Aion Review

When Aion came out in 2009, it was supposed to rock the foundations of the MMO world.  I mean, what new hyped released in the genre isn’t these days?  But Aion found itself falling short of greatness in the West not because it wasn’t a polished and well-made game, but because it’s pacing and mechanics catered more towards the Eastern market.  Over the course of the twelve-plus months since it launched NCsoft has been toiling away vigorously, with the western and eastern studios trying earnestly to make the game what it needs to be to draw more North American and European gamers.  I’ve been playing the title now for a while, and feel it’s safe to suggest that Aion is much closer now to the game NCsoft needs it to be than it was at launch.  It’s polished, pretty, and content complete with a much smoother progression that will please most Western gamers looking for an Eastern-influenced fantasy MMO that comes without the mindless mob-grind.  Still it does rely a little heavily on repeatable quests to fill in gaps, but new solo dungeons help spice things up quite a bit.  By and large Aion of today is a much better game than it was at launch, but it still won’t be a title to attract the masses.

 Oh So Pretty

 Aion was and still is one of the prettiest games on the market, in my eyes.  I’m not even a big fan of Anime-
centric art, but there’s little denying that the character and scenery design in Aion is of the highest quality.  It scales pretty wonderfully too.  I have a rather shoddy laptop with little in the way of graphical horsepower, and even it can play the game on lower settings.  Sure it looks worse, but it’s a testament to the scalability of the engine that it plays at all.  Still, to best appreciate Aion’s visuals, you’ll want to be running on a system that allows high settings.  From the spell effects to the little critters that little the landscape and the big bads that rove the countryside, everything seems to fit in the world of Atreia.