Bless Online Game Review

Bless Online is a South Korean fantasy action MMORPG set to compete with the release of Revelation Online in 2017.

It has very, very attractive graphics, a very extensive character creator, a large, open world to explore, the ability to soar through the skies on flying mounts, and a semi-action combat system. It could very well compete for the title of one of the best free to play MMORPGs when it finally releases in the West.

With Bless Online releasing on Steam next year I thought it might be in our best interest to go ahead and make a video expressing our views on whether or not Bless Online is worth investing time into upon its actual release.

Bless Online has featured delay after delay after delay.
It has had such a poor representation – with the Russian release of the game being shut down due to the rushed, incomplete launch, the Korean version being dead, and the official North American pubisher pulling out.

We had all but lost hope for an actual playable release of Bless Online, but then Neowiz, the developers of the game, made mention of a potential Western release in the future, without a Western publisher attached.
This was strange news because that meant that Neowiz themselves would be publishing Bless in the West, a very bold move to make.

All of this being said, when Bless officially releases in 2018 – can we expect the same rushed, incomplete version Russia received? Or has Neowiz learned from their mistakes?

Judging from what we’ve witnessed thus far, Neowiz have provided a fair amount of changes since we last played, both to the leveling experience and gearing progression, along with character creation differences.

Combat from what we’ve seen isn’t too much different – if different at all, from what we’ve experienced in the past, so if combat was a problem that bothered you previously, it likely still will.
Not that either of us have ever had any trouble with the combat in Bless; quite the opposite, actually, as we both enjoyed its combat. It’s much more reminiscent of Blade and Soul than any other MMORPG we’ve played.

Now, with all of that out of the way, allow me to actually get on to whether or not I believe Bless Online is worth playing in 2017, or better yet, 2018 since that is when it will officially release on Steam.

When looking for an MMORPG, there are a few things I take into consideration:

Is the MMORPG graphically pleasing to me? Does the game play well? Does the story interest me?

I believe those three things are what make an MMORPG great – or not.

..

Or at the very least, worth trying.

So let me break it down for you and we’ll see if Bless is worth investing time into.

Graphically, Bless is a little old. Now, while that may be visible when you look at the texture quality or the character models, it isn’t so old as to be noticable in comparison to todays MMORPGs.
Yes, it may not look as fancy as Black Desert Online, but realistically, there isn’t an MMORPG in the West currently that looks as good as Black Desert does.
So discounting Black Desert, or more – neglecting to take BDO as an actual viable comparison, Bless is actually quite a beautiful game filled with a much larger, grander fantasy setting than most MMORPGs released these days.
This in turn makes for a nice change of pace when the largest non pay to play MMORPGs around at present are Blade and Soul, a martial arts themed MMORPG, and Black Desert, a much more grounded, realistic MMORPG.
Adding onto this is the fact that Bless is actually an open world-ish game. We spent time soaring through the skies on giant, menacing dragons; traversing the world, flying from town to town.
All of this being rendered in an open world is one of my favorite things about Bless. The fact that it is all accessible without repeated loading screens!

Does the game play well?
I went into a slight bit of detail above regarding the combat in Bless – there are some people that believe it is far too slow, too clunky or too dated.
They are more than welcome to believe as such, because, let’s be honest.. people are going to have different opinions, different expectations, and different likes or dislikes.
As an example, some people believe Blade and Soul has better combat than Black Desert, while some people think the exact opposite, and some people believe World of Warcraft has better combat than both!
So with regards to whether or not Bless plays well – speaking purely of the combat, in our opinion, Bless Online plays fairly well.
It isn’t anything groundbreaking, it isn’t full action combat – it’s a mixture between tab targeting and action – more akin to Blade and Soul than any other MMORPG.
The game unfortunately does not run as good as we would like, having FPS issues without manual patches needing to be applied.
Characters and NPCs move very fluidly, and to top it off – you also have the addition of beautiful character models which – if you think about it – is never a bad thing.
Flying from what we’ve seen is handled well, although unfortunately we only have a single mount to base this off of.
Generally, depending which route they plan on going with Bless, the combat end up being great – or terrible.
I believe they should try for action combat if they want to improve it, but they might just fix a few overshadowing concerns people have.

Unfortunately, most MMORPGs released these days in the West don’t have much semblance of a story.
Bless seems to have one, although not all that well thought out or outstanding. There was a specific scene early on, though, that caught me very off guard as it was very adult in nature.
Other than that, nothing about Bless’ story is noteworthy. Some of you may disagree with this but the fact that Blade and Soul – a free to play MMORPG has such a detailed story – and Bless does not, speaks volumes about it.
A game to compare Bless’ story to would probably be Revelation Online. The now dead MMORPG released earlier this year.

Now, with these being said, there are problems people had – as I stated – with the game being rushed, and the game being incomplete.
I believe Neowiz are planning to show off exactly what Bless has to offer at TwitchCon this year, and I will definitely be tuned in to see.
Whether it’s a minor upgrade or a complete overhaul – the fact remains that this is their chance to reignite the hype around Bless with their release of it next year through Steam.

If they don’t handle it correctly, and allow the hype for the game to pass over, then you can expect it to end up generally how Twilight Spirits did when it launched on Steam recently.
An MMORPG many people were looking forward to that ended up failing absolutely.

So, in its current iteration, is Bless Online worth playing? Yes, it is. The game is unique enough, entertaining enough, and large enough to sustain our attention, wants and needs for a time.
When they release the new and improved version of Bless at TwitchCon this year, we will be able to see the improvements made and get an even better gauge on the game.
Until then, I would like to point out that the game is definitely in our crosshairs – we are definitely looking to play the game upon its eventual release, and believe you should try it out as well.

Operating System: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64 Bit
CPU: Intel i3-550 / AMD Athlon II X4 620
Video Card: Geforce GTS 250 / Radeon R7 240
RAM: 4GB
Hard Disk Space: 60GB

Operating System: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64 Bit
CPU: Intel i5-2500 / AMD FX-6300
Video Card: Geforce GTX 560 / AMD HD 6950
RAM: 8GB
Hard Disk Space: 60GB