ChronoBlade – Beta Impressions

ChronoBlade – Beta Impressions

By Harry Ka-yan Cheung

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Overall

Graphics – 4/5 For a Facebook, browser-type game, Chronoblade presents good quality graphics that will appeal to many players.

Gameplay – 4/5 The gameplay includes combos, skills, and a lot of keyboard movements which keeps players very interactive.

Community – 1/5 The community is almost non-existent due to the nature of the game. Players can communicate by means of forum if players wish to.

Customization – 1/5 The customization is non-existent. The only thing that separates one player’s character from another’s is the items obtained and equipped to the different characters.

Overall – 2.5/5 The combat system and graphics are great but there is no way to play with others and no way to make the character “your own.” If players don’t mind the lack of customization and community, Chronoblade will have a lot to offer to those individuals.

Impressions

Chronoblade is a side scrolling hack-and-slash browser type game hosted on Facebook that mostly requires one’s keyboard. The development team has certain individuals who have worked on certain popular titles such as Dead Space and Diablo II.  The gameplay involves combos and skill trees which grant skills and passive skills. The graphics of the game would surprise many new players for being a browser-based game and also impressed me when I first started up the game.

Characters

Currently Chronoblade offers players two playable characters. One is Aurok, whom is the default character players may use and is comparable to a berserker-type character that uses knuckles/fists as weapons. The other character is Lophi, whom uses an orb-type weapon and is heavily combo based with more of a learning curve (in my personal experience). Lophi manages to obtain combos, multi-hits, and smaller creature kills much easier than Aurok but Aurok has a better time fighting bosses.

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Characters – Aurok

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Characters – Lophi

Skills & Skill Tree

The skill trees are pretty generic. The difference in these skill trees compared to other skill trees from other MMO-type games is that most games will require players to advance into another sub-class to spec into it but Chronoblade allows players to spec into different trees dependant on what a player prefers. Certain skills passively make the characters stronger and some skills can help the player combo or finish off the enemies players will face. Players are able to combo and are able to apply different key combinations from the first levels. A move list is provided below the game window and players may refer back to it whenever a player feels necessary to do so.

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Aurok’s Suckerpunch attack!
World Map & Stages
Players can access the different stages by using the world map. The world map provides players with a large map where players can choose to do stages on different difficulty levels. These stages contain many varieties of creatures and also contain bosses. These stages also provide characters with item drops. As players clear the stages, they are rewarded with experience. Items are found as players defeat enemies as well and sometimes, players will even find certain rare items. Before players begin any stage, a window will appear assuring a player that everything is set. Players have quick access to their inventory or skill list to make changes and also have a chance to buy potions or items before entering a stage.
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The World Map
Creatures & Bosses
Although the creatures and enemies are often easy to fight against, the bosses are no pushovers. The bosses often hold special moves and can also go into an armor state that allows it to ignore a player’s attempts to flinch it which allows it to attack freely. These bosses can get difficult as players face higher difficulties and proceed to higher level stages. I was quite surprised when I fought my first boss in one of the first two stages. When I first began to try Chronoblade, I never expected it to have much of a challenge, but the boss actually gave me quite some trouble. As I got deeper into the game, I also encountered some more difficult normal enemies that would counter-attack or block my hits.
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The First Boss Encounter 
Tournaments & Leaderboard
The tournaments present an opportunity for players to compete against each other indirectly. Players try to last longer through waves and waves of enemies and try to overcome other players by scoring higher points. Every week, there is a weekly tournament players may participate in and if players are able to come out on top, players will be able to register their names on the leaderboard. The leaderboard is displayed under the game window and can be easily seen by many players. This is basically a very indirect way of playing with other players.
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Tournament Timer and Leaderboard
Store & Currency
Players have the choice of purchasing certain items from the store. There are two types of currency. The main currency looks like a basic gold coin and the other is in the form of a purple crystal. The gold coins can be used to purchase certain equipment’s  potions, and items to use in-stage. The purple crystals are mainly used for equipments that are often better than normal equipment and provide better stats for combat. These purple crystals will most likely become a source of cash shop currency or rewards for certain objectives. In the current beta, players are presented with 50 of these which is enough for essentially every item a player may want but in the future, this may not be the same.
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Lophi to the right browsing the store to the left

Games mentioned in this article

  • ChronoBlade - Raise your weapon and fight for more than your own dimension; the survival of all realities hangs by a thread. Battle through the many strange realms of the Multiverse, seek out the truth behind the Chronarch war, and unleash the power to save all worlds!
 
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