The VWP Review of Rappelz

Rappelz is a F2P (Free-to-Play) Fantasy MMORPG created by Gala Net (formerly nFlavor) and hosted in the USA by their affiliate gPotato.

Being a veteran of Rappelz (since Epic 3, thank you) I feel quite comfortable with the assessment I'm about to give.

Overview
The story is set on a world known only as Gaia (which also happens to be one of the three races in the game). The current events take place in the midst of what, in reality, would be an epochal and earth-shattering outbreak of chaos timed not even half a century after a character known only as "The Witch" had presented herself and whose movement wrought devastation throughout the world.

The player is semi-gently tossed into this fray beginning on a small island conveniently (not colloquially) named "Trainee Island."  It's at this point where, in interest of not betraying too much of the underlying storyline at once, I'm going to end this segment.

Characters
In the beginning was your character...

This is where we must all begin in every MMORPG: character creation.

On the Rappelz block, we have various skin tones, a handful of facial expressions/builds available, three hairstyles in two colors each (six, for those who don't want to do the math), several facial decorations from tattoos to scars and a case of heterochromia iridum, and two starting outfits.  All of the aforementioned, except for skin tones, will vary according to race and gender.

Speaking of races, there are three to choose from: the Deva, a light/holy-characteristic race that focus on defense and healing; the Asura, who are characterized by darkness (though not inherently evil) and focus on immense damage and speed; and finally the Gaia who are characterized by balance and mastery of the four classical elements.  (If you're at all unfamiliar with them, check out the link.  I promise, this'll be here when you get back.)

Formerly, there were no facial decorations, but otherwise you can rest assured that your character will be easily mistaken for 100 others out there, if not for the character name (which, frankly, is a bitch to find one that isn't taken or deemed inappropriate).

In this aspect, while the characters are quite beautifully rendered, the fact that we're all ultimately from one of six cookie cutters with a quick paint job on the top really robs Rappelz of a lot of potential that a few game makers/publishers had the vision to embrace.

Final score for Characters:  2.5/5.0

Controls
"Control!  Control!  You must learn control!" -Yoda

The controls for Rappelz are the fairly straight-forward point-and-click interface with a lot of key bindings to the various menus, skills and functions that will help you throughout the game.  It's great for getting precisely to that one place in the viewable area, but past that it gets imprecise.  Also, for those of you who like to use auto-run or map navigation for longer-distance traveling will have to break the habit for Rappelz.

For controls, it would be great to see some of the always handy WASD movement, but the already insane control you can muster just from the sheer number of key bindings is a tremendous benefit to the player a long as they can keep their head in a massive Charlie Foxtrot.

Final score for Controls:  4.4/5.0

Gameplay
Gameplay from the very start is reminiscent of any favorite Grind Fest with a sprinkling of the occasional level-locked quests and some more or less elaborate quest lines that on a whole have occasional background in game events or the lore of the game.  So, in the best of times you'll get a massive XP boost from a recently-completed quest line while in the worst of times you have to stick to the classic approach of Sword-And-Spell-Hack-And-Slash-Grind-Your-Way-To-The-Top.  A reprieve to this, however, was recently allowed into the game, known as the Vulcanus Dungeon.  While there are other dungeons in the game with their respective level ranges, this one scales to the player and provides quite a challenge for all characters level 30 and up as it rips you away from the friendly support of a party and throws you into--for all intents and purposes--a hellish and suicidal track for the asleep and under-prepared individual.

As far as the lore goes, one should really play the game completely through to grasp the entirety of the storyline.  Unfortunately, there is little else to the lore than the storyline tidbits that you get in certain quest lines.  Now I don't know about other people, but I get left with a major hunger for actual story and lore.  Sometimes it feels more engaging to be immersed in the story and to feel like you're part of what makes the lore.  To date, I haven't felt very much of that, so congrats on the unfortunate fail here, Gala Net...

Skills/spells in Rappelz are a veritable smorgasbord, while the classes themselves are unfortunately not.  Let's split them for a moment here:

Classes consist almost invariably of three major class lines per race: a Warrior class, a Mage class and a Summoner class.  The major divisions emerge when each race selects their class, as each one has its own unique characteristics to lend to the basic class lines.  Later your character can specialize into one of two sub-classes (usually offensive- or defensive-based in their natures).  There's not much overlapping or flexibility or any ability to dual- or multi-class, but where the classes are inflexible, they are also well defined with their skill sets.

Skills in Rappelz have evolved immensely over the last few years as classes get rebalanced.  Most have been improved vastly and others have (especially recently) been nerfed.  However, the ultimate stance in regards to skills is that there's a very well defined skill set for each race's class lines and the roles they represent.  The downside is that some classes are strained for survival when the invariable Charlie Foxtrot comes along and their skills drain them dry.

Equipment is strongly impacted by the choice of class, and these restrictions are highlighted on applicably for even the new player's sake.  Armor is divided into their respective classes and sometimes with an additional race restriction.  While weapons are usable cross-race-cross-class, but different classes will have natural advantages using a mace versus a crossbow, for example.  Finally, all equipment is enhanceable by a pleasant-enough variety of means, all of which tend to be very expensive to the free player.  There are, however, special items buyable through the Cash Shop using gPotatoes (the converted currency for all gPotato games which presently goes at a rate in the USA of $0.01 = 1 gPotato) which will give the buying player a boost in either their own equipments abilities or character personalization or their available funds in-game if they want to trade or sell their special favors.

Final score for Gameplay:  2.1/5.0

Disclaimer: As always, readers, please remember that this is a reflection of perspective and that I'm equally critical from one thing to another.  In the future and as content changes, so may final ratings and assessments, at which point the post will be edited and re-posted with new information and/or ratings.

If any of my readers feel I missed an aspect in evaluation, feel free to comment so I know what to include in a re-post.

Overall rating for Rappelz:  3.0/5.0