Therian Saga Review - 8/10

sacredfool

Therian Saga is a browser based crafting game made by a French canadian studio Virtsys. Be warned! This means most of the online wikis are in french.  It requires a lot of patience and is not time intensive - more like a crafting side project then a main game, unless someone has a full time job and a family. It has a slightly oldschool vibe. 

 

Aesthetics 9/10

The graphics are not breathtaking but they make the game easy to navigate and generally do what they are supposed to do.

The game is 2D, all you see is your characters icon move across the map. The map is pretty detailed however and it's quite easy to tell the characters apart since there's a large variety of clothes and some dyes to choose from. Every resource has it's own unique icon, which for a crafting game is pretty important. 

I took a point off because some of the clothes are pretty ugly and because the vanity tab for clothes doesn't function too well. while it allows you to customise your character, you need to stare at his ugly armour and "useful" work clothes. 

 

Gameplay 10/10

The game allows you to farm dungeons for hours or log in for 5 minutes every 24h and keep the queues running. For someone as busy as me,  it hits the sweet spot. 

The game has levels but doesn't have experience. Performing a complex enough task simply gives you a chance to level the skill up. The system is quite confusing at first since there are many factors that contribute to your effective skill (your characters stats, your companions stats, your tool stats, the location, the jewellery and the potion you drank). All skills are in some way intertwined, creating a complex crafting system that works. The fact some skills are more of a pain than others is reflected in the market prices so even those who chose to pursue the harder skills are rewarded.

The game features player and guild housing. 

 

Combat  3/10

This is the real downside of this game. The combat is turn based and pretty random. It basically results in a tedious grind. Since it's a crafting game, not a combat centric game, it works, just not very well. There are also quite a few annoying quirks.  First one is the fact it's nearly impossible to skill up your companions defence during fights with NPCs which is a really important factor. This means many players stage fights at the arena simply to train their skills up. The second is that having good armour doesn't really help with killing bosses, since they are so powerful your armour makes no difference. In a crafting game crafted gear should be pretty important.

Combat also gates content - which means you need to fight to reach certain lands - some people looking for a crafting only game might be disappointed at that. 

The devs acknowledge the problem but from what i heard currently lack the time to fix it.

 

Longevity 9/10

Therian has an approach to leveling similar to EVE Onlines. You can skill in one field only and quickly become good at it, but to train all fields to a decent level it'll take ages. If you are looking for a slow paced game - Therian saga is for you. It's impossible to "beat" this game within 48 hours. Unfortunately, Therian has a similar approach to alts as EVE online - meaning nearly everyone plays many characters just to achieve something.

 

Social 10/10

Therian really emphasises group gameplay and the community is good. While global is sometimes plagued by a troll or two, i think we are all used to that in free to play titles. The guilds were a problem a little while back because it takes a lot of effort to advance them, but it got better as the server developed. Teamwork allows you to create guild factories and facilities.

 

Value 10/10

The game has one of the most friendly free-to-play systems i've experienced. It allows you to play totally for free - you can pay for more character slots or the ability to queue more tasks as well as some limited consumables. Another good thing is you can trade the Blue crowns cash shop currency with others which means you can buy all but one of the advantages without actually paying a real-world dime. 

 

Conclusion 

Try it. In the worst case you'll lose an hour of your life you'll never get back. In the best case, you'll find a game you'll enjoy.

TweFoju

wow, what an OP score for this game. ok downloading now, and i hope that your score fits for me as well :P