Peria Chronicles First Impressions and Speculations

After watching all the trailers, reading all of the interviews and looking at all the screenshots, we are going to take our best shot at guessing what Peria Chronicles is going to truly hold in store for us, what we think will be good, what we think will be bad, what could go wrong and what could go so right. These are FreeMMOStation’s first impressions on Peria Chronicles.

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The Premise

A cel-shaded Minecraft-esque Pokémon-inspired sandbox casual party MMO. Somewhat a mouthful but it is true and fitting – the premise for Peria Chronicles seems a bit interesting and potentially novel. Players do capture monsters to progress, but there is much more to the game than that. Graphics alone give this game a unique edge and it is a huge selling point, but know it isn’t just a pretty package, this is the real deal. Player housing? More like entirely custom shaped regions. Questing? More like player invented challenges. Combat looks like great fun too, especially considering that a true summoner style of gameplay just doesn’t exist in any MMOs out right now. But the most appealing attraction in this sandbox theme park is shaping up to be the player created content that will work in tandem with the already awesome physics and mechanics of the game world.

The Developer

ThingSoft is known for its FIFA Online franchise and is also somewhat infamous for Battlefield Online. Overall, their history is a bit mixed between good and bad but Peria Chronicles is looking to be their first truly original title. From their development history, we can expect a heavy grind which will only be compounded by the game’s RNG based progression. Also expect a casual atmosphere. ThingSoft is most active in the casual and social markets for gaming and Peria Chronicles looks to have many mechanics that would benefit from this outlook instead of being hindered by it, though depending on the cash shop it really could go either way. If you are looking for the next hardcore raiding MMO, you should probably look elsewhere but if you want a game that can compete with MapleStory 2, Pokémon and Everquest Next simultaneously, here we are. Again, that is if it actually can maintain a healthy economy which it certainly did not with Battlefield Online, and the stigma of many casual free-to-play games leaves me hesitant.

The Engine

Peria Chronicles will utilize a proprietary 3D engine using an enhanced animation system. What this means is that they cooked up their very own engine which will allow for a gorgeous gameplay experience with a focus on animations, something that is already evident from the trailers so far – but how well it performs is really the important question, especially in consideration to loading times. A lot of areas are going to be character created, so I assume that there is going to be a lot of downloading and loading and with players creating and destroying all the time, how will this beautifully action packed game run?

The Potential

MOBA style competitive matches, giant player created cities, intricate and deep player quests, a wonderfully elaborate world setting, mix all this with their action Jade Cocoon-style gameplay and you have a game that is worth playing in and out. Being able to combine monsters for unique ones and then having different party builds adds a lot of strategy to each encounter which will precisely bring out the most in player created quests and gives a huge amount of potential for a competitive atmosphere. However, with such player creation tools, we will also see a lot of casual style player-made quests and events which should leave a new player in awe and seasoned players always doing something new. There will be a lack of hardcore endgame dungeons, but there is no reason a player or guild can’t create those themselves.

The Verdict

Based entirely on speculation with a dash of past experience with the company, I would say that this is going to be a great game that delivers what it sets out to accomplish but will be slightly bogged down by an awkward economy. I’m talking about energy points to run dungeons or incredibly unlikely RNG based monster capture, and let’s not rule out the possibility for outright pay-to-win mechanics as we saw in Battlefield Online. Most of the content will be player created, so I assume that as long as no items directly enhance players during player created quests or events, then the game will function perfectly. It looks fun, like the anime cousin to Everquest Next and the grown up version of MapleStory 2. I think it is worth looking forward to and I’d rank it highly on the anticipated release list.