izigame.me

Just forewarning, if you are a masochist like me apparently and you will still play this game. Through hell and back please disregard this review.
This is for new players so they at least get a somewhat honest opinion of this game's good and bad so they know what they're getting into.
So as someone who's been playing this game for about 4 years, I can tell you that the game is one of the top 20 games I played. But there is so much bad within this game I cannot justify recommending it to anyone else again.
So, I'm going to give the good first that I love about the game. Before I get into the nasty nitty-gritty of why I can no longer recommend this game and even with all the changes they are making why the game falls flat for me personally.
The graphics in this game if you can take them up to the remastered game quality is very good. Beautiful landscapes and areas along with amazing character design. Does it lack proper balances for the male and female characters when it comes to their costumes which you usually have to buy versus the ones that you can get in game for free, kind of but this being a normal MMO it's understandable that most developers put more effect into their female costumes as many of their players will be playing female characters.
The leveling system is very fun, they have taken great means to improve it. Maybe finally paying attention to players feedback of the grind of getting from level 59 to 64 is terrible. But if you do a seasonal character, you'll most likely just shoot through the levels faster than ever and be ready for mid-game content.
Now, this is where that good review comes the bad. From not expecting players to spend over 10 hours a day on this game and you can tell this from the recent event where you get the Valentine candies for every hour as you spend in the game. Getting up to 10 of them a day. Now when I first started playing the game stuff like this did not bother me.
I had no problem with leaving my system on when I went to work or my computer on. But as I become more aware of how unhealthy it's been for me playing the game for such long periods of time and leaving my computer on for that long, it became apparent that I would have to put in so many hours just to keep up with making the games currency within game and to keep grinding my level up and enhancing gear.
Now I know most MMOs you do put in a lot of time but for time spent, leaves you feeling burnt out and also looking back on how much time you wasted for such little progression within the game.
And this is not even looking at how much money you'll end up spending in the cash shop. For items that are useful that you cannot get in game. From the costumes that do help with experience to the costumes that help with any type of life skilling (leveling) efficiently to get currency that's worth something within the game.
From having to go through all your quests and sometimes running into quests that cannot be completed because something else canceled them out or it is a known glitch within the questline.
Getting to end game and not even being able to go to different areas because you will get your cheeks clapped by other players who are much stronger than you and enemies that you may not even be able to fight because you still can't progress your gear.
And this is something I know they know already; they have tried so hard to improve and add new systems to help players be able to get to different parts of end game content.
And yet, that doesn't help because you're still going to have those overpowered toxic players that will chase you down that will force you to PVP even if you do not PVP. Even if you are in a guild that does not PVP and you are honest to God life skiller just trying to get the names you need to level up your gear so you can progress personally.
Finally is the random generated loop boxes, I don't know what's up with them in these boxes. For years I wish they have made it so the boxes are kind of matched to your level of the gear you need to progress rather than just you honestly killing bosses solo, to get a box that drops one memory fragment or cron stone.
This is something that kills me every time, and honestly makes me not want to do a lot of content because it's just not worth it for the amount of time you invest in doing all this. It's so unsatisfying that a lot of people just walk away from the game after a certain period of time taking long breaks to come back when they do a large update.
And this is painful to have to write, because I'm actually doing okay in the game. But the amount of time that I've spent in it the amount of effort I have put in it versus what I can show of accomplishing within the game is just sadly not enough to keep wanting to tell other people to play it.
So, if you want to try the game, I will advise you to proceed with caution and also be prepared to seriously invest a vast amount of time when you hit that wall. Because you will be hitting that wall sooner than what you think, and it is harder to get over it then it has any right to be.
At this point the game feels more like a job, then that actual game to play for fun. There's no sense of adventure because you can't even enter certain areas if your gear is not up to a certain level to progress. Meaning that you will spend months in the same area hoping to get a lucky drop or that by some miracle by the rng gods you get a good drop from one of the boxes to help boost your gear score high enough that you can go to these areas finally.
Overall, this game will have you in your feelings, one way or the other. It will have you grinding your teeth and dragging yourself through the mud try to get to the next point of progression. It may even have you spending hundreds of dollars on pearls, because as much as people say you can play it for free there will be times where you will be tempted to buy from the Pearl shop. Even if it's for the celestial horse horn, which I am ashamed to admit I bought because it's quite useful. To buy armor that's just a costume to put over your normal armor with additional benefits because it looks awesome.
This game is a love & hate relationship once you get into it and it's quite abusive as well. So be prepared if you're going to take that journey into playing this game seriously.