup i remember that... i actually liked that alot more then what we have now...

[@Goldenkitten1]

It happens to every MMO and I hate it. I think players should be allowed to choose between a "Vanilla" route and an "Updated" route when they start the game explaining that Vanilla is what it was at launch and will take longer while Updated is for long time players who want to get to endgame content. I can't tell you how many MMOs I've played where they remove half the game, often some of my favorite areas completely included and I just walk away because some people are impatient. Tera was one of my favorite MMO's and now I'm not joking when I say 3/4ths of the areas built for quests and story are just sitting around in the background now, you can't even go there to do the missions if you wanted, they're just big areas with enemies you have no reason to engage.

[@SSB_Master_Hand]

Shit like that is one of the multitudes of reasons why I stopped playing Elsword completely.

[@PadsterX]

@@Goldenkitten1 The answer is FF14. It still has a complete early game story (Lv. 1-50) that is missing nowadays in almost every other MMORPG

[@Goldenkitten1]

@@PadsterX*Before I say anything* I fully recognize this is my opinion and it's subjective, don't take it as an attack on something you enjoy. I just can't get into FF14. I've seen later bits of the game that look fun but trying to play the Priest class (forget what it's called now) in the early game was painful. All my friends were already max level and were like "Hey, you're a good healer and we need more healers in the guild, come join us!" and I was like "Sure!". Cue me being bored out of my mind before I reach level 20. I've NEVER given up on an MMO my friends are playing and wanted me to join until FF14. The idea of "Hey, it gets better after sixty-hours!" is not a plus.

[@MrLukendo]

Let's not gloss over the fact that Josh just got all the way to Feita using nothing but combos and the six standard skills from the base class. That's legit impressive.

[@puggo3938]

he also did it without the phoru

[@firepuppies4086]

Also didn't seem to use the awaken system as much.. playing as Raven. Which is kinda crazy but it's been years since I played so I don't know if they put the shadow step through the core shield back.

[@itzpuzozle504]

I’ve gotten to Sander with base Rena, even got to S rank in arena

[@FearenKuro]

@@itzpuzozle504 rena has the most broken base of the game, just phoenix strike/aero tornado everything and you good

[@itzpuzozle504]

@@FearenKuro this was when Rail stinger was still a skill. Kinda miss that skill ngl

[@DrYesterday]

Regarding the overly large amount of plot scenes transitioning into new plot scenes, a few years ago the game went through an overhaul of streamlining redundant re-runs of dungeons, and severely overtuned the XP you get for doing them, so those dialogue scenes used to have a dungeon run between them, many of the early zones had 2-3 more dungeons in them, and you ran each dungeon 2-4 times. nowadays you run each dungeon once until the third to last zone, and all the original dialogue scenes are just sompressed to run together as if you auto compelted a dungeon that doesn't exist anymore.

[@lunausagi8495]

Good you provided a reason to why. Nice job showing off you know why it happen. Okay and? That doesn't change that it's an issue that should be fixed. And no one asked why it is this way. Just that it should be better.

[@Es-mv2mk]

@@lunausagi8495 Jesus dude imagine being this salty

[@mattiag1846]

I played this game years ago when you could have students and stopped shortly after it was no longer a beta game at least as far as I know and then picked it up a few months ago, this game bored me! I haven't seen the same fun as when I played it in my school days... If it was like old times I would have enjoyed it

[@dieptrieu6564]

@@lunausagi8495 It's a problem that can't be fixed, honestly. The original story are told through that way and they can't just throw all of it's away

[@lunausagi8495]

@@Es-mv2mk You calling me salty doesn't make in less valid in any way. Actually give something constructive

[@shadic971]

The thing that always put me off about this game was that the cosmetics for free to play players were always temporary. It just showed me just how the devs felt a about the f2p fans: they appreciate you being there, but not enough to let you blend in with those that give them money. It's one of the most tragic MMOs I've ever played because the gameplay is genuinely amazing, but the predatory monetization pushes me away like no other game I've played

[@kaleidoscope3234]

actually, back in the day there were a lot of events that gives f2p players a lot of exclusive permanent outfits. Some of my favorite came from those freebies event, not even the hyper expensive ice burner sets. Gameplay wise even the most powerful ice burner costume sets didn't impact the gameplay too greatly, it's the end game gears that cost people hundred of dollars to upgrade that really makes the game irredeemably p2w. The worse part? Even if you spent all those money and time to grind those end game gears, they wouldn't last long and become outdated within a few months.

[@mentalpopcorn2304]

​​@@kaleidoscope3234ice burner outfits make a good deal of power in the game. This was the case back in the day, but even more so now. Back in the day, gear was more about the grind. You didn't have to spend money really, aside from maybe on a +8 amulet. Back then +8 was pretty big. Nowadays gear is far more p2w

[@parkhyoungmin1487]

As a fellow Korean I just laugh at the huge proportion Korean MMOs have within the "Worst MMO Ever" series. It's like an achievement and the same time an embarrassing title. In the first few minutes when I see the generic interface, cash robbing features, and sexual female bodies, I can't help myself but to admit it to be a Korean MMO :D.

[@FlameHidden]

Well, the Indians have the trash children mobile games, Chima has the gachas, you guys have the MMOs! Its the great Trinity of Asia!

[@Sorain1]

@@FlameHidden Well, the USA has (at least) the 'it's all mud' generic FPS games, wonder what other national/regional garbage game types there are?

[@lecorbak]

@@Sorain1 and france has nothing, R.I.P. france

[@Sorain1]

@@lecorbak Remind me, where does Ubisoft reside? You know, the people that keep making worse versions of Assassin's Creed?

[@lecorbak]

@@Sorain1 Ubisoft is like a rollercoaster of good and bad games.

[@DiscountYT]

as someone who played this in my childhood, i find it SO sad the direction this game has continued to go in. it had so much potential and i'm glad to see more people calling it out for its predatory monetization and inability to take feedback from the community.

[@mattiag1846]

I had wonderful memories of this game when you could have pupils, I enjoyed it, when I tried it months ago the fun lasted 5 days

[@kirsch-pf6jx]

@@mattiag1846I feel like after the world with the wolf boss, it wasn’t fun anymore tbh. After this world it became a grinding mess or pay to win mess

[@v.k.healthlongevity9807]

This comment is on LITERALLY every video he uploads. The reoccuring theme is "when i was younger/in my childhood". Turns out most video games just arent as fun for a plethora of reasons as you get older and real world responsiblities and stress pull your focus out of the fantasy world youre trying to engage in.

[@jorgeluiscontrerac]

​@@mattiag1846i played it tryhard in my childhood and reached level 70 and stuff. i got hyped with when they added the third class change or smth (cant remember how it was called) i remember i played elsword with magic and runes... man i loved that game. played it some months ago and it was... disgusting. there is no way i would like this game rn

[@Chaosfly10]

@@kirsch-pf6jx I remember when Feita was the final zone. Back when there were only 5 characters and 2 paths for each of them

[@coughins]

As a former Rank 1 PvP player. I can say the actual fighting aspect is one of the, if not the best one I've seen in any 2D fighting game. That's about where my positive feedback stops. Everything you said in this video is spot on.

[@albertwily3170]

Went check your channel, but your character isn't possible to reach rank 1 PvP.

[@coughins]

@@albertwily3170 I was rank 1 on the German server with lk (coffins) 2016 and rank 1 on void with RF (31er) 2017 and with Asura (notpass/rebeat/cutenekogfx3) 2017 on void as well

[@leafyguy2039]

@@coughins i killed a lvl 99 master spe with my lvl 15 trough sheer willpower

[@tvia]

@@leafyguy2039 I miss being able to go into PvP with a Level 35 Shooting Guardian and clap level 70 people. The salt was hilarious. I miss the old days.

[@leafyguy2039]

@@tvia fr chung made my brother not Play elswoed for a year i got him traumatized

[@breadifies2800]

I remember playing Elsword when I was younger and absolutely falling in love with the designs, combat and core gameplay feel. I didn't seem to care or even notice the bad story because I had such a blast with beating the crap out of things. I easily acknowledge the fact that the game is in terrible shape but when I look back on it it's all just a fond memory now

[@NihilHazard]

I remember saying the exact same things with my friends back when Raven and Eve were still newly released characters to the game! Feels like a lifetime ago! I will always love the gameplay in Elsword and the character movesets but almost everything else surrounding it (story, cash shop, community, professions.. etc etc) is so bad that it's hard to want to go back, a real tragedy considering how much of a hidden gem this game is in the areas where it shines.

[@Stratatician]

I've played this game on and off for 7 years now, easily thousands of hours put in, used to be a very active member back on the community "phorums" as they were affectionately called, and it'll forever be one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had playing a game, and it's for the reasons you pointed out. This game, at its core, is great. The combat and dungeons, and general hack n' slash fighting game hybrid gameplay is amazing. However, the amount of predatory monetization, system creep, balance issues, and incredibly questionable design decisions surrounding the core game completely tarnishes the experience. As such an old player it's funny to note that you didn't even get fully through the early game / tutorial yet. Because of all the feature creep the game itself doesn't actually start until you hit the level cap, lvl 99; they basically use the leveling process as the games intro levels. This is also why the dialogue is as atrocious as it is in early on, because they truncated the leveling process by removing a ton of content (each area used to have 5-6 fully fleshed out dungeons, with the early areas even having branching paths), but they needed the story to still make sense. The story itself actually gets much better in the endgame areas but the endgame areas are their own problem. That combat you were praising mostly disappears by the time you reach cap. The reason being is that most enemies by that point end up with absurd amounts of super armor and incredibly high health pools, so the game basically devolves into chugging pots and spamming your best AoEs to kill everything. Still good fun but looses a part of what made the game so special in the first place. The raids later on actually do a little bit to solve this, not so much in bringing back the combo aspect but more so in forcing you to actually respect and play around boss mechanics, platform, dodge attack patterns, plan bursts and freezes, etc. About the paywall. At this point I wouldn't even call the game p2w anymore, but pay to play. The primary way the game monetizes itself is via enhancement events, where the game offers sales on items needed to enhance your equipment. The higher enhancement your equipment gets the less likely enhancing is to succeed, and the more likely it is for your weapon to downgrade, reset, or outright break. People easily spend 100s of dollars just to get one of their armor pieces up to +10 or +11, and if you're trying to upgrade your weapon godspeed with that, I've heard stories of players spending over 1000$ trying to get their weapon to +12 and having nothing to show for it. The reason KoG gets away with this is because areas are gated by Combat Power (CP). Gear from Elrianode onward (basically where KoG says the game really starts) gain additional bonuses the higher the enhancement level is, and as a result you get massive differences in power and cp the higher you go. Most of the content is completely walled off unless you are willing to pay for the gear to have the cp to enter or are a really old player that has been with the game for a very long time (but even us old f2p players are insanely shafted and unable to enter proper endgame itself). This is one of those games that could have truly been something special if it wasn't handled so so poorly, with the fun being monetized out of it. The only reason it hasn't been shut down in NA yet is because of the whales that continue to support the game, and the reason it's still getting updates is because the KR server has always been the devs sole focus.

[@ivanNOcarranooo]

This coment is the best description i have seen of all the main problems of the game. I loved the game so much... what a pitty

[@Phyllo9]

Short story: I wholeheartedly agree. Long rant: This game has so much blood in the water. Late game is walled off via CP. Enchanting equipment is unbearable unless you actively feed the machine your real money to "fix" it once it breaks, and that's only getting started. The other stab wound this game developers gave would be the absolute bloat they gave the monsters. Combos become less and less and the spamming of skills and items become more required to clear areas and bosses. It becomes less and less accessible unless you dedicate your wallet to the game.

[@papervoice977]

As someone who hasn't reached "endgame" ever, I've also noticed problems like these on the on times I've played it. To elaborate further on the dungeon stuff you've said: Even early game dungeons were insanely fun back then. From like Lvl 3 onward you've been somewhat challenged and yes, back then you didn't start the game at Lvl 7 after the Tutorial. The reason probably is, that back then the level cap and thus the endgame was at Lvl 60. The first dungeon, the Tree of EL, I think it was, was the shortest dungeon with 3 areas and 5 sub areas in total iirc. From the second dungeon onward you had three difficulty settings for every dungeon coming with a recommended player count. "Normal" was your solo experience, "Difficult" was recommended for duos and "Epic" was recommended for 3+ people. If you were good, early game dungeons could also be cleared solo on Epic, but it was a challenge and knowing the right time to chug potions was crucial if you really wanted to solo Epic dungeons about Lvl 20. And with rising difficulty, not only did the enemies get tougher overall, the difficulties had different numbers of areas. The Epic difficulty of the dungeon had more areas than the Difficult difficulty which had more than the Normal difficulty. When I had first opened the game back up around 2017, I believe, I immediately felt the loss of the additional difficulties. You no longer chose what difficulty you're feeling today or "I should be in bed... Guess I'll just do a run on normal since it's shorter". The dungeons were shortened and streamlined to the extreme, keeping only the "cool, cinematic" parts of the dungeon, probably. And the short length immediately threw me off. Cool new characters were there, the max level had increased, new regions had been added. But the early game? The stuff that has to reach new players? It totally failed. At least for me. Since then I've opened it up once, maybe twice a year, looked if new characters were there, fooled around a bit, grinded my main up another level or two (which is an Eve on the third class path, meaning lazers and lightning orbs and cool stuff like that) Oh, and the Germans playing this game (one is me) actually have voice over for it. It's fun playing as Eve, killing bosses by face slapping them (3x Light, 1x Heavy) and calling them an insolent fool, basically :D

[@crowtastic7372]

Dude the cp requirements are insane nowadays. The characters that get to enter are literally walking gods and they are still getting one shotted left and right. I think the people that reached this point have put so much time and money into the game that they refuse to stop.

[@ivanNOcarranooo]

@@crowtastic7372 i back a couple of years did too and i have inly soent on the game like 100€ i didnt even own +10 gear, but it is all abou the sunken cost policy

[@gowen7889]

-The biggest problem with this game is the paywall when it comes to the enhancement, reforge, and ice burner system. The enhancement system practically forces you to only have a few enhancement tries every 2 weeks because it doesn't give you both of the necessary items. Enhancement level 8 and above your weapon can break during enhancement so you need a Blessed Restoration Scroll that will take the break instead. If your weapon breaks you're unable to use it at all. The enhancement rate becomes abysmally low as you get to +9, +10, and +11 with a +10 being a lower enhancement rate from +9 to +10 than it is to upgrade it to +11. There is no pity enhancement system. -Reforge is basically a second enhance system to give your armor extra effects. It's relatively easy to acquire the materials because reforging costs 3 of spectral amethysts per chance and it has a pity system. But the main problem is that it has a durability system when you reforge that prevents you from reforging unless you either A, buy an in-game item to restore 10% of the durability or B, pray to god on a possible 1% chance that you get that item from a very hard dungeons to newer players. -ICE BURNERS, a horrible system with no pity but it's basically just a loot box that you can get costumes and costume accessories that will give you a 500% better increase in stats than any of the costume packages you can straight up buy. Most of the items you get from rolling these loot boxes are usually either just mediocre use, or something you'll probably never use. You also CANNOT earn ice burners through any in-game means but you can buy them at the current in-game currency rate which currently is 40 million ED per box. In comparison one of the newer costumes from an ice burner can cost 300-500 million ED. If you do story content from mid game to late game it grants you up to 2-3m per completion so at the end of mid game you'll probably have around 150m to 200m. Another example of one of the many extremely predatory systems this game has to offer.

[@davidlauderdale7147]

Korean games always have the most amazing gameplay mechanics and care for the combat system but when it comes to everything else they just falter. The graphics on this game aren’t even bad; that vintage polygon grit gives texture to the game and matches with how it feels. It’s the reason why ROBLOX feels so fun even though it’s literally just blocks- the simplest form of animation.

[@Kynoss]

Resonating with this one. This was one of my favorite MMOs for exactly the combat/gameplay loop and, like so many others, got turned off by the predatory devs and massive time investments that you were forced into to make progress. A combination plague that constantly rips through very good games.

[@kyotheman69]

only reason i played was the combat, rest of the game was boring and confusing, i didn't really care for the story at all, i wanted too but dev's clearly didn't want me to care at all. Thing turn me off the most is the greed in this game has so much power creep this game is more gross then a lot of mobile games, I rather go play Honkai or Genshin impact then play this game

[@Raterex]

Me: Forgot why I left the game. Also me: Remembers why I left the game. P.S. This looks like a great game to be put in arcades, without the cash shop & long dialogues & equipment management, cus they wanna make it pay to play so much, for a game that is free to download & play.

[@icestick3]

To those who don't played Elsworld back in the day: The starting main story is on third person view because at the time it only composed of 3 character: Els (the supposed to be the MC) and his companions, Aisha (mage) and Rena (Elf) Raven was not supposed to be on that storyline because he is somewhat a boss on the story. Elesis, Els' sister is also the MC of KoG's previous game Grand Chase, coincidentally her companions also consist of a violet colored mage and a blonde elf

[@ShadowCrescent]

Yea, Lire and Arme. Side note: They tried to re-release Grand Chase on Steam, being Grand Chase Classic, but its still the same old thing that it was so long ago... But with a bunch of cheaters lmao.

[@CrazyAlienLady051]

Let's not forget Mari who is pretty much Eve with a hammer and a grimrore. Also I'm pretty sure Laby is an Amy and Jin fan child.

[@soluna1679]

@@ShadowCrescent totally a circus, imagine a grand re-opening without any events and the final login rewards for it was just 10 seal breaker pulls

[@ILoveRedheads_]

Then they also removed like half of the busy work quests last time I came back to the game, I used to play in 2014-15ish , but when I joined back to see how it was this quest where you had to kill a bunch of guys in the 2nd area outside the city to collect stuff wasn't there and leveling up was extremely fast. Made me kinda feel like I did all of the farming from when I first started pointless. (I haven't seen all the vid yet so idk if he goes over it)

[@dezkightz]

Elesis in GC isnt the same Elesis in Elsword tbf, Els was built as a spiritual successor to GC, not a sequel.

[@michaelfung4285]

I have never felt so identified with a game review until now. It really is a shame that the game is so aggressive with it's monetization. I remember playing it for a while when I was 14, leaving it for like 2 years and then coming back only to realize I don't know like half of the systems anymore, because they're all new and confusing. I might try to play again in the future, just for the memories.

[@No0neat]

One thing you probably dont know about (or maybe someone already told ya 'bout it) but this game used to have... Energy. Like stamina. You'd spend a point or two per dungeon room ya went trough and the ammount of stamina you had was pretty small. If it ended you'd have to do one of two things: either wait a day for it to recharge or... Just buy refills for it. And it didn't even refilled all the way neither so yeah. That was fun.

[@sushionaram]

God, i remember playing since start of it in Europe, that was huge anime-stylised game next to Nostale - both got ruined by Gameforge tho. Logged in few days ago to check how game goes now, saw so many new characters and instantly got lost how each class have now 4/5 evolution forms. Most importantly, almost 15 years later if you queue into pvp as 70 level character you still can get matched with 39lvl player.

[@IamaPERSON]

You'd think they would fix the matchmaking by now.

[@thetruestar6348]

Dude I remember when this game only had about three pass per character but only two stages to each of them. I managed to log onto my old account from my 2014 and this UI confuse the hell out of me when I went onto my old characters And I never remember the game being so loud maybe because I have actually good speakers now

[@jtowensbyiii6018]

You can't "fix" matchmaking on a dead game

[@Fuzen.]

PvP is based on rank, not level and that’s perfectly fine like that. I remember when I did a SS rank rush with a level 35 character back when the max level was 60. It was actually satisfying to accomplish because I kept fighting people waaaay above my level. But encountering only people at my level ? That would have been an empty experience. Besides, it would have meant that I got this rank at that level against newbies while keeping it as I level up. That simply wouldn’t make any sense. Basically, if someone is at a given rank, it means that they obtained it. If you’re encountering a lot of low level players, chances are that you are low-ranked yourself so that doesn’t come as a surprise. On the other hand, once you’re S-rank, you rarely encounter players that aren’t max level because those usually steamroll up to this point thanks to the stats difference with lower levels.

[@foxshoot3138]

I was the level 40 rena dabing over my enemies before dabing was a ting xd good times

[@ok_listen]

I remember whales bragging about the fact that they had deals with GMs where these players would sell premium currency in ridiculous huge amounts in exchange for very high costumes drop rate. And if you pointed It out in the chat you risked an account ban. What a fucked up game and company.

[@nman551]

Yeah

[@RumCreamGod]

Whirlzap where u at

[@Kushimi]

wait what? that's seriously a thing? 😟

[@ok_listen]

@@Kushimi yes lol

[@Kushimi]

@@ok_listen and here I thought I can't be more disappointed in this game. the only thing that makes me keep coming back to it is nostalgia at this point XD thank you for the info

[@justint.gunawan807]

Played this for the first time when i was 8 back in 2012, this game is a big part of my childhood. I met a lot of wonderful people here, I'm happy I get to fill my childhood with this game :)

[@whitetober7825]

I'm constantly out of my depth with this game. I played it a long time ago when LuCiel had just come out, I'd never made it any farther than Ruben because my young attention span was shot, but remembered vague facts like Eve and Add being connected somehow with robots, and Ciel having a creepy old man English voice dub. When 2020 came and Covid hit, I got back into the game as a time-killer, and wanted to play as Add because back in the day I thought he was the coolest (next to LuCiel). I started playing his 2nd path to get to Dominator, cuz I'm a sucker for businessmen. And oh my God, my neck nearly snapped from the whiplash this game gave me, and looking back on it - now 2022 finally reaching Dominator at 2:10 on a Monday night/Tuesday morning despite having to work the next day, I'm so damn confused on half the things I experienced within those years of pain and grinding and dialogue. I don't know if this changed, but when I started playing it the dialogue was specifically just Add talking to the npc characters - full of his sass and sarcasm, and it got me through the dialogue incredibly quickly. Was that taken away? No idea. I wanted to get my friends into the game so that I could shamelessly use them to help me clear dungeons faster. I'm always willing to fight my way through play to wins - even if the odds aren't n my favor. And as I was going through, grinding levels with them, I thought I was trippin when I realized "Wow, a bunch of dungeons and stuff I fought are gone." I almost thought I just hallucinated them since it had been a while. I remembered specifically William being gone, Underground Garden because I struggled there and because I thought the bosses looked cool, and Heart of Spire because it was one of the first times I'd had to use so many damn revives in a dungeon - that flying bastard instilled such an exhaustion in me it left me scarred. BURNING HOPE BRIDGE, I got tossed around by that fire clown so much, and when I got to Veldar with my friend and didn't see it I thought I was trippin'. Sunken Resiam was another one, as well as the Frozen Temple - funny enough the ones that got cut were the ones I remembered the most, and honestly looked forward to when playing again with my friends despite the pain of when I first played. Heart of the Ancient Waterway, I hated Victor - whenever he would do his scream or whatever and start punching it would piss me off, dunno why. I also remembered Garpai Rock, I'm not sure if I struggled in this dungeon, but I thought the boss was cool and the music slapped. I'm by no means good at this game, I'm extrordinarily awful at it. I'm the type of person who's somewhat down to read a lot of lore - just for the satisfaction of saying "I kinda know the plot" - and the combat kept me on my feet with my erratic button mashing, but I wish I could replay those dungeons now that I feel feigning superority at reaching Dominator after a good couple years of not truly knowing wtf I was doing. I played this game for the characters and the nostalgia, I don't know what makes a game good or bad or what's going on at any point in time with the updates - I'm someone who laughs at the pain a game brings me - but I will say this video was really funny and I agree on so much of it, and ty for doing a review of it. sorry for writing a novel, whoever dares read all this

[@karakaaa3371]

This game was so fun. There's just something special about being a cute robot girl blasting a room of enemies with giant laser beams. Its a shame they slowly added so many systems that I couldn't keep up, even after spending a few hundred dollars.

[@pocket5783]

Cant forget the best Eve combo The bitchslap

[@carlogustavovalenzuelazepe5774]

@@pocket5783 defeating people in pvp with the slap was straight disrespect cuz how laggy the slap was

[@PoptartParasol]

@@pocket5783 💀💀 oh my god I forgot about that

[@AddGaming.]

Oh yes. Finally. I'm interested in what Josh has to say about my childhood~ Edit: Video is now over. Totally agree. The moment he said "if you are a long-time player this will totally make sense to you" and showed the different screens... Ok, I played this when the EU servers got online in the early 2010s for around 3 years and I honestly could only recognize 1 or 2 systems presented. I also felt like Josh didn't experience Elsword at all. When I actively played the game you needed 2 days' worth of stamina to get to the point where he was in the end. And that is if you know what you were doing. The reason was that dungeons were a actually big thing. You had all these branching ways to explore inside one and late dungeons like Nasord-Core (the one with the big "environmental" boss from the video) took a newbie around 20 mins at first. This is why there was a title that you got if you managed to beat the dungeon in under 10 minutes which was actually a great feat! I kinda feel sad that he could not experience the dungeons at their best since this was the part he enjoyed the most...

[@deadass849]

me too this game was my introduction to both anime and mmo's no wonder i'm such a failure lmao

[@lusterlessnova3199]

I'm not Josh, but it probably sucked.

[@AddGaming.]

@@lusterlessnova3199 Sadly I think it will... I tried it again 2 years ago and it's not like in the old days... So many bad changes :(

[@gmann215]

Not only did they shorten a lot of early dungeons, they removed most of them too. Look at how they massacred Ruben, Elder, and Feita. Did you know Ruben used to have a secret dungeon at one point? They even removed the stories associated with job class changes, so you lose the context of how the character gets their upgrades. Wanna learn why Raven becomes a Blade Master or Reckless Fist? You can't do that in game, gotta go to the wiki.

[@thetruestar6348]

@@gmann215 Wait what the fuck why did they remove the stories for job changes that was so cool that they had that

[@revxl722]

Never thought I'd see a sizable YT channel reviewing the shitty game I spent wayyyy too much time on as a kid (and even now off and on) I love and hate this game so much. Watching him play is so entertaining. Bro didn't even realize that he wasn't using a majority of the skills he acquired and was just using the base skills throughout his whole playthrough. He also didn't interact with a majority of the other things you can do in the game up until the point that he ended on. Nothing wrong with any of that at all all it's just funny watching it.

[@kasane1337]

Seriously, maining Raven and playing him for ages messed up my brain, as seeing him play Raven using YYY and NOT following it up with sprint-jump-Y caused me mental pain every time.

[@cheriimeme]

Elsword Vet here! Used to play this game back when there were only 3 characters avalible, and the max cap was around 40-44? If I remember right! I'm not going to lie, the game back then brought so much amazement and more involvement than anything I could ever imagine, being there for the new characters events like Raven and Eve being enimies with boss fights was a blast till they stopped that. To involving Chung and his main story line and so forth. Honestly, back then it really did bring a lot to the tabel and was 100% worth the grind!! I stopped playing by the time that Add came out due to irl events, only then to come back with Lu/Ciel and Rose. But even then it was short lived. During the new whole "3rd path's unlocked!" that sparked my curiosity on going back and palying this game, but again that was short lived. Then the whole Transedence, and so forth. I grinded this game for a great 8+ years, and it slowly evolved into less of a grind but more of a bore fest that'll never improve or become just as great as it once was. Personally, I will say this as well, Aura Kingdom was well worth the grind and peeked my interest a lot more than Elsword ever could, but even then I left that game shortly after losing interest too. I really miss old games like these and sadly, Elsword used to bring such joy to my day. I miss having that perfect game I can grind to, be excited on achiving the maxed level, and just overall be able to enjoy my time. Games no adays aren't worth it.

[@CrazyAlienLady051]

Rena I understand but, I never understood why characters like Chung, Lu/Ciel and Rose get put in the game when the game is all about combos. weird to have characters who are shooters in a comboing game. Also Laby is so easy to play because she auto fries and finishes her combos automatically.

[@cheriimeme]

@@CrazyAlienLady051 True that the game is about combos, but the game is also about a variety of weapons. Obviously you got Elsword, and and his sister who weld swords, Aisha with her magic, Rena an archer and close combat techniques, Raven sword and Nasod arm, Eve 2 servant drones, Chung with a cannon, and Obviously I'm pretty sure you get the picture at that point. When it comes to any mmorpg styled games, they want to have a variety on weapon choices and character designs as well. If anything they did actually a good job coming up with different weapons and including them in with combos. I've recently gotten back into the game and tried out Laby as well, she really is easy especially when you do go against a final boss. 3 or less moves will knock him out and man, all I can think about was how I used to die 6-7 times just to solo kill 1 boss or still end up dying 2-3 times in a party of 4.

[@rukawasang1122]

I used to play when it were only 3 charactor available too! I remember quite well how much patient I dedicated to reach lv40 and how much diffucult to finish altera core(last stage at that time) within 8 min just for getting title. That time lv40 is max cap. In my opinion, having only 3 charactors is best balance.

[@juanfernandocastroreyna478]

@@rukawasang1122 To me the game reach its climax with the lvl 60 cap it wasnt its best but still workd and was really fun, and then the raid bosses, at first they were fresh and legendary equipment was something exciting to obtain, but then everything started to going downhill on all the game systems, difficulty, re-runs wise and p2win elements, it really was slowly going off at least for me.

[@Monkey36044]

I stopped when this piece of shit called Elysium came out... what a pile of garbage. The bosses were overtuned with super armor so badly they couldnt be beaten anymore with pure skill. Plus their mechanics werent fun, they were just plainly annoying (still having ptsd of this stupid child in a flying weelchair spamming his map spanning lasers for an eternity...) The new characters rose and ... laby was it idk. Were boring or plainly annoying. The stat categories were split up into smaller sections for whatever reason... all in all it was garbage

[@ev1lmonkee999]

I never thought he would do a review on Elsword... You need to do a review on MapleStory at some point if you want to keep going with the side-scroller genre. I'm genuinely curious what your opinions would be.

[@misrmist]

he should do vindictus

[@tokagerakos]

I wanted to suggest maplestory too since I see it in most of his video intros, although I never did, thinking how it could fit the structure of the videos or if it would make for a good content

[@Thatonedude917]

I do and don't want to see Dungeon Fighter Online

[@ejokurirulezz]

If he ever manages to get past the 20 minute wait at character selection.

[@kishi5672]

He played the game for 8 hours without replacing the base skills. Pretty impressive lol

[@dezkightz]

not really lmao

[@michaelc.r.6416]

To be fair the game never tells you in a proper maner how to change your skills.

[@isus7626]

@@michaelc.r.6416 yeah i kinda i agree with you cuz when i first time played this game i didn't know anything i just stand at feild and kill monsters the game doesn't explain shit

[@holyknight70]

I mean, seeing how this is a sequel, not I never played because they pissed me off when they killed grandchase, but if you played the original game in it's later life then you would've assumed there were multiple skills

[@dezkightz]

@@holyknight70 Elsword isnt a sequel, its a spiritual successor, theres a huge difference

[@NeinKyori]

The grindwall/paywall starts at Varnimyr (the 12th region) where difficulty spike up massively and you're forced to pay/grind to catch up or burn through your daily 10 ressurection attempts. Before that, the game is actually very f2p friendly for casual player. You're given free equipment sets, free poition and consumable just by progressing with the storyline. So much poitions in fact it start to clog up your inventory tab if you try to hoard it. Even free currency (ED) is given plenty through main story quest. It's a much better newcomer experience compare to a few years ago where you had to grind everything that they given you for free now. So yeah, if you a casual player with no interest in late game grinding and bosses that 1shot you, you have 11 regions, about 2/3 of the game story and dozens of gameplay hours to play with each of 14 characters and their 3 paths of unique gameplay mechanics and cool skills. P/s: you have 15 character slots limit, but character slots can be bought for half the ED you gained through just playing main quest

[@juanfernandocastroreyna478]

Still, to the rest of the players who want the whole grind its just toxic, i would try it again just for the memories but in know it will never be the same again.

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

If it makes you feel any better, Josh, I too have a show I watched as a kid that NOBODY, not even the internet, knows about. I was living abroad at the time, probably somewhere in the Middle East, and we were watching some of the generic dubbed kid's shows that happened to be in English. One of the channels regularly featured a fantasy show that I *think* was based either in Australia or in New Zealand? But I couldn't tell you because while the accents were off enough that they didn't sound like they were from America or Canada, I don't think they sounded like they were from the UK either. The show was a parallel world, the main character was a teenage angst boy and either his friends or family members who were transported to a weird fantasy world. In this fantasy world they haven't invented gunpowder, instead they had this really weird over the top electrical suit of armor called a "Thundersuit" or something. The characters could draw energy from the suit and use it to shoot balls of lightning at each other either for nonlethal duels or as an actual weapon. The plot revolved around this kid trying to find his way home, the girl he meets who's native, and the insurgents who are interested in the strange explosive substance from the real world called gunpowder. And that's all I remember. No amount of me actually typing up this show on the internet has allowed me to actually find it, which is a shame. I actually am curious where the show went, esepcially since there's a section when the kid brings a Thundersuit home with him to the real world and uses it to deal with a couple of punks who mocked him for wearing what looked like a weird wireframe tesla coil.

[@fadillah6014]

How about the character do you know their name? Is 2d or 3d? Which date that show aired? Perhaps you remember artstyle looks like so we can tell from where this show come from, I might able find what you looking for because the plot quite familiar for me and I feel your pain I'm also looking old show I barely able remember is name.

[@SomeGuy-fi3ot]

Pretty sure this is Spellbinder, which was a great show.

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

@@fadillah6014 Was a live action show.

[@kerianhalcyon2769]

@@SomeGuy-fi3ot Holy crap I think you're right! You have no idea how long I've been looking for this!

[@AliveByMind]

Played that for quite a few years. I love the gameplay and pvp (still miss those some days), but eventually quit because the grind was just too unrewarding... one day, I spent 8h farming for something non-stop (I think it was called eltier, it was some stones for endgame gear). After all that grind, I checked my inventory only to learn that I got absolutely nothing out of that grind. No eltier worth using or selling, just less potions in my inventory. No progress at all, in 8h. Those 8h were as productive as staring at a wall for 8h. Something just clicked, and that's when I quit the game and deleted my account. Made me value my time more when it comes to enjoying games with grind.

[@serpentofdays]

I'm always sad watching Elsword be roasted. It still remains the only MMO to truly catch my attention as the gameplay is more than mindless repetitive button-clicking and occasionally moving to dodge- It's a full, actually engaging, beat-em-up system! It had so much potential, and it's only gotten more and more p2w, bloated and predatory. I started about the time Elesis' HP management job line was added (don't remember the name. Crimson Knight? Crimson Queen? something like that), and played until around when Ain was finished. I really wish this game was worth returning to.

[@soluna1679]

its mindless button spamming with swarm of 100% potions they giving out every event, people just enter dungeon individually, smash that 300 mp skill as much as possible, drink 100% pot and you good for another 300mp skills

[@gigikun1]

did you ever try dungeon fighter online

[@mellog1512]

@@gigikun1 I play it from time to time and from what I’ve played i can say it has the same issues as elsword. The core gameplay Is fun, beating up the enemies with skills and combining those skills together Is awesome to me it’s like playing a fighting game. But everything around the core gameplay just grates me.

[@catch.22]

@@gigikun1 DFO is pay to win, but I worked for the developer, and love it.

[@ItsJustKaya]

Ngl I am happy about me leaving the game before it went to p2w. Like I've started when Raven was realesed and stopped after the next max lvl cap. (The next after 80). To more precise 2 months after ADD and his diabolic line. So I kinda have good memories, especially the ones I made with my guild.

[@Sk88p]

This really does make me miss Void Elsword. The only private server where i had almost all characters aailable during the time to lvl 99 (except for Rena and Aisha, as the did not appeal to me). It was just allot of fun to do. Raven, Eve, Elesis, and Ain were my favorites. Ain and Elesis were my favorite though. Bt then that server ended i stopped playing too.

[@angelsunez301]

SAME, I MISS VOID ELSWORD SO MUCH :(

[@spiritsong4026]

Does anyone know why void ended? I didn't play void because I didn't want to start a new character but once elsword started getting me mad I wanted to try out void but I was too late.

[@heymayday8761]

​@@spiritsong4026i know your comment is old but! copyrighting claims, i believe. or something like that.

[@slime-time]

@@spiritsong4026 like the person above me said, it was shut down on the basis of copyright, but to get more specific i believe it was because void was able to get and translate updates from the kr servers EARLIER than na got them officially. so they were just being better in every single way and that's when they had to step in and stop it

[@sutishati9503]

​@@spiritsong4026Now we have Els Rift. It's a new private server from this year.

[@slime-time]

I think most of the people still playing Elsword now will agree that 1) yes, it is pay-to-win unless you want to grind away literal months of your life (since quests are time locked) and 2) it's not going to draw in new players anymore. it's living off of people too far down the rabbit hole and people coming back for nostalgia, which is why they gutted so much of the early game and assume everyone will know how to use all of the systems. I remember when Lanox was the final area, the level cap was 70, and everyone could get there pretty easily. Now the end game areas are just a ton of bosses that will one shot you with no warning and power level requirements that you, as a f2p, will never be able to reach. Sucks seeing a game I loved as a kid turn out this way :(

[@backitup5954]

Majority of the playerbase is most likely people who whale the game tbh.

[@regalus99]

Played most of the characters in the game and the most fun I had was with Lu/Ciel. The sheer amount of combos you can do considering you're basically playing two characters at once with their own combos each and switching between them is absolutely euphoric. It's a shame that it's become no more than a money sink for the whales that remain than anything else. You do more progress not playing the game for months then coming back for the 'welcome back' bonus than you do actually playing in those few months.

[@kasane1337]

My most fun with Lu/Ciel was honestly calling that character "Marx/Engels" and giving them both beard cosmetics.

[@nopenope3833]

I like how you tried to beat the game in hard mode without using any skills past your first class advancement

[@goreobsessed2308]

Sounds like a great challenge

[@lopog3865]

@@goreobsessed2308 Difference between a challenge and when you KNOW you will get fucked up bruh come on now kid shit aint that simple

[@Takaroku.]

I did that, took me 2 days lol. Ez

[@dezkightz]

bro why is everyone saying this it's genuinely free as fuck to do this (given you have the CP to get into the dungeon

[@travisz978]

The game hits this breaking point where you either grind for hours for gold to buy things from people who spend money on the game. Or you spend money on the game

[@MaxwelloftheClocktower]

Josh you aren't alone, I watched Raven almost religiously as a kid and seeing that dude brought me back so many memories

[@destineedavila906]

If you open the quest log, they have an option at the top to not activate “quest events” aka the dialogue. That way you can get the quest rewards without droning on. The story quests are how you get the biggest chunks of ED early on.

[@acedianihil8208]

lot like ff14 really, tired of seeing all the cutscenes, every, single, time? hit escp and skip. sad thing is thats a terrible way to keep people interested in anything.

[@tadaokou4919]

@@acedianihil8208 Not at all like FF14. Even if you think FF 14's story from Lv. 1-50 is bad, it at least is mostly presented well. It's not insufferable as Elswords main story...it's just boring. And even that is a pretty subjective thing.

[@_zealos_8213]

@@tadaokou4919 I beg to differ, but in a funny way. I started in Limsa Lominsa and the story was hard to follow, because I couldn't understand what the heck they were saying to me. That is until I started reading everything like the most stereotypical Irish man with the THICKEST accent. But yeah, FF14 story is great lol.

[@tadaokou4919]

@@_zealos_8213 Well, I honestly think ARRs story is presented in a pretty boring way and the whole part between ARR and HW is extremly dreadful. But it's still miles better than anything in terms of story in Elsword (I'm saying that as someone who played both for years). Just wish they would redo the voice work for ARR and maybe shorten the story even more because there are still some strange filler parts in there which drag the whole experience down...

[@cloudwolf3972]

As brazillian, its funny to see this review and all the cons about the game management and monetization. Here in Brazil we had a very close relationship with the developer of this game, KoG, since the antecessor to Elsword(Grand Chase) was the top 1 online game in Brazil for over 3 years in a row back in 2008. This year they re-released Grand Chase and brazillian players flooded the servers, every other region had 1/2 servers while Brazil had 7+ servers, all full. Like Rockstar did recently with GTA, they release the game half baked, no effort in fixing anything, with pretty much all the same issue the game had before, all the hacks that existed when they shutdown the servers were still working and they didn't gave a fuck to the brazillian playerbase since they did not provided regionalized prices for microtransactions(which were already pricy in USD). They also release the game with only 4 characters available, even tho the game already had 20 characters, just so they can hold content to release every 1/2 months. So yeah, fuck KoG. The game peaked at 80k players and now sits on 3-4k average. Hope to see an video on Ragnarok Online(dev by Gravity), but you probably gonna miss a lot of the issues of the game which is all the servers around the world are years behind the korean server in content, especially the brazillian that is almost 1 decade behind.

[@Gutigwolfe]

Least you have a decade of content to catch up on...

[@cloudwolf3972]

@@Gutigwolfe People already played through this decade of content in private servers, and the releases are so slow that players spend more time waiting than playing content.

[@Gutigwolfe]

@@cloudwolf3972 ya, I was just trying to be funny by how ridiculous youre that far behind. I get 1 or 2 years, as many times thats how long they take to localize the games. The fact Brazil has to wait twice as long as that sounds crappy.

[@obananagato]

Thank god i quitted Ragnarok in 2008

[@Cailan_Mors]

@@cloudwolf3972 how the hell did it get a decade behind?

[@NintenBound]

10 years of this game and I'll NEVER, NEVER stop loving the earrape of when you complete multiple quests/login lmao

[@hydrashii]

I played this incredibly hard for a while, to the fact that I'd go to sleep and basically have the thing playing in my mind. However I remember I got very tired because the moment you lose the initial costume (which on top of all is the character's official, design clothes) the drop in stats is SO big it got really hard to get through dungeons and given that you had to repeat them a lot of runs to advance, and it got extremely hard to enjoy when it didn't even feel like fun difficulty, it just felt like I was missing important gear

[@hilma8073]

This one hurts because I played this game SO much back in the day... But, there really is a reason I stopped. And there's a good reason why all the sparring rooms, which used to be filled with all sorts of rooms for both battling and chatting, are gone. I love the character designs and the general vibe of the game-- Add was and still is one of my favorite characters, and I adore what they did with Eve's new third path. But... The game isn't fun. There was a point where they made everything so difficult late game that you HAVE to pay money if you want meaningful progress any time soon and the co-op aspect is just dead. I played it a month ago or so to test out the new Eve and there's just nobody at all in the early dungeons. It feels so lifeless.

[@TheDevilsGreatestTrick]

If you're talking about Solace in late game, I'm with you. But you are right though--I kinda missed the old sparring room shenanigans. 🤣

[@XenoLimit]

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 lol you don't, the only reason it's classified mmo is because of the amount of people that can play the game at the same time. At most, say in Raid, you'll have up to 8 players, otherwise you'll mostly be in teams of 4 or solo

[@Lusuo]

I miss spar room so much man, the amount of fun 8 people can have on one screen for hours was magic

[@xxcu83xxxx4]

@@Lusuo yep the sparring rooms were the best! Haven’t seen that in any game since then. Oh well …

[@sk4dic]

I was super excited seeing you Reviewed Elsword. I really wanted to know what the "new player experience" is like. And it seems like it does a much worse job than even Warframe at introducing and teaching its systems. I think the most jawdropping part of this is that Elsword apparently doesn't explicitly tell you about the skill window. (Shortcut 'K') Literally the most core part of dungeon gameplay isn't even directly taught about. That's insanity.

[@pfinks7889]

What they also do not talk about, but it's really important for evading upcoming attacks against enemies or just to BE faster: Dash canceling

[@elohasdied]

I believe it was taught before, early years of the game before they revamped tutorial and forgot to include it i guess

[@NeoAnything]

After watching a few of your videos, this one hits badly. I've played this game for 10 years, and I was expected you to demolish that game during the critics section. But you've been empathetic, and you do understood what we're here for. When you said that you get it, that you see what we like, I felt a bit chocked up, because it's almost as if even the players forgot why we kept playing in the first place, we're just addicted & producing moneys for KoG & gameforge at this point, which is extremely sad. Luckily I've stopped playing this game, but damn, it feels good & bad for people, especially with some level of expertise, relating to you & actually liking the game, even though it's so bad yet so good. Thanks mate

[@Enjury]

le boss

[@NeoAnything]

@@Enjury OSKUR

[@Xeroskia]

I played this game when it beta tested and then released. It was incredibly fun and interactive combat with a top notch and exciting comic book aesthetic, and quite possibly the smoothest 2.5D action mmo gameplay of the time at that point in time. Heck, I even played some weird knock off, that I can't remember if it came out before or after the game's beta or release, called "Fists of Fu" if anyone remembers that, and even enjoyed my short time with that even though it wasn't a real comparison, quality-wise. The concept at the time was just so refreshing and interesting. The gameplay was so good it was really something to behold, despite the repetitiveness of the dungeons and barren identity of story and quests. And I watched it all get better and better as new characters release, up until a certain point, w3hich i want to say was about Elesis release or sometime after the huge gameplay overhaul update after Add's release, I forget. But the decline was sharp and quick and the gameplay made players feel less like skilled and strategized dungeon crawling and more like and overpowered mobile game hero clearing entire rooms with single attacks and speedrunning everything while cheapening the feel and impact of skills by making them more generalized. It was truly sad. A real shame. The music still goes crazy though. I truly hope a game like Elsword is done again under different management or a different identity. 2D mmo action platformers are a genre that has too easily fallen to more mobile-game like tendencies and faulty, non-strategic gameplay loops. There's games like Maplestory, LaTale, Elsword, and a few more obscure games of the past like these that started out with fantastic, engaging gameplay and over time devolved into a fest of large numbers, predatory power systems, and screen wide abilities, as people speedrun to whatever garbage the end is because I certainly stopped caring to see it at that point with how dull and brainless it became as incredibly unnecessarily high power spikes and money-driven upgrades made it pointless. I hope the genre doesn't continue to be treated this way someday.

[@toukoenriaze9870]

anytime you say something like that everyone dogpiles you for being nostalgic when it was just objectively better and they want to defend their game

[@Chibi_Devanam]

Spent 5 years on it (3800h+). It was my absolutely favorite game till devs started to make questionable decisions in my opinion. Once you reach end-game, Els is losing all it's shine. This entire combat you managed to love so much (and so did I) will be absolutely meaningless, since all about skill spam. Skill, MP potion, another skill, another kind of MP potion, skill, yet another MP potion, skill and repeat till you clear. Consider notorious skill spam mixed with endless grind. Boring. Also the most ridiculous thing is unfair RNG Enhancement system in this game, yet developers doesn't feels like revamping it since it's their main source of money. Els was really great but devs completely wasted it's potential.

[@yuki04x50]

Elsword used to be the best game, but now it's ging more downhill. I've played the game again since 2-3 weeks, but I was dissapointed. That game used to be a challenge but now it's boring

[@mystrallsnowlight]

Imagine you going to +10 and boom. Reset, or even worse your Boss drop weapon break too Its to +10, not +13 omg

[@fravalle8543]

@@mystrallsnowlight +9to+11 dont reset tho -.-

[@mystrallsnowlight]

@@fravalle8543 it was but years ago, Like... When Indonesian server still exist

[@Ryan-pg1tw]

maybe you should express yourself more respectful about the devs

[@taji6826]

hi, yes the gameplay is very addictive, hence many boomer players still stick around. however, let me address your p2w concerns: the game is heavily p2w, not in early-mid game, though (thats ironically honestly the most fun part about the game). resurrection stones are obtainable in item mall via in game currency but the game doesn't tell you and instead tells you to pay real money instead lol. youll honestly have lots of fun until you realize that endgame gear has insane ED (in game currency) sink and requires you to purchase chlorite seeds (1 dollar item from item mall) in order to progress which is crazy. sure, you can buy it off other players, but at the end of the day someone has to pay for it with real money. oh and enhancement... boy shall we get into that one. there used to be a way to enhance your gear as a f2p easier, got revamped and now you literally cannot do it without having someone paying, such a shame. you could literally go from +7 to +10 (in real money if you buy an amulet that upgrades you to +10 costs ~70 usd?) before this revamp. latest enhancement event was very disappointing as well. less items to enhance and stuff. maybe this'll improve later... i don't have much hope. another p2w thing - gacha costumes and dungeon keys. gacha costumes make a pretty big difference down the line and can set you back several hundreds of dollars if you're unlucky. 0.something-3% chance to get a piece, lmao. dungeon keys let you enter dungeons that have a few free daily tries. if you wanna grind for the latest farm title, paying for keys is necessary. maybe ~300 usd for the title btw. again, you don't need to pay. doesn't mean someone else isn't going to. trust me, this game has A LOOOOOT of whales. about other stuff - balance is absolute crap. one class does so much more than another. you know the noah guy? celestia is one of the classes that literally lets you avoid endgame raid mechanics. with a single button he lets you take 70% less damage from the boss letting you bypass damage thatd normally kill you. not only that but he also gives free resources to the whole party alongside dealing damage. most classes are not like that. same with the very high DPS classes - they deal insane amounts of damage and still have little to no downsides. people will tell you it's ok, no it's not. i've been playing this one class for several years now and recently they released a new class for the same character. she does EVERYTHING better. what else is there to do than classchange? oh wait, classchange costs 44 dollars. some people will just gear her up from a ground up and that can cost you up to 1k usd. no joke, its super expensive to gear up a character in this game. you either win or lose at character select screen about cosmetics, the ones in item mall are literally just for looks. you can get a few of the best pets from event dungeons (sadly, timegated), same with costumes and other customizables. although, if you decide to pay for some old poses or accessories, they can go up to as high as 200+ usd, a kidney or don't even exist anymore. el resonance = endless level up system after lv99, eventually also gives very little bonuses for how much time you spend. 2+ hours per level without events at 300+ if your EXP gain isn't high. this game is very hard to play without checking guides from other players i agree. anyways, if you wanna try the game, do it, it's free and fun at its core. don't get too deep into the rabbit hole. there's always more but i don't wanna leave an insanely long comment LMAO...

[@aerostrafe1075]

The class balance hurts my soul so much. I remember playing Ain's third path. The darkness one Herrscher and then they decided it was time to do wide sweeping nerfs under the guise of "PVE balance". My dude was hit so hard that he could not even solo secret dungeons at the time. They had to then revert a lot of the nerfs slightly because it was so fucking hard. They then conveniently added new content where you can strive for better weapons and stuff. The devs are awful. Now I just plan to play for Chung and Ain's 4th path when they release. Not going for endgame at all though. I just want their gameplay.

[@taji6826]

@@aerostrafe1075 HR is actually very strong now but they do kinda just roll a dice every balance patch... lol

[@aerostrafe1075]

@@taji6826 I can't really go back now. Waiting for Chung 4th job path to come out so I can use the returning hero. I have quit the game though.

[@whodistoodis]

The use of "she" when referring to the new character that was recently released invalidating your own character sounds like the pain of a fellow Code: Sariel main.

[@tyu3164]

I agreed with most of what u say but class changing into another path that is considered better is just bandwagoning which really is ur own choice if u care about power over gameplay.

[@CannibalismActs]

I have never stopped playing Elsword since 2016. I tried to stop playing it a while ago, but it only took me a few months to get back into it. Since despite leaving it I am still aware of its updates and events. Despite everything I've had to do, all the hard hours of playing in all this time, I have made surprising progress. There really is no game that I could like as much as Elsword. I may hate it too, but it's definitely my favorite game. Also, I love the idea of ​​my partner playing and his character being mine's boyfriend. I love taking photos of them together, drawing them and just seeing them. I think it's too cute

[@khoado9512]

When the enhancement level of weapon that is considered "normal" went from the free +5 and +7 to the paywalled +9 and now +11, you just know its time to quit.

[@hayharut]

you know what i really appreciate about you Josh? whenever you make these videos and point out all the flaws to the game, you shine a BIG spotlight over all the things the game does right, not only does it contrast well with your criticisms and make them more impactful, it also shows how you make these videos authentically from good faith keep up the good work

[@Megasder]

You know that a game has cool looking attacks when Josh thinks that a player skill is a boss attack (22:38) (yes, it was the other player skill XD)

[@addcarl1]

dangg i remember playing this way back when this was still popular. it was fun learnng the most optimized combo for pvp and pve

[@TheBmann10]

I will never forget when I got the loot “Wally’s trousers” with the description “these are the trousers that Wally wore.” Dark souls level descriptions there.

[@arthuremo112]

They really did this game dirty over the years, i swear this game did not used to be this easy. They removed so much stuff from it, hey removed almost half the amount of missions each map has and made leveling a brain dead experience. I guess they fell into the trap of making leveling easy for the tryhard players who don't consider it to be part of the game, they consider it to be a chore or something to get out of the way fast in order to get to the REAL GAME. It's a shame, i love this game so much but it became a little unbearable over time.

[@KennKuun]

That "real game" part hit hard. It feels like at this point, the endgame is all that matters for an MMO. Early game MMO difficulty is practically nonexistent now and It's rare to find MMOs that don't design their early game thoughtlessly to be blasted through like a chore. But Elsword and Closers break that mold (or at least did at some point in their lives) and end up being a lot of fun. I remember playing Closers and I have the exact same issues with it that Josh has here: the gameplay is fantastic throughout the ENTIRE game, but the extra systems and monetization schemes reek of trying to harpoon my wallet and end up turning me away. And that really hurt, because the game underneath was amazing. The entire time I was lamenting the fact that the game wasn't designed and released as a buy-once single-player or co-op hack and slash game, because if it was, I think it'd have been one of my favorite games. Same with Elsword. Neither of those games should have been a F2P MMO.

[@randomstuff-qu7sh]

I've seen that with MMOs also; the experience starting a MMO when its still fairly new vs when its been out a few years is like day and night. It seems like at some point, the devs or publishers decide they just want to rush everyone to the end game ASAP. It seems especially bad in heavily monetized games, probably because the end game PvP is where the $ is.

[@Ryan-pg1tw]

maybe you should express yourself more respectful about them

[@holyknight70]

Still did the first game even dirtier.

[@Nickkelz]

I've played this game hundreds if not a thousand hours. Perfect review. The story seems like a mess because the character you play "joins in" later at the story as you noticed. You played pretty much the best bits of the game where, as you said, difficulty is gradual through mechanics. The more you progress the more the game starts to throw platforming and combos out of window as levels grow flatter with piles enemies that exist just to be farmed by the player. Much like Path of Exile, it evolves from an enganging and slightly tactical game into speedrunning game where you hit skills just to watch things die.

[@iJackSparrow]

Very accurate.

[@yankoenguyen6398]

this might be controversial but i liked the MP pot spamming meta as a Knight Emperor main, i felt like im a sword master chaining skills as combo, it felt great to me. tho it really made the command combos completely useless, except of some mobility ones.

[@tsei9227]

Well you do have a fair amount of difficulty in PoE depending on builds, which, by the way you don't have in Elsword, there's no unique playstyle even with all the new gear they keep releasing (which by the way just gives you different stats, nothing game-changing or mechanical) Comparing this to Path of Exile though and I have maybe 15k hours into Els across different servers, feels like an insult to the efforts GGG makes to actually maintain a good game, gives players fun, mostly-balanced, up-to-date skills that just make sense. For the most part the speedrunning thing is extremely accurate though../10

[@Nickkelz]

@@tsei9227 I didn't mean to say PoE is a bad game, but I feel like that game goes through a similar cycle. PoE's early game feels very immersive with zombies here and there and small tribes of cannibals chasing you. You need to _kill to survive_, a theme which is referred to a lot in dialogue. In later content enemies are in huge tight packs just to be killed. The game becomes intentional; "kill this, now go here and kill these guys", much like Elsword's level design. The game gives problems but it's not up to the player's imagination to solve; everything is designed to killed in one hit as fast as possible so the player is just going through the motions. Difference is that PoE can actually throw the player off of the repetitiveness with exciting drops, complex combat mechanics and massive character customization.

[@UFOToaster]

I really enjoyed the early to close endgame dungeons,they were fair and fun to play. Also was the only enjoyment i managed to get from Elsword,taking my character all the way up to 3rd job and getting to know their mechanics. Guess i can't do that anymore since KoG said "Early game is a bore,endgame tear farming for a set that'll be viable for like a region is waaay more fun" Yes,getting to 99 is way more easier nowadays,but it just gets you faster to the boring endgame grind...If there are players that enjoy the mindles repetitive grind,i'm fine with that,personally i just wanna have fun and when the rollercoaster ride only lasts like 4-5 hours,i really have no reason to play anymore...

[@Raddimann]

I played back when there were only 3 characters and it was fun. All these overbearing mechanics were added with time and the game became more and more overcomplicated with them. They even rearranged the desert town and cut my favourite field, the cannon right after.

[@MatheusNery123]

It's actually really fun to see someone starting in Elsword! I started played it in 2009/2010 (when there was only de Korean server, still log in there some times), and to see that a lot of the pointed flaws about gane mechanics get better as you get into the end of the game is really frustrating, cause not everybody is willing to play for about 10 hours until they get the good stuff

[@hopeatlast9617]

Man... I remember these good old days (still in middle school) when I played Eve Code Battle Seraph (The newest second form at the time before Chung got his) while solo-ing most dungeons, trying to finish the entirety of the Nasod Core in under 10 minutes because I actually had good enough gear. I had fun. Then I started going to High School, played Dofus, Wakfu (These two are french MMORPGs that are still up to this day, go search it up) etc etc... Years after stopping, out of curiosity, I came back (maybe 2 years ago) and I just grinded the dungeons in 2 days and arriving at lvl 80 (I think it was the current level cap) with the new character that dropped (with all the "Returning hero" rewards making me an invincible killing machine with my reflexes being pretty good at the time) and I remember thinking "Man... Nostalgia can't even save this one for me... I'm sad..." So many things changed, so many new forms, so many new characters that I don't even remember. I still remember my cute Chung that looked like a pretty boy, me loving Lu/Ciel because of the mechanic that I found so cool (And Ciel was the first time I looked at a fictional man and said "Damn, I love him"), my Sakra Devanam Ara Haan just wreaking havoc without any trouble in Dungeons and myself being soooo hyped when Elysis came out because I was GENUINELY interested in Elsword's story. I just grew out of it... Saw the remains of this game and thought : I miss being a stupid boy that didn't know any better. This whole game got ruined by greed... And I'm not even mad. Just deeply disappointed. To those that still enjoy the game to this day, I salute you. Because even if I tried, I wouldn't play this game anymore.

[@desert_sam9651]

I miss playing lunatic psycher in pvp and relentlessly punching the hell out of every Elsword main I came across

[@adelblank7363]

man the pvp was so fun when your skill could actually match gears and the community wasn't absolute trash.... i have so much memories and i tried going back times and times but hey.... just as you said it just dissapoints everytime , man we had a blast

[@magnatcleo2043]

@@adelblank7363 I remember something fun about pvp against players over my level, since I used Chung and had a knockdown attack that was unavoidable if the enemy was in range. So if I wasn't feeling confident, I'd just run and use that attack when the enemy got too close. Since the pvp decides who wins based on hp, I'd win as long I could keep my distance. Sadly it didn't work on that crazy psychic guy. He was too fast for me.

[@adelblank7363]

@@magnatcleo2043 LMAOOOO must have been frustrating playing against you

[@SuperVini310]

Yesterday: I unninstalled Elsword. Today: Josh Strife Hayes does a video on Elsword. This will be an innteresting one.

[@davidpower5710]

just reinstalled it today

[@polvocorrupto]

I reinstalled it after watching this review unironically

[@misttermd6299]

Looks as bad as I remenber when I quit it. What a fucking shame this game had so much potential to still be relevant today :C

[@HaplessOne]

@@misttermd6299 yeah its trash. Mostly probably because gameforge. They're one of those publishers that just buy mmos and let them sit and collect money until it dies and move on. Why pay a bunch of devs to make meaningful updates, when you can just run a skeleton crew that basically does the bare minimum of keeping the servers running.

[@foxshoot3138]

I get literaly adicted to the game and delete my game

[@HAVOCprojects]

I used to play this game a lot once the official Indonesian server first opened 11 years ago. Things started simple, I could make progress at my own pace, the difficulty was acceptable, and the overall experience was fun. At least until the Sander update rolled around in which I began to notice the sudden difficulty spike. Da hell? Hamel was already challenging enough as it was, and now I have to deal with cheap one-shots from those Sander bosses?! After enduring through more in-game BS, I basically said "that's far enough" and retired from the game back in 2014. Not even the private server could salvage this game, because the base game in its later state REALLY wants to make new players blast through everything leading to the endgame where all the (obviously) most difficult parts are. Could I no longer pace myself? Still, I can't forget how much influence Elsword once had as a non-Japanese game featuring heavy anime aesthetics. Sure, it wasn't as hugely popular as Ragnarok Online in the 2000's or Genshin Impact in the 2020's (though the latter is Chinese instead of Korean) when it comes to anime-looking games, but it was fun enough to leave a good impression for anime gamers in the 2010's despite the flaws and also its playerbase - as Indonesian Elsword server was also riddled by toxic little kids, mainly those who at the time were also playing the likes of Lost Saga and PointBlank (a competitive FPS game similar to CS). Oh yea, remember the BGM override feature? Good times.

[@yeobb6127]

What you said about the combat really summarise why I loved and grinded pvp in this game all the way to sss rank in 2014, I felt like I was actually skilful trying all these new creative combos and watched all the combo exhibitions online as well. Wish we have this but modern

[@cetrinea]

A quick couple things to point out, although I do agree with you on...pretty much everything you've said as an Elsword player myself. 1: About the story and the characters talking AT each other, I completely agree. And the story isn't exactly the best part of the game either, so you're not missing anything if you decide to skip everything (I have, and the lore isn't that hard to understand even without context, believe me) 2: Each character and class DOES have their own individual lore. But you won't really find that in game. 3: Leveling being to easy is actually really, really true. And it only got easier. The focus is to get new players to endgame quickly, and the power spike occurs literally in an instant once you hit 95. So yeah. There's that. 4: The funny thing about Raven....one quick bonk to the head and he's good again. I always found that interesting. And funny. 5: A nice touch that some people won't notice: in some of the levels where you drop down to a new area, some characters fall faster than others. Aisha and Even being two of them. So it's a nice touch, and an interesting attention to detail. 6: Elsword is completely p2w and I do feel sad for people that come into the game thinking that it'll be smooth sailing and that the costumes are purely cosmetic. I mean, for a game that caught my attention more than seven years ago for it's style and characters, fun gameplay and an actual decent story back then, the only real reason to stay anymore is because they're releasing new characters and classes and the chance to see the lore of those characters and classes that catch your eye. And eventually, you begin to notice a very real pattern with such releases. Character release > character is the most powerful of any class and character > character changes to fit around said character > character gets nerfed to hell > rinse and repeat.

[@tomikun8057]

The story is shit cause they streamlined it to let people easily get ESPC buffs

[@firepuppies4086]

4. Don't forget thet Rena evidently looks like his late fiancee

[@cheezie9520]

Elsword has a very passionate and dedicated community to it that’s super willing to help out newer players. Elsword players also all hate the game and the company. So there’s that.

[@HitsuuVR]

The endgame is so bad that the only thing I do in this game is create a character, level them up to lv99 and that's it

[@TheLastGhostLegendario]

I need to say this is a game that u feel the character u feel getting stronger and the characters are so unique that every single one feels diferent and unique there is no other mmo that can match this and its like playing a fighting game with all the combos, is amazing, i got a weapon from a raid that only a few % of people got but not by paying , but for playing harder and getting better this game has the feeling of "i am the 1% that has items that really few people have and also are time/power limited" its like one of those mangas were the protagonist get unique items makes you feel special. I know it has weaknesess, the money stuff but i played it like for 7 years when i was i kid and i dont spend like nothing, a few , yes but because i enjoyed the game. Why i stopped? I had a dream, i got the perkisas legendary sword being top 5 of my class and 45 for my server i got unique items and got also a really god spot in henir(a super hard boss rush) + in pvp i made it all.... and when i finished, idk what to do , also the game was in a state that for some reason there were few updates a bad time (later the things speed it up) and....my friends....just stop playing, i wanted to get all of that just to share it with them because i had a reason to be stronger....I spoke with a lot of them everyday in game and in the original forum (sadly they erased all the messages... idk why) , wonderful people it make the game feel alive.... 7 years and.... i was the only one left, i got my helmet, my sword and armor , I put them in my inventory and with a bittersweet smile i said ...goodbye what an adventure. And it was... it really was, but for the people and also the game all good things have an end, and it was amazing i started for the game and i stayed because my friends always there. Idk how it is now but this was my experience, i need to say it, I got in knowing no one and.... i love it , dont be afraid of making bonds with people in games(fun fact I had downloaded this game thinking it was another one that I saw, but in the end I stayed XDD) and i revisited it for nostalgia and i knew all the combos instantly, is incredible but that was it , just a short visit XD

[@ashash8026]

it is an addicting gameplay , these 2D "MMO" . Grand chase was my favorite but dear god the P2W is off the charts and shameless ,it makes 3D MMO P2W looks like a F2P game.

[@TheZenytram]

hahahahahahaahaha i still dont know a worse game on that front, even Elsworld isnt as bad as GC. hell, Elsworld got made cus ppl stopped playing GC precisely bc of that.

[@belstar1128]

I think side scrolling is pretty odd for a mmo it should be top down or isometric or 3d.

[@TheZenytram]

@@belstar1128 not at all

[@JoshuaGraves113]

@@TheZenytram That isn't why people quit Grand Chase.

[@mayconlcruz]

@@belstar1128 It's a relic of its time: that kind of game was designed to cater to players that don't have enough powerful machines and/or don't had the constant money to invest in subscription-based MMOs. In the mid-2000s, this kind of game is the way to go for lots of people.

[@cresanario4314]

Woah Elsword?! Damn, it was one of my biggest teenhood games. Still can remember playing on my Chung/Deadly Chaser, nuking enemies and bosses like its happened yesterday. This one is gonna be entertaining to watch.

[@dango8284]

I was a combo beast with IP

[@cresanario4314]

@@dango8284 Iron Paladin is great. Even being decent in combos, you can destroy in PvP. Had quite a tough time fighting them.

[@LtZerge]

A chung. I was a lv70 trooper by the time I quit. Big gun make big boom. Abusing tactical field in PvP because it gives you perma stoic. Good times

[@dango8284]

@@cresanario4314 Yeah, indeed!

[@miguel-angelsilva2237]

@@LtZerge Ahhh yes, the TT gameplay, sniping enemies with the red missiles was awesome even in PvP.

[@3creps]

I played Elsword way back when, but i remember all those cutscenes having at least a background if not that kind of comic style as the first cutscene of the character

[@djedsystem]

I used to play this game a lot and I can say that if you play any of the original three characters the writing makes a lot of sense, but for some reason every bonus character added in was just sort of sandwiched in for no real reason. It's a big disappointment -- also I noticed that so many of the assets didn't load in during the playthrough, which sucks because I distinctly remember black boxes and empty spaces just... not really being a thing. It's a shame that the game feels as though it's become so much less than what it was before. It was always predatory, but the gameplay and graphics were always making it at least salvageable, the fact that things are starting to really show age and graphical bugs are beginning to emerge does not bode well and I fear what the game will look like in five years time.

[@paranoidfox8682]

"The gameplay itself is fun" If only he knew what endgame looks like *spam skills and potions*

[@nman551]

or that god damn transcendence quest

[@part7]

When that reviewer said "i miss grand chase, so this is the closest i'm getting" i felt that

[@shuko_0]

i returned to elsword after life got in the way back in 2016, and the gameplay is still insanely fun. i really wish the devs didn't cut so much of the early game and rush everyone to raids. you rarely even meet anyone in early dungeon queues because they're *so* easy now. and while raids are fun at first, you get locked into a grindfest forever or forced to pay for upgrades because the gear and level requirements for the next region get ridiculous, and every mob one shots you in later regions if you're undergeared... for now i'm still having fun by trying out different classes but i dread the day i decide go back to the grind on my squishy main bluhen

[@Roge9]

Honestly, Elsword is one the VERY few mmo's where the leveling doesn't bore me to tears. It's an anomaly for mmo's to make you actually pay attention during leveling.

[@Lonewolfprime.]

Former Chung main here, and I am also one of the many that loved Elsword back in the days. Great story, fun as hell combat, every character felt they played a part honestly. You could just play a character, and have fun. The job quest stories/lore were entertaining as well! Toow what the characters went through to become their jobs during the job quest is also what intrigued me. Chung was my first character, and it was a blast playing him, especially IP. The amazing feeling of just destroying the very ground itself while also being the shield of the group felt great. You felt like you were making an impact, and actually defending people with your defense just as the lore proclaimed. Unfortunately, that didn't last. We move into today's meta, and now, some of the classes just feel useless. People don't want you there, unless you're a "raid slave" or you can do nuclear amounts of damage. Of course, this made people become mega elitist and refuse to help you at all, the community was bad, but it's at its worse now than ever because of this meta. Some of these classes of course, lack these features, and are instead, abandoned for the more powercreeped classes. This usually force these players to make characters they don't like/want to play, and most likely have to pay by the teeth as well to get them setup so you can actually get anywhere with the class you wish to play. You can also only be able to do things that these classes could do, but by spending loads and I mean *loads* of money. Even then, these classes are so far ahead that they *still* do more than you could dream of. Endgame is legit nothing but p2w now, it's terrible, and the whole "tanking for your team" or other specific jobs that every class could excel at, is gone since so many things can one shot you now. It's dodge or get one shotted. "Tank class" or not. It's just now: "who can one shot instantly or faster" or "who gives magical/physical damage, super armor better etc.". No more combos, ya just spam skills now in PVE, and if you don't, you're gonna get one shotted, defense or not once more. The classes aren't as diverse as before, the combat is still good, but you feel like you're just the same as everyone else now, or in my case or some other classes, merely being used as a "slave for one shotters" only to then get deleted once the person farmed what they wanted. That wasn't how things were, and it pains me to see such things. It also doesn't help that the balance patches boosts up the powercreep further by making already strong classes even stronger, while nerfing the weaker classes or abandoning them altogether. PVP is also just broken...I mean it's always been but it's just the worst I've ever seen it to have been. People have already commented on how PVP is, so I won't even delve into that rabbit hole of a mess. I'm sad to see such a gemstone of a game go down such a sad path. I moved from this and play Final Fantasy XIV now, but I will never forget my fond memories of playing Elsword.

[@lunausagi8495]

Ego eating food in Ratatouille: *playing BLM* Ego flashback after eating food: *Playing Tactical Trooper*

[@ayfakinglovetsukasa5822]

Nice comment brother. All makes sense, still playing Els now as a F2P and it sucks. I'm at the point where I want to make a support Chung (the tank like your job) but my mind tells me that it will be useless in the end game unless I spend huge amount of money a month.

[@ryuushinzo3559]

I'm a F2P as well and the way its going, they make the game so they give you stuff to get you deeper into the game and story so there's a F2P threshold for story and a whale threshold for story. Guess which one keeps up with new map releases. Also, Fatal Phantom here.

[@Lonewolfprime.]

@@ayfakinglovetsukasa5822 I’ll be flat out honest with you, yes you *will* be spending a lot of money. Comet Crusader(tank Chung) requires a ridiculous amount of resources to even start ramping up once you reach endgame. He isn’t the worst example of this(Bluhen requires far more money spending to even have success), but it’s very noticeable. It feels like a slog trying to use him now, plus they changed his identity as a whole. He isn’t the tank battlefield anymore, they took away most of his tanking qualities and either nerfed it or removed it all together. Dungeons especially nerf this overall, since most things in the new ones usually one shot you or close to it. If you’re F2P I highly advice you to be careful using this class, because if you’re very unlucky at RNG it’ll really cost you. Now I legit feel like I’m playing a worse version of Centurion, it’s completely awful. He isn’t fun anymore, I don’t feel like how his lore is meant to be, he just plays like any other support now while also being expected to do DPS(which he requires stupid amounts of investment to even notice the damage). I’m talking +11 VOS, +10-11 Rigomor armor that’s fully reforged etc etc. I played CC to be a wall for my Allies to be safe, it was fun because it was such a unique role. However ever since that role was taken away, he just isn’t fun anymore to use. That + a buttload of money throwing to even be viable hurts me.

[@Lonewolfprime.]

@@ryuushinzo3559 Clearly the whales to a major extent. I’m glad to meet a fellow Chung main! :)

[@ShunCrone]

Your coverage on this game is spot-on. Back when I played this, I absolutely loved the combat but between the extremely predatory monetization and the fact that PVP was designed in ways that made the experience constantly feel unbalanced, whether in your favor or your opponent's, resulting in even competing eventually being unsatisfying whether I won or lost, even the appeal of the combat itself couldn't keep me going after a while. Might go back to it to revisit some nostalgia, but I don't think I could ever stick with it the way I used to. Good stuff.

[@mohamedkanu9633]

Pvp is horrible smh if u face Ahisa or Rena or Noah

[@DStecks]

15:00 It's worth pointing out that Mario, the game that definitively established what all platformers would be like from then on, was made in Japan. It feels weird for them too for the character to move from right to left, and apparently that has neurological reasons - basically, it is more "natural" to take information in from left to right, and it's not clear why right-to-left languages exist at all, the best theory being that having to put more mental effort into reading causes the information to be more thoroughly absorbed.

[@RAFMnBgaming]

Could just be that someone lefthanded is going around making languages like "you ain't stopping me from writing the right way, which is left" at some point in history.

[@Acceos]

Its an MMO, but not like all the others where you just hit the buttons from 1-9 to do damage. You can do your own combos , mix things up and every Character has it own Unique play style. I rly wish to get an MMO in the Future, where you fight like in Elsword, but in a 3D World.

[@niknek123]

This game was my childhood and even in my 20's i still came back over and over again to it,till I finally made the decision to quit it 1 year ago fully,it's sadly not what it used to be anymore and 90% of the playerbase has a hard time accepting that elsword they loved to play as kids does not exist anymore,this game is only being kept alive by a diehard loyal community that is slowly also dying out since they are growing older.

[@twiteruplsur3514]

Holy shit this hit hard. I first found Elsword in Grade 5 and soon dropped it because I found it too boring. However once I got into middle school my interest in Elsword came back, I felt my favourite part was definitely raiding a new character, once my main was maxed I could get a character to level 99 in a day. More content came out and I soon realized that, it wasn't possible for me to even do it because of the Combat Level(I was f2p with a combat level of 990k). So after that my interest in the game slowly withered a way and I have looked back. However it's often short lived and I am only able to download the game and then delete it right after. The game is honestly just a bad gambling addiction and sometimes I find myself wanting to come back for the fighting aspect until I remember that isn't even free anymore.

[@jeremius8709]

this is exactly what happened with meeee ;-;

[@divinephanes]

I was reading through the comment section out of curiosity and I found yours to ring a bell with me. I really grinded this game out in 2021 until I hit a hard paywall at rigomor. If you ever do plan to play it again there is a new system called 'Professor Phoru' in place that makes it a lot easier to make it to the Prun. region! Even though the combat isn't the same (it's all potion chugging mostly), I do think they somewhat improved on the f2p aspect at least.

[@destroymax2033]

Its my childhood, I think this is my second multiplayer-based game i've ever played. Honestly, even though this is straight up a pay 2 win, I have really good memories (never spent money anyways as i wasnt allowed back then). But this is the kind of game i can no longer have fun with, I tried it a couple times but its just so behind compared to what the standard is nowadays. Still in my heart tho, it showed me for the first time in my "gamer" life that desire of progressing, evolving into new classes, upgrading gear, learning combos to grind in pvp, learning from others and teaching to others, and of course meeting online frens. Im used to those things nowadays, but it all started here...

[@destroymax2033]

Funny how I remembered this game after the launch of Lost Ark. I'm thankful for this afterall

[@StubbornBullet]

Ahhh Raven, that sir was one hell of a nostalgia trip for me hearing you talk about that show. I haven't thought about that show in years yet as soon as you mentioned it I remembered watching it every weekend and wishing I could go on it as a kid and to be honest, even today at the age of 27, I'd still love to go on that show although with a fear of heights I'm not sure how I'd do on the leap of faith challenge... but at least I could elbow drop the 'demons'...

[@Vevvev8]

"But I loved this game!" *Intro plays and ends up quite literally listing all the reasons I quit the game.* Oh right... That's why I stopped liking the game and quit.

[@johnmytsu]

the future grand chase review: "Same as Elsword, but older."

[@nyekomimi]

It's way better... But you can't play the proper version. One on steam is stripped of base combos etc...

[@belicto7743]

out of 10.

[@johnmytsu]

@@nyekomimi I said older, not worse.

[@lowzyyy]

GrandChase looks way better than Elsword. Maybe i am biased because i play GC

[@johnmytsu]

@@lowzyyy the art styles are a bit different, I'm also biased to GC

[@greedfreed6970]

22:39 that's not the boss reached from the back ground. that's your Team's Skill. She had a skill that utilize Drones and Huge Robots as servants.

[@Charion-50]

I used to play Elsword so much when I was little and this review is pretty much spot on. It's just so pay 2 win which is why a certain Void used to exist until it was gone. I remember the fond memories but, I doubt I'll ever step foot to what used to be my favorite again.

[@Gooner333333333]

Seeing kids actually get to the end of Way of the Warrior, was 1 of the best parts of the show. Raven was an unique show

[@KamilDrakari]

Man, this made me feel like Elsword could be/have been a really good "side-scrolling beat-em-up with multiplayer" instead of "overmonetized MMO". They could throw literally every upgrade system out the window, let you choose a character each stage and unlock new characters when they show up in the story rather than forcing the disconnect you felt from having late-story characters just invisibly watch the early story, and just keep the engaging gameplay and excellent map design unchanged.

[@pokemanikangie]

as a young tween playing this game i can 100% say the combat is wonderful, i was too young to understand what pay to win was but as a kid i had fun playing this hot mess of a game

[@chinchillinghere]

also the gameplay being shown is actually at its prime, being able to slash and combo monsters is something you can't do after you reach harder content, so you should keep in mind all you get to do is press ur mob clearing skill(usually a laserbeam skill or homing skill) and just keep running.

[@user-ke5un1sq7q]

As one of the insane people who enjoy playing platformers, among other genres, on keyboard, I can confirm that the default bindings in this game are still the standard. You'll find the exact same if you play Celeste or Rain World for instance.

[@killerskulldog]

I’m really happy you liked the gameplay since that’s its strongest aspect

[@NekkuruWolfie]

This game was my childhood, I played on almost all the english/spanish servers that existed at the time and I also used to play daily and for hours on the KR server with my group of friends at the time, I made so so much progress there and used to buy a lot of premium currency with in-game currency for the ice burners and accessories and I had so so much fun, I used to play for a bit before going to school because it was at that time zone that the koreans were playing so you could find parties for the dungeons, it was the core part of my routine, first thing I was doing just after waking up was that and it made my days so much better. I lost my KR account due to the IP ban Nexon implemented and I was so sad. I remember learning so many combos for the characters I used at the time and that was insanely fun, I tried to get back to the game several times already this year and it's just not the same anymore, nowadays you can just kill everything with one skill and all you do is just that, press one button and that's it, you finish the dungeon, there are also so many complicated features now that is hard to keep up with, I also hate the new UI, sometimes I feel like I can't see anything due to the scaling of it, I find it too tiny and boring, I know I will never get back those same feelings I had playing for so many years but once in a while I try again for a few hours, I just wish someone could revert this game back to what it used to be on a private server or something but I don't even know if that's possible or if someone actively playing feels the same as me nowadays. Anyways, just wanted to rant lol

[@saenar2624]

I'd recommend to anyone to at least try Elsword, despite anything people can blame it for. But above all, I'd recommend to anyone to NOT try Elsword's PVP (Or, no, try it, just to see your opponent abusively stun locking you while you are making yourself a tea, or taking your shower, because trying to struggle is pointless)