Choose your difficulty.

Clearly the most obvious innovation in Shaiya is the ability to choose your difficulty before you begin playing a character. The four modes – Easy, Normal, Hard, and Ultimate all boast unique challenges and rewards, some different than many of you will have ever experienced. Easy mode gives the most experience (XP) from enemies, but doesn't allow the use of special skills or high level equipment, and is capped at level 30. Normal mode monsters reward slightly less XP, but special skills are enabled, the level cap is removed and players are able to wear the DREAD equipment type. Hard mode is unlocked by achieving level 50 in Normal mode, provides less XP than Normal mode, but allows the use of LEGEND grade equipment and awards players addition skill points upon levelling.

Ultimate mode – reserved for only the most hardcore of players – is unlocked upon reaching level 60 and provides the lowest amount of XP from enemies, but allows the use of GODDESS grade equipment and rewards players with more skill points upon levelling than any other difficultly, ultimately allowing the most powerful characters. The catch however, is that upon death you only have 3 minutes to be resurrected – or risk losing the character forever. As in all things, the highest rewards come with the highest penalties. With Shaiya – the choice is up to you.

This choice isn't easy either.

After choosing your desired difficulty, your next choice falls in allegiance – namely between the Alliance of Light and the Union of Fury. It's a fairly clichéd light or dark decision, but as your race and class is determined by your decision you may want to take a moment to think about it. The Alliance will offer you choice between the Humans and Elves while the Union houses both the Vail (Dark Elves) and Nordein (Orcs). Humans offer classes in the form of Fighter, Defender and Priest and Elves offer Ranger, Archer and Mage. Whereas the Vail house the Assassin, Pagan and Oracle classes, and the Nordein give choice between the Warrior, Guardian and Hunter. While from a distance Shaiya appears to offer quite the array of choices in this department, many of them are different only in name. The Elven Ranger for example plays very similar to the Vail Assassin, as does the Human Priest and the Vail Oracle. Once you've made your decision it's time to begin playing – and although you won't notice these much in the beginning, Shaiya still has a few tricks up its sleeve.

A breath of fresh air.

As I mentioned in the beginning, Shaiya follows closely in the footsteps of Lineage 2. This is obvious mostly in the art direction – as both games look strikingly similar in locations, characters and equipment; and also in gameplay – repetitive grind-based levelling. Of course, with a 4 year gap between the two games release Shaiya takes the lead in that department, but luckily doesn't stop there. Deciding to abandon the click-to-move for the more appropriate W,A,S,D was a fantastic idea, and adding the ability to jump and dodge, by pressing spacebar or double-tapping the appropriate direction accordingly was quite frankly the best idea for grind-based MMOs to date. These simple changes add an unprecedented amount of activity to an otherwise boring style of gameplay and by doing so breathe new life to the genre.

Of course, the innovative changes pretty much end there, as the remainder of the game from a PvE perspective remains the same. Quests are rare and usually bland; grinding is long and repetitive, and aside from a more interactive and engaging story Shaiya feels very much like a Lineage 2 sequel than a new game itself. Then again – unlike Lineage 2 Shaiya is completely free to play, and although the storyline present won't be remembered for its ability to captivate, it does play a larger part in PvP.

Gifts of the Goddess.

PvP takes many forms in Shaiya; you can challenge members of your own faction to a duel, face off against opposing faction players on the field at any time, engage in large-scale guild warfare, or participate in 1500 VS 1500 realm based battles. For the most part these modes are fairly standard in an MMO, excluding of course the realm battles. When participating in a realm battle the objective is to inflict as much damage as possible against opposing players or their heavily protected relics. Once enough damage has been inflicted, and enough relics destroyed the winning realm is given the Blessing of the Goddess – a buff that provides all players of the realm with a wide variety of bonuses – including increased attack power, defence, mana and health – even an increased success rate for upgrading equipment.

Unfortunately, much of this content – including most of the impressive armour and weapons, is not available until after level 30, meaning that a good amount of time needs to be spent grinding monsters and completing mundane quests before any real exciting content can be accessed. Now while many people will be unaffected by this, a great deal of players require a more constant flow of surprises to stay interested, such as those found in games like WoW that provide interesting PvP content from as low as level 10.

Good, but perhaps not good enough.

Now while I have no doubt that many people will have a fantastic time playing Shaiya, I don't think it's the game for everyone. Players who enjoyed their time in Lineage 2 and are looking for new horizons will find Shaiya a fantastic move forward, and players who enjoy high rewards for long commitments should equally find substantial enjoyment here – especially with the perma-death inclusion of Ultimate mode. As for the more casual audience – while you may find enjoyment in Shaiya in the short term, experiencing the more interesting content will require some fairly intense determination, and as there are literally hundreds of other alternatives out there, Shaiya may not be your best pick.

On the whole, I've given Shaiya a happy 3/5. It has impressive visuals, engaging PvP, and in some areas interesting innovation. From the perspective of grind-based MMOs I have no hesitation in saying that Shaiya is leading the pack – but as the MMO genre advances this grinding style of play is quickly becoming the black sheep, and as Shaiya falls neatly into that category it won't be the game of choice for people not interested in this style of gaming.

Review Cody Hargreaves
October 10, 2009