Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

By Danny "Ralsu" Gourley

Interface and Controls
Atlantica Online starts players in a dream where the three sisters of Atlantis teach gamers the most basic things about the interface and controls. The dream/tutorial is designed to teach the player how to move (WASD or mouse clicks), how to interact with non-player characters (NPCs), and how to fight. But Atlantica has a fairly long learning curve (not steep, but long), so this tutorial just gets players started.

Once the dream is over, players enter the world at a location of their choosing and get more quests that teach them new things in tidbits while moving along the story. I found this to be expertly done, as the game threw something new at me just when I got comfortable.

A thin, collapsible, translucent menu bar lines the top of the screen. The My Info button allows players to access character sheets and formation as well other functions. The Game Info calls up the encyclopedia, which automatically fills out for players as they find new items and encounter new enemies. The Community allows players to find guilds and groups. System is the button to press to change settings in the graphics and controls. The Item Mall sells items that enhance game play, and End is used for logging out or quitting.

Just to the right of the End button is what the game calls the forum. For 1000 gold, players can advertise messages up there for a limited time. The different messages scroll on a cycle until the player's time is up. During my early play sessions, I saw everything from "Eat at Joe's" to guild recruitment ads to requests to buy certain materials.

The top-right of the menu bar houses a pull-down menu that allows players to see maps of the different areas of the world. Just below it is the mini-map.

On the top of the screen on the left are three buttons. The left-most turns on an arrow that points you toward your current quest objective. The middle button will actually walk your character to the quest area or NPC. On one quest, I was able to click the button to get it to walk me to the monsters I needed to kill. Then when I killed them, I clicked it again, and it walked me back to the NPC. The last button opens the quest log, which is extensive. It allows players to see quests from all of the NPCs they have met with full text descriptions of the quests.

The rest of the interface includes shortcut buttons to finding groups or guilds, and information button that pops up as you discover new things, a chat window, and character portraits and skill hotbars. Most of this is standard stuff with some Atlantica-specific nuances.

Graphics
Atlantica looks a little like Guild Wars in both style and quality of graphics. Combat features plenty of flashy special effects that can be a little overwhelming and use too much bloom unless you adjust your graphical settings.

The character models are smooth and very good. Armor has fine details, and everything I have seen animates smoothly. Water also looks pretty good, with only Rohan having better looking water and reflections among other free-to-play titles I have seen lately.

Buildings and structures show great detail, and one of the most breath-taking sights for me early on was cresting a hill and looking down on the Japanese city of Sapporo. The architecture was accurate, with angled roofs and narrow facades clearly marking the buildings as Japanese.

The monsters I battled were mostly fantastical creatures. Early on, I had to defeat some forest fairies who had turned evil with no explanation. Later I confronted some polluted unicorns that also suffered the same taint as the fairies. Hell Warriors were the first humanoid enemies I faced, and they looked like simians on a rampage. Near Sapporo, I saw some deer that looked pretty realistic, so Atlantica shows some range between the fantastic and the realistic.

Game Play
My quests near Japan told of an evil spreading across and enchanted forest. the shaman who guarded over the forest needed my help to bring back samples of the creatures to try to determine the source of the evil. Along the way, the NPCs I encountered taught me more and more about the game and the interface.

In combat, players are highlighted with a green circle beneath their feet when they can act. Left-clicking a monster will use the basic physical attack for the highlighted unit. Right-clicking casts spells and uses special skills. Units can also quaff potions, use spell scrolls, and even reposition on the battlefield. A timer counts down to zero during the player's turn. You have until the timer hits zero to get all of your units to act or you forfeit their turns. Then the same happens for the enemy.

In my first fights, I was struggling to just get my starting group of three to act before the timer ran out. By level 10, I was managing a party of five well. I could cast spells, perform special attacks, heal, and even loot corpses all in the 20 seconds the longest timer setting would give me.

Players who do not start as a shaman have to wait until level 10 to recruit one, so potions and hired healer NPCs are the only way to restore your warriors until they level up. At level 10, I also learned the Sit skill, which allows my units to sit between battles and regain health and magic.

I did not encounter any aggressive monsters in my early play, but I encountered surprises. A squad of enemies is represented by a single enemy model in the over world. Clicking on it to initiate combat reveals the real make up of the enemy party. Some squads come with caster versions of their unit type, and it the number of units in the squad was never apparent to me until I entered combat.

Loot is a little unusual. Units must loot fallen enemies within four rounds of combat or the corpses decay. Quest items and potions can be single drops, but other items often come in crates. In the early levels, I was looting Spirit crates, which generated a random weapon or piece of armor when opened. Magic crates randomly produced a spell book to increase the power of a unit's spell or potions. Never did a crate randomly generate a spell or gear for a unit not in my party. Finally, material crates produced seemingly useless items that could be sold for cash in the markets. Still, I suspect some of those items might prove useful for crafting and cooking.

Players can also loot crates that open and give a choice between enchanting stones for weapons or armor. The stones can be used to turn two identical items into one stronger version of the item.

Parting Thoughts
Atlantica is too deep, too complex, and too fun for me to cover it all in only two pages. Just know that the translation has been 100% spot on in my time testing the game. And I discover new facets of game play each time I log on.  Simply put, I haven't found a game this smooth and fun in a long time, and I am always eager to log back in and play. If you haven't tried it already, do it as soon as possible.