After going through Part 1 and Part 2 of my brief but enjoyable journey in Saint Seiya Online China, I thought I would give some personal comments. Of course, not everything is rosy, but perhaps just some personal irks I have with most of the online games now.
Saint Seiya Online is currently only licensed for the China market, and I have a hard time seeing how this will be brought to the western market. Yes, sure there are tons of Seiya fans around, but how many would actually play the online version, much less pay to keep the game alive?
I am pretty sure that Perfect World will have to pay a hefty license fee to SEGA in order to extend the game into the western market. After that, perhaps revenue sharing. And to effectively market Saint Seiya Online, it is of importance to spread into the comics community as well, perhaps making its presence known at Comic-Con.
Ok, enough of the business side of things, my thoughts of the game now. The graphics and animations are top-notch, especially with the resemblance to cell-shading technology.
The storyline is being kept very authentic, beginning right from the time Seiya becomes a Bronze Saint to traveling back in time to find out the truth on Gold Saint Sagittarius Aiolos’ “betrayal”.
With that said, 1 of the major problem I had was with the upgrading of the various Bronze, Silver and Gold cloths. While the regular gears are being upgraded via the normal catalysts way, I was really expecting the cloths to really gain experience and grow with the characters, not another layer of item upgrading with cash shop boost items.
I was quite disappointed about this, and still am. It is 2013, with Saint Seiya Online and Swordsman Online both having the potential to help Perfect World take the next step in game content development. However, it seems that while the in-house game engine has been upgraded, the game features are pretty much still the same.
Truth to be told, I really like Saint Seiya Online as a whole, the game has elements (other than the theme) which makes it stands out from what Perfect World has developed thus far. Perhaps the company has developed far too many oriental MMOs, and Saint Seiya Online came just in time for a refresh.
