The most noticeable of these is the lack of attack variety. In addition to the standard weapon attack, each team member can earn a maximum of only four magic attacks/skills. These skills are also fixed for a given class. This greatly reduces the strategic element of the battle, and it eventually means that simply spamming a particular skill or couple of skills is most effective battle strategy. However, even with these faults, the new combat system is a welcome change from the standard point and click grind.
Unfortunately, from this point, things take a turn for the worst, as the rest of the game has nowhere near the polish the combat system does. The graphics, in particular, are mediocre at best. While the environments and models are reasonably varied, they are plagued by an annoying number of jagged edges and awkward animation. The semi-realistic style used for the game only further emphasises these problems. The interface is also quite cluttered, and can be distracting at times. Considering the system requirements for the game are significantly higher than your average free Atlantica Gold, you could be forgiven for expecting better.
The storyline, while remotely interesting at the start, disappears after the first couple of quests, and is replaced with the inane troubles of the various local inhabitants for whatever section of the world you happen to be in. Add to this the broken English present in pretty much all of the dialog, and it kills any possible immersion the story may have had.
The various quests do not help matters much either. They extend little from the generic go kill x amount of y or retrieve x from y type quests seen in many Korean MMORPG’s, and quickly become tedious. Perhaps the one saving grace is that these quests reward the player with significantly more Atlantica Online Gold than can be gained through grinding monsters.
Ironically, Atlantica Online’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. While the turn based combat system adds a much needed element of strategy into what is probably one of the weakest parts of the online role-playing genre, it has resulted in other, equally important parts of the game being neglected. That is not to say that Atlantica Online is a bad game, it is just that what could have been an interesting step forward for the genre has become nothing more then an example of mediocrity.
