US, June 13, 2008, Requiem: Bloodymare, a MMORPG by South Korean studio Gravity that launches next week, is advertised as bloody, gory and violent. It is your most horrid nightmares come alive in an MMORPG world. Monsters roam the lands and you paint the landscape with their blood as you kill them. There are some nasty little (and big) critters roaming the lands in the day, but the special Nightmare mobs come out at night. The landscape actually changes as between set hours. The mobs change and become nastier. Some quests will even change in the Nightmare hours requiem lant. Turn a corner and you run into a fat little cherub with oversized baby head, little bitty wings, a spiky barb-wire halo and multi-bladed staff or your nightmare "Santa's Reindeer" and the like. They all take you down like they were lawnmowers and you a spindly dandelion daring to rear your head up from the grass.
The overall tone of the game is dark, gory and bloody. The world is vaguely reminiscent of a cross between post apocalypse and steampunk noir graphics; the transport between points being a patched up single prop bi-plane that looked like it was on its last gasp. Pretty boy avatars and sexy girl armor is the fashion of the day and as you hack-and-slash in your ornate armor and wicked sword, blood splatters and limbs fly off. If you or your buddy happens to die, you can watch your avatar kick, twitch and thrash around in grotesque death throes. I died often during the Nightmare hours, but happily enough, at these levels, the experience dip was minor and I got a free ride to the closest cemetery or spawn point. Class diversity and customization is not broad but there are enough choices with three races and two jobs each which diversify into specialist tracks to provide flavor in gameplay.
Dungeons, the ATMs of role-playing games.Combat consists of walking up to your target of choice and click spamming of hotkeyed skills and potions of health and energy; nothing too cerebral requiem lant, just good gory fun. Quests are plentiful and of the garden variety bring-me-24-monster-rat-tails and take-this-to-the-gate-guard-at-the-far-outpost, with the twist in the tail where "Nightmare" quests are concerned. Some quests can only be completed during the Nightmare hours and some may change during those hours.
I was blindsided with the inability to gain further experience at level 10 or change my job, as in my eagerness to explore and having died from a nightmare beast right off the bat I had respawned out in the field and had somehow missed an entire line of quests in the city. After two frustrating days chasing after information on the forums and asking in world chat, a kind soul took pity on my newbie pathos and told me where to find the requiem lant quest. It was pretty obvious that I was the not the only fool sitting on my thumbs trying to figure it out.
