Love at first sight is definitely not the way I felt when I tried Battle of the Immortals on the Chinese servers. The website was pretty basic and the game seemed so effortless; the classes were common and there was hardly any customization when creating a character. It was definitely not something I would have expected from Perfect World Entertainment, the creators of Perfect World and the upcoming game Forsaken World.
Even when I created a character and entered the game I did not feel very enthusiastic. However, after finishing a few quests and leveling a few times, I noticed that I was actually enjoying the game. I looked forward to an English release, which arrived in the second quarter of 2010. Giving me pre-access to the game was a very generous gift of Perfect World Entertainment, which made it even easier for me to test the English version of the game for you!
As I said before, the game seems very plain and shallow when you start. The game offers you only a few hairstyles, faces and player icons, which means that there isn't much you can alter. Furthermore, the game only offers five 'generic' classes: Berserker (the offensive warrior), Champion (the tank), Heretic (the cleric), Magus (the offensive mage) and Slayer (the rogue). Keep in mind that the classes are not gender-locked, which is a relief. These generic features scare off many new players. However, the game is much more diverse than many people think. The immense amount of features is amazing and there is hardly any grind for the first sixty levels. Additionally, there are many pets and mounts that you can upgrade and enhance. Being bored is practically impossible.
The combat might be the biggest flaw of the Boi Gold. The amount of skills is disappointing and upgrading your skills is very expensive. Skills can be learned at the following levels: 10, 25, 40, 55, 70, and 85. A Magus only has 15 skills at level 70, including some passives, buffs and a XP skill. This 'XP skill' is a special and powerful skill that can be used after filling your 'XP bar' by killing monsters and using skills. The XP bar automatically maxes when you level and it is able to deal massive damage to the mobs around your character. This is the perfect skill to use in order to quickly finish quests. The only downside is that it takes a while before you can actually use it, especially at higher levels. The combat is basically clicking on a monster and spamming skills, which might get on your nerves. The monsters do not deal a huge amount of damage either, which makes fighting them anything but challenging. However, the creatures you will find in game are all very diverse and unique and you will have a hard time finding the same monster graphic with just a different color and name (a common MMO technique).
