Welcome to Part 2 (Part 1 here)of exploring the world of Saint Seiya Online, which is currently in its 2nd Closed Beta (or Silver Test Phase) in China. Developed by Perfect World and officially licensed with SEGA Japan, the game is currently limited just to the China region.
In this post, I will continue to touch on a couple more basics of the game. In Part 3, I will give some thoughts of my own about Saint Seiya Online. Read on!
Skills
As mentioned in Part 1, skills do not cost any mana, since there is no mana system in the game. They are only limited by cool-downs and most hit multiple targets, hence making the game much faster when compared to other “point and click” titles.
New skills are automatically learned at different levels, and will require EXP to upgrade them, which is a prominent feature of Perfect World’s games. If the skill slots tend to get to crowded, players have the option to chain them together under 1 simply hotkey, as seen in the screenshot below.
Every different cloth has 1 of its own special move, which I seldom use. Call me lazy, I just love the simple chain skill system, which some newer MMOs still do not have.
Leveling progression
Another feature of Perfect World’s games I remember fondly (unless they changed it) is the abysmal experience points (EXP) given by open world mobs. In Saint Seiya Online, it is no difference, as the bulk of EXP comes from quests and instanced dungeons, which I will touch on below.
This system did not give me any problems, since there are just so many other ways to gather EXP, such as rested EXP, EXP items from dungeon drops, completing quests (on top of basic reward EXP) and more.
I would not say the leveling experience is too fast nor too slow, but it is at a pace I really like while exploring different regions of the Saint Seiya world. Some games tend to tie players far too long to a certain area.
Instanced dungeons
For players of Forsaken World, you would have known how the system works. There is quite a variety of instanced dungeons, some for EXP, some for gear drops, some for faith points, some opens up at the required level, some are only for guilds, some are open during certain periods of the day while some can only be entered once each day.
From what I see, the game will eventually hit the 200 level cap, since most of the dungeons has that as the max requirement. Do not worry, even if a dungeon says its is suitable for players from level 20 to 200, the system will party players around the same level and scale the difficulty accordingly.
PvP and world boss
There are apparently 4 modes of PvP in Saint Seiya online currently:
1. 1 Vs 1 coliseum tournament PvP (ranked)
2. 1 Vs 1 open world mutual PvP
3. Instanced PvP Battleground
4. Guild Vs Guild open world PvP (?)
I am not really sure about point 4, since I have yet to enter any guilds. But I did see massive open world battles, which is recorded in the extremely laggy video below just before an open world boss fight.
Speaking of world bosses, they spawn just twice a day at different channels, with the highest damage dealt player/ party getting the loot.
God cloths
In Part 1, I mentioned about seeing the 5 basic cloths evolving into its golden state. While it rang a bell, I couldn’t really confirm its name. After some research, I finally remember them as the God Cloths, which were upgraded with Athena’s blood in the manga.
Here, the cloths evolve gradually after more upgrading. The looks below should be their final forms (missing Phoenix). In the manga, the God Cloths are temporary, but it seems in Saint Seiya Online, these are permanent looks.
