Bless Unleashed - PC First Impressions | MMORPG.com

System · November 2020

Bless Unleashed - PC First Impressions | MMORPG.com

With the conclusion of November's Bless Unleashed closed beta for PC, Emily reflects on the state of the game and its fun factor.

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Sovrath · November 2020

So ... can you answer this question (since no one seems to be doing this) is this a completely different game?

Is that market you walked through the exact same market as Bless but with better window dressing or is it completely different?

Is this completely different from the ground up or did they take assets from the previous bless and clean them up a bit? Is the world layout exactly the same? To clarify, the developers have said it's a different game only for someone to come to the forums and claim they played it and it's the same game using the same assets.

Jensyn · November 2020

Hi @Sovrath! From what I experienced, it's an entirely different game. Like they took the IP and what was already established, but have built upon it and made it their own. I felt like the world was completely different from the few days I got to play. If we have another beta before launch, I'll try to get some video footage for you guys. Hoping to get some good Cyber Monday deals so I can upgrade the quality of my videos : )

darkwolfjay · November 2020

I was one of the emissaries back then for the original Bless, also played the tab targeting version in Korea and Russia and later on the action combat version and this new version is well... Not bad, but really not what - imo, soothes the MMORPG player's pain. It has clunky combat and weird cuts in their cinematics, a bad character editor (i know beta) and i don't think it will sustain very long. By the end of 2021 the game will be dead. Rather wait for Elyon.

vegetableoil · November 2020

looks prettier but it was developed by neowiz, it has the the same structure problem like bless even though the lag is less, it still have random fps drop for no reason. and yes it's a different game, and it also has region lock.

Jensyn · November 2020

remsleep said:

Jensyn said:

Hi @Sovrath! From what I experienced, it's an entirely different game. Like they took the IP and what was already established, but have built upon it and made it their own. I felt like the world was completely different from the few days I got to play. If we have another beta before launch, I'll try to get some video footage for you guys. Hoping to get some good Cyber Monday deals so I can upgrade the quality of my videos : )

Umm no - the map is identical - but they cut out large areas from original that had nothing in it.

So it's a cropped original map.

Identical like cut and paste? I didn't get that vibe at all, but maybe I can find some videos online comparing the two. I'm sure *someone* has done it by now.

Jensyn · November 2020

vegetableoil said:

looks prettier but it was developed by neowiz, it has the the same structure problem like bless even though the lag is less, it still have random fps drop for no reason. and yes it's a different game, and it also has region lock.

This one wasn't actually developed by Neowiz! It is being handled by Round 8 Studios.

alkarionlog · November 2020

remsleep said:

Jensyn said:

Hi @Sovrath! From what I experienced, it's an entirely different game. Like they took the IP and what was already established, but have built upon it and made it their own. I felt like the world was completely different from the few days I got to play. If we have another beta before launch, I'll try to get some video footage for you guys. Hoping to get some good Cyber Monday deals so I can upgrade the quality of my videos : )

Umm no - the map is identical - but they cut out large areas from original that had nothing in it.

So it's a cropped original map.

so basically the same damn thing with some things cut out and hoping to get payers to spend on it, worse is some did

Groqstrong · November 2020

Sovrath said:

So ... can you answer this question (since no one seems to be doing this) is this a completely different game?

Is that market you walked through the exact same market as Bless but with better window dressing or is it completely different?

Is this completely different from the ground up or did they take assets from the previous bless and clean them up a bit? Is the world layout exactly the same?

To clarify, the developers have said it's a different game only for someone to come to the forums and claim they played it and it's the same game using the same assets.

Hello Sovrath,

Its only similarities are in Name and Classes/Char Models, the World is totally new. I will throw my 2 cents in, played a mage up to level 15.

1) Optimization is leaps better thanks to it running on UE4.
2) Skills - They did a great job of separating combos from skills. If you remember in Bless Online your skills were locked in a macro and you needed to choose a path for those macros. In BU you have primary/secondary attacks with mouse 1 and 2 and you can create combos with that, your skills are hot keyed to 1-4 and are independent
3) It does feel a bit consoley, the camera lock is not the best angle even when you set the zoom out to max. Also animation cancelling felt slow.
4) Graphics look good and skills animations look amazing and Skills feel impactful.
5) Questing - is your cookie cutter kill/fetch quests.
6) Char progression is a little watered down, but I only got to level 15. There are things called Blessing which change the loadout of your 1-4 skills. You can also upgrade these through skill points.
7) Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to get to any raid or pvp mechanic so I can't comment on those.

This is pretty much what I remember, if you have any specific question I can try to answer it.

All in All it was a decent experience, I would rank it a 6.5/10.

Jensyn · November 2020

@Groqstrong I agree, I had fun! I think I got to about 14 or 15 before the beta ended. For a free game, it's tons of fun to just run around, fight things, and do random content. I don't see it as being a hardcore MMO or something that will pull folks away from their main squeeze, but maybe something casual like Genshin Impact.

Sovrath · November 2020

So you see why I asked the question? We seem to be getting two completely different accounts.

Totally new/Cropped world.

The mystery continues ...

Jensyn · November 2020

Well, I kind of meant referring to actually running around the world, not just looking at the map. Though I am surprised they haven't changed the map up. What you see while you're questing isn't a copy/paste of what you experienced in Bless Online. The places within those areas are different. There's a lot of empty space left for them to expand upon, so I'm curious to see if they're just using that chunk as a starting point or are actually going to keep the world map the same.

olepi · November 2020

Hmm, another console game port it looks like, with 2 mouse buttons and 4 skills.

I hated it when ESO did that. The old MMO's allowed one to play as a jack of all trades, picking the right skill for the right moment. These console games don't let you do that, you have only a few skills to use over and over.

Sovrath · November 2020

remsleep said:

Jensyn said:

Well, I kind of meant referring to actually running around the world, not just looking at the map. Though I am surprised they haven't changed the map up. What you see while you're questing isn't a copy/paste of what you experienced in Bless Online. The places within those areas are different. There's a lot of empty space left for them to expand upon, so I'm curious to see if they're just using that chunk as a starting point or are actually going to keep the world map the same.

They only changed some starting areas in how they connect - but the other zones are identical copies

The reason nobody has videos of this - is because the old game is shut down and very few youtuber/streamers care enough to even play the new game so I doubt you'll ever see videos.

If the old Bless Online was still up and running - you'd see videos of players running through identical areas.

If they coped the map - and then went in and made changes to all of those zones (and I mean significant changes to landscape/geography) - then I'd say you have a point.

they didn't do that - so the map is the same, copy and paste

And to be clear, you've played this new Bless correct?

Jensyn · November 2020

I'm sorry to hear that, I guess I'll just have to wait to play it further. The zones that I went in were different, but I only made it to 15 before the beta was up so I can't comment on the zones after that. I still think it's pretty entertaining, definitely more-so than Bless Online was, and it'll be a nice distraction with it being free and whatnot. I'm sad that they may have only changed those first initial zones, because the world is so beautiful.

Alpius · November 2020

I've been playing it on and off on PS4 and tried out the PC beta. Yeah, for PC the UI needs to be completely redesigned in order to even be considered playable. The camera is always super zoomed in unless a world boss is doing a big attack and that just plain sucks.

Be warned though, at high levels it is a super grindy, slightly p2w (very slightly), mess of a game with no really good content at the endgame stages.

I want it to succeed, not sure why, but I feel that it could be a great game with a few tweaks that will probably never happen.

Groqstrong · November 2020

I felt it was different enough, i definitely didn't feel it was a 99.99% copy. On pc i didn't experience any lag or performance issues. Do you think its because you ran it on your Xbox?

eoloe · November 2020

Playing it, I did not feel it was a bad game according to current standards (which are low: world bosses and stupid quests as usual). I found it very generic. And at least it is nice to the eyes. It might be a reasonable pleasant experience. I'll try it on launch.

ScottJeslis · November 2020

I enjoyed it at release on XBox it was beautiful looking but it lacked LFG support, and some other common MMO things. It was different than the original Bless Online game. They've since started a new season and pushed a big update onto XBox. Been thinking to revisit but busy reviewing games plus Shadowlands and BH leveling, Mandalorian style in SWToR :-)

Nanfoodle · November 2020

Well, they earned the name Bless, nothing changed. Just the same steaming pile with a new label.

Groqstrong · November 2020

Nanfoodle said:

Well, they earned the name Bless, nothing changed. Just the same steaming pile with a new label.

What didnt you like about it?

momintim · November 2020

Jensyn said:

vegetableoil said:

looks prettier but it was developed by neowiz, it has the the same structure problem like bless even though the lag is less, it still have random fps drop for no reason. and yes it's a different game, and it also has region lock.

This one wasn't actually developed by Neowiz! It is being handled by Round 8 Studios.

Neowiz still owns Round 8 so in a sense this is still developed by Neowiz

Kyleran · November 2020

momintim said:

Jensyn said:

vegetableoil said:

looks prettier but it was developed by neowiz, it has the the same structure problem like bless even though the lag is less, it still have random fps drop for no reason. and yes it's a different game, and it also has region lock.

This one wasn't actually developed by Neowiz! It is being handled by Round 8 Studios.

Neowiz still owns Round 8 so in a sense this is still developed by Neowiz

Looking pretty obvious Round 8 is just a stooge studio so Neowiz could claim this game was entirely new when in fact it appears to be just Bless Retreaded #6 or #7.

ashiru_1978 · November 2020

As others said - UI and controls are the worst. The game feels like a mixture between a mobile and a console port on PC, but done absolutely poorly.

At least the older Bless was more PC-friendly, but this one sucks for entirely different reasons.

Who knows, they might fix it, but they also might not.

Travenious · November 2020

You do know the studios full name is Studio 8 of Neowiz. It's literally the same company coming out with the same game just cleaned up like it should have been years ago and they took out areas where they couldn't think of enough stuff to leave on the map. Same game except they launched on console first.
They are obviously going pretty hard at paying people again to try and hype up major disappointment.
How much they pay you to not rip on a rehash of a crappy game?

Jensyn · November 2020

Travenious said:

You do know the studios full name is Studio 8 of Neowiz. It's literally the same company coming out with the same game just cleaned up like it should have been years ago and they took out areas where they couldn't think of enough stuff to leave on the map. Same game except they launched on console first.
They are obviously going pretty hard at paying people again to try and hype up major disappointment.
How much they pay you to not rip on a rehash of a crappy game?

I didn't.

I was under the impression that they were a different studio. That's on me. No one is going hard to make me hype this up, haha. I played it on my own and asked if anyone else was going to cover it after the weekend ended. They weren't, so I decided to write an article on it. I don't blame them for not jumping on it, because most folks tend to have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the title (I don't blame them.)

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Bless Unleashed - PC First Impressions | MMORPG.com

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Bless Unleashed - PC First Impressions | MMORPG.com

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV