Blade & Soul: Revolution is an open world mobile MMORPG developed by Netmarble. The game features an intriguing storyline and various classes and races to choose from during character creation as well as a lot of content.
Expanding on the topic of character creation, players can choose to be one of four races: Gon, Jin, Lyn, or Yun. There are currently 5 classes: Blade Master, Kung Fu Master, Force Master, Summoner, and Destroyer. Certain classes are only available for certain races. For example, if you want to be a Summoner, only the Lyn race can be a Summoner.
Players can choose to alter the appearance of their chosen character from the default. There are a set number of face options and hairstyles to choose from along with skin tone. Body type is a little freer in terms of options since there are a lot of toggles to alter things like height, arm size, waist, hips, etc. I would have liked to have toggles for the face like with the body type rather than a set style to choose from but it’s not a big deal as it doesn’t hinder the gameplay.
Throughout the game, there are main story quests that give more insight into the storyline and side quests to complete. I enjoyed watching the cutscenes that came up. The animations and details of characters and scenery are truly impressive. The beginning lines of characters that are interacted with during the quests are voiced. At first, I thought all the lines were voiced but then I realized that wasn’t the case after they suddenly stopped speaking after the first line. However, it seems, like for cutscenes, all the lines are voiced.
Players can move around and explore their surroundings, gathering materials like herbs from plants or battle monsters/enemies to level up or for quests to advance the storyline. In order to interact with certain things like plants, you have to get close up to the object before the hand icon shows up that indicates the object can be interacted with. I initially thought I would be able to tap on a sparkling object and have the character go to it and interact with it but that wasn’t the case.
Characters have specific skills relating to their class that can be activated by tapping on the skill located in the bottom right-hand corner. I like how there are certain skill combos that when played quickly activate to deal more damage. These skill combos can be practiced in the Hongmoon Training Area which I thought was a cool feature. Skill rotation can also be changed for auto-battling.
I think this might be Summoner class-specific because of the cat familiar but I like the joint attack element that appears every so often during battles. If the attacks are matched correctly then the target will be stunned and suffer damage. I thought this was unique.
Blade & Soul: Revolution is pretty auto heavy in that you can auto quest through the main story and throughout all battles and such. The autoing is nice but might be disappointing for some considering how much of the game can be played on auto but there’s always the toggle to switch off auto-play. For the quest auto-play, I wish there would be an option to not skip through character lines but rather auto-play through them. I like going through the story quests fast with auto-play but then it always skips the character interactions so I don’t like to auto-play since I feel like I’m missing out on the story that way.
In terms of leveling, it’s pretty easy to level in the game I feel especially when you just start. For example, one time I logged into the game and after accepting a faction reward, I jumped up almost 15 levels from around level 40 to high 50s.
Speaking of factions, Blade & Soul: Revolution has a faction war between the Cerulean Order and the Crimson Legion. Players can join the faction of their choice after completing the Act 1 Chapter 30 quest. Each faction has its own outfit that is given to the player when they join the faction and players can also switch factions if they so choose. There are ranks as well within a faction which I believe can be increased by participating in the faction war. There’s a whole lot to do in Blade & Soul: Revolution, which I liked.
Players can equip 1 weapon and 7 accessories. I love how equipping different weapons actually changes the weapon on the character. I know some games don’t implement this which is super disappointing. There are also 3 slots for different equipment builds which I haven’t used yet but I thought was a neat feature.
Equipment can be enhanced, savaged, restored, etc. at a fire pit to increase stats or obtain material. I don’t particularly like the durability element of an equipment. After a certain amount of enhancement fails, the equipment is broken and cannot be enhanced further unless the equipment is restored. But even restoration has a percent change of failing. It’s unique but I would appreciate if perhaps the loss in durability occurs after a higher enhancement level, say, level 10 or above.
One thing I really like in Blade & Soul: Revolution is the pet feature! Pets are honestly so adorable and I love how they just float around the player and have their own cute animations. The pets aren’t only adorable but are also useful in that different pets have different stats like giving exp boosts or increasing movement speed.
Pets, as well as equipment, can be summoned in the shop tab with premium currency that can be purchased with money. I found that there’s not too much that premium currency can buy since most packages currently are bundles that are purchased with money directly. It seems like the premium currency is mainly for summoning items. That being said I was able to purchase a skin for my cat familiar using premium currency. I was a little disappointed that familiar skins don’t provide stat boosts like unlocking wardrobes and hats do for the player considering it takes 1000 premium currency to unlock a skin.
There are a bunch more features and content that Blade & Soul: Revolution has that aren’t touched on in this review like dungeons so I would recommend downloading the game and seeing for yourself how the game plays out to be!
Check out the Blade & Soul: Revolution Trailer:
I would rate Blade & Soul: Revolution an 8.5/10. I thought the game was pretty enjoyable but there were some aspects that I didn’t necessarily like. For one, I thought there was too much on the screen or rather too many options and buttons. It’s great that there are a lot of features and options but it was a bit overwhelming being bombarded with everything at the start of the game. Plus, there were so many events and things going on that I had trouble keeping up with everything.
On that note, in the beginning, I spent a couple of hours playing the game yet still really had no clue what I was doing. Perhaps I relied on the auto feature too much but also not much is explained in the beginning.
One other thing that I didn’t like was how the camera doesn’t auto move with the player during battles. Sometimes I don’t play on auto so I’ll be jumping around to avoid being in range of an enemy’s attack but then the camera doesn’t focus on the target so I’m forced to manually change the camera angle so that I can actually see my target and not be shooting my staff at nothing. Having to manually change the angle while I’m in an intense battle greatly annoyed me. Also wish there’s an auto-lock feature on an enemy because right now the player basically just attacks everything that gets within the shooting range and often I just want to fight one single thing.
Overall though, the graphics are extremely nice. Standing in front of a pool of water/puddle, I could see the water glistening and rippling which I thought was amazing. Movements are smooth. Battling aside from the camera is enjoyable especially seeing all the skill effects (e.g., Summoners can summon a gigantic bee to attack an enemy).
Disclosure: Netmarble provided me with premium currency for review purposes but everything in this review is my honest opinion of the game.
Blade & Soul Revolution is available now in the the App Store and Google Play for iOS and Android devices. You can learn more at https://bnsrev.netmarble.com/en/?target=main.
Mobile Review
I'm a sophomore studying Computer Science at the University of Michigan. I'm really interested in how technology can impact lives through game development. One of the things that I really like about gaming is that, not only is it fun and relaxing, but there are so many ideas you can incorporate into games and their storylines such as meaningful lessons/messages.
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