Shaiya – Xiecy’s Review
I have been asked by several gaming fans I know about Shaiya, a free to play MMO game from Aeria Games. And, up until now, I had to just say, “I really don’t know, I haven’t played it yet.” But, when Aeria asked me via Twitter if I’d play it and see what I thought, how could I refuse? (Especially since I would love to beta test some of their upcoming MMO games.)
So, I headed over and downloaded the game – which actually didn’t take as long as I expected it would. Once the download was done, I jumped in and started to create my toon. Now, I for some strange reason, I always choose the “evil” side when I play an MMO game – call me crazy – so I had to start out with the Union of Fury, which holds the Vail and the Deatheaters. I chose my first toon as a Vail Pagan, as you can see above, because, well, they look cool! There are several different hair and faces that you can choose from to customize your toon and there are some different heights that you can pick from as well, all to help you create a toon that is really you. While I do wish that there was a little bit more in terms of customization on your toon, what is there is great.
Here is one area where Shaiya is completely different: you get to choose if you want it on “easy” or “normal” mode of play. ”Easy” lets you level a bit easier, as you gain more experience, while “normal”, is – well, normal. This is great for new players to MMO games and a genius way to get people hooked on a game.
Now, I have Possess designed and ready to go. So, I hop in game. (Let me stop right here and let you know that if you aren’t familiar with MMO games, then you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about in this next part of the review.)
First, you drop in game in a field and you can immediately look around and tell the quest giver there by you. Moving is pretty easy, point and click, and your toon in on his/her way. Although, I’m used to the click-hold-and-move-your-mouse to run around, clicking to move isn’t bad either. You can change in mid-stride if needed.
Ok, so on to the quest giver! He is pretty easy to talk to and it’s pretty easy to get the quest from him. But, here is where I had some issues and had to stop right off – the interface is not automatically set with your attack button at number 1 and any spells as well as they are in other MMO games. I had to search through the interface until I found them, which actually took me a bit to find. Once I did, it was easy enough to customize my hotkeys as I wanted.
Now that I have my hotkeys set, I can go out and kill what’s needed for the quest. So, I head out down the hill and kill off what I need. As I’m doing this, I’ve learned from too much experience in MMO games that you should always grind a bit while you’re doing quests to help you level. While you’re finishing your first quest, you’ll ding level 2 easily, possibly 3, depending on how much you grind.
This is kind of where the game gets repetitive. With any MMO game, you have to quest and you have to grind. The key here is to have more questing than grinding, and there are times in Shaiya when you have to do more grinding than questing. So, for me, this part of the game (the massive amount of grinding) takes my rating down a little bit.
But, here’s where it redeems itself: the graphics. For a free MMO game the graphics are pretty darn good. There are too many free mmo games out there that do just enough to get by with graphics because they are offering a free game to players. This is not the case here. You can easily tell that Shaiya had a lot of effort put into the design and graphics. I love the toons and their unique looks – I love the effort that was put into creating a completely new side to the evil of the game with two new races that are completely different than in any other game. (Now, I can see similarities in the two races in the Union of Fury and the Mages and Titans in Last Chaos – but they are more unique in Shaiya.)
One other thing that I noticed is that the map and mini-map are superbly designed. Here’s why: you can easily see where you need to go, even in the towns, for gathering quests and turning them in. The map itself is easy to use, easy to see, and I absolutely love the maps in Shaiya.
As for the merchants and trading among players, I have done enough trading with merchants to see how easy this is too. You simply click on an item in your bag and drag it over to the merchant’s list of items and *ding* done. Buying items from merchants is just as easy, click and you’ve got it (if you have the money). Now, I haven’t dealt with the trading among players or through the auction yet. So, that part will have to wait for a later part of my review for the game.
Overall, I really like this one. On our Zownder rating scale, I rate it a 4.5 out of 5. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a change in their normal MMO gaming as this one offers unique toons, races, classes, questing, maps, and just a generally refreshing free MMO game overall.
Tags: aeria games, beta test, clue, customization, deatheaters, evil side, gaming fans, genius, little bit, mmo game, mmo games, pagan, point and click, strange reason, toon, twitter, vail
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