Atlantica Online, one of NDoors’ later efforts, is a fantasy free MMORPG with turn-based battles. When it came out, the game was genuinely unique in more than one way.

Gameplay

For the most part, Atlantica plays like your stereotypical MMORPG. You get quests from a questgiver, you complete the objectives, and you return for a reward. Most of these quests are rather generic, and somewhat boring, but there are a number of things that make them less painful to complete than Atlantica’s competition.

Upon starting Atlantica, I got to create my character by choosing from a very limited amount of customization options, and then choosing my weapon (which would also determine my class). I was not at all impressed with Atlantica’s customization options and at this point, I was very concerned with the fact that I would only ever be able to use one type of weapon. Nonetheless, I picked up my spear and got on with it.

Once I got into the world of Atlantica, I was dropped into the tutorial where I would subsequently be sent back and forth to different tutorial NPCs to learn about different gameplay aspects, such as buying, selling, combat, and how mercenaries work. It was pretty standard fare, but as always, it’s necessary for that 5% that may have never played an MMO before. It’s also easy experience.

Mercenaries are pretty much just extra party members that are controlled by you, as opposed to another player. It would be wrong to call them NPCs, because you control everything they do, from what they have in their inventory to what items they use, to where they stand in formation, to what they do in battle. The best comparison would be to say if you had direct control of your team mates in an MMORPG.

Battle had me worried at first, and also thrilled, as it was something new. I was worried that it would somehow kill the game for me, but battle is actually probably Atlantica’s strongest point. Fortunately, due to the classic turn-based nature of Atlantica, there are no aggro enemies. Instead, you click on the representative enemy and then you’ll enter an instanced, turn-based arena with the monsters in that enemy’s party. From there, you get 15-30 seconds, depending on the amount of mercenaries you have, to make all of your moves. Contrary to my original belief, you can easily control each and every one of your mercenaries in battle, and as long as they’re up to the level you are, they’re easily as powerful or more powerful than you are. Spellcasting is made simple by use of the right click, and normal attacks involve simply clicking on a monster. An interesting point about battle that I found was that with weapons like spears and rifles, you could attack all monsters in a row, as opposed to just the one in front.

Other than battle, I found Atlantica to be repetitive and standard fare. The only saving grace was that, during quests, if there were 5 monsters in a group that you were fighting, you got credit for 5 monsters, as opposed to just one.

Graphics

Graphics in Atlantica are on par with other free to play titles. There’s really nothing all that extraordinary about them, and as I said before, I was a little put off by the lack of variety in character customization. Unfortunately, I later found out that that lack of variety also extended into recycled monsters.

Sound

Sound in Atlantica is exactly what you’d expect. Hit and miss voiceovers, noises that sound recycled from movies and video games that you’ve already seen and played, and a classic Oriental soundtrack to top it all off. When it works, it sounds great. When it doesn’t, you won’t really care all that much.

Other comments

There were quite a few things I didn’t like about Atlantica. First off, the game really doesn’t seem to have a higher goal. You mainly level up to get mercenaries, to level them up, to join a guild and wage war over cities for tax benefits. There’s no explanation for why you’re warring over them, you just are.

Second, as I said before, for everything unique about Atlantica, there’s at least three things that are standard fare and that still haven’t evolved in any way, shape or form.

Third, I really, really despise the inventory. Both you and your mercenaries share an inventory, but not really. You each have something like 20 inventory slots, and once one fills up, items are automatically placed in the next one in line. However, to get someone to use an item, that item has to be in their inventory and you have to have them selected. It just seems overly complicated, as opposed to simply dragging the item over their portrait and dropping it to use.

Fourth, I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but I really like to have the option to jump. Given that the inventory is mapped to the spacebar (what?), there isn’t any way you can jump in Atlantica. This is unfortunate, because I’ve used jumping for more than one purpose in the pase.

Fifth, I don’t mind the fact that the game is zoned, but I really don’t like the way that the zones are set up. From what I’ve seen of the game, all of the zones are tiny and are way too mountainous. It literally feels like you’re walking across a mountain a lot of times, and there isn’t much variation there. Also, with how small the zones are, it’ll be hard to find epic vistas in Atlantica.

Overall

Overall, Atlantica is a good ride for a short amount of time. A lot of people say the game really starts at level 95 or something like that, but I can’t see the vast majority of players actively playing until then. For each innovation Atlantica makes in the genre, it falls right back into the pool another 3 times over. There’s just not enough motivation to keep playing most days.

Final score: 5/10