The story is the same; you are the promising young student of a martial arts master that is betrayed by a former pupil, Jinsoyun. It is up to you to seek revenge against this foe and the various factions that have allied with her in some shape or form. While the BnS NEO Divine Gems premise is more or less stock and standard for Chinese wuxia stories, its flair for the dramatics keep it interesting and character moments engaging.
However, like most NCSOFT games of its era, the translation and voice acting are less than stellar. Blade & Soul Neo keeps the original voice acting and script, so nothing has changed here. Which is a shame, because the narrative of Blade & Soul is at least moderately compelling and unlike whatever else is on the market, so it could keep players interested — as I played the Japanese version of the game long enough to compare notes, back in the day. It feels like a huge missed opportunity with the Western market’s interest in traditional Chinese storytelling.
But that is largely my biggest complaint with Blade & Soul Neo, outside of NCSOFT’s continued issue with bots and gold sellers on their servers. This isn’t unique to Blade & Soul Neo, as it’s also a persistent issue with Throne & Liberty, and was at one point so infamous in Lineage II that it was even reported on in GameInformer in the mid-00’s.
This problem has followed NCSOFT through its multiple new releases, and is still one in Blade & Soul Neo. General and Trade chats are drowned out by gold sellers, bots populate areas, interfering with the idea of existing with others in a shared digital space. At the very least, I can say that this was true to the launch experience of Blade & Soul in North America and Europe. Which I have a Founder’s Pack of, thanks to my partner, who at one point let me use his Chinese ID to register for a QQ account and play in 2014 after it was released in that region. (As you can probably tell, I was really into Blade & Soul. At the very least, the idea of it.)
Blade & Soul Neo is more or less the starting experience veteran players would have had on release. There are only a handful of classes, each limited to specific races the Gon, Jin, Yun, and Lyn, each based on the Four Guardians in Chinese folklore. I wouldn’t say any race has any specific advantage, outside of what classes they have access to. This impacts your cosmetics above buy BnS NEO Divine Gems anything else, and how little clothing you want to wear.
The story is the same; you are the promising young student of a martial arts master that is betrayed by a former pupil, Jinsoyun. It is up to you to seek revenge against this foe and the various factions that have allied with her in some shape or form. While the BnS NEO Divine Gems premise is more or less stock and standard for Chinese wuxia stories, its flair for the dramatics keep it interesting and character moments engaging.
However, like most NCSOFT games of its era, the translation and voice acting are less than stellar. Blade & Soul Neo keeps the original voice acting and script, so nothing has changed here. Which is a shame, because the narrative of Blade & Soul is at least moderately compelling and unlike whatever else is on the market, so it could keep players interested — as I played the Japanese version of the game long enough to compare notes, back in the day. It feels like a huge missed opportunity with the Western market’s interest in traditional Chinese storytelling.
But that is largely my biggest complaint with Blade & Soul Neo, outside of NCSOFT’s continued issue with bots and gold sellers on their servers. This isn’t unique to Blade & Soul Neo, as it’s also a persistent issue with Throne & Liberty, and was at one point so infamous in Lineage II that it was even reported on in GameInformer in the mid-00’s.
This problem has followed NCSOFT through its multiple new releases, and is still one in Blade & Soul Neo. General and Trade chats are drowned out by gold sellers, bots populate areas, interfering with the idea of existing with others in a shared digital space. At the very least, I can say that this was true to the launch experience of Blade & Soul in North America and Europe. Which I have a Founder’s Pack of, thanks to my partner, who at one point let me use his Chinese ID to register for a QQ account and play in 2014 after it was released in that region. (As you can probably tell, I was really into Blade & Soul. At the very least, the idea of it.)
Blade & Soul Neo is more or less the starting experience veteran players would have had on release. There are only a handful of classes, each limited to specific races the Gon, Jin, Yun, and Lyn, each based on the Four Guardians in Chinese folklore. I wouldn’t say any race has any specific advantage, outside of what classes they have access to. This impacts your cosmetics above buy BnS NEO Divine Gems anything else, and how little clothing you want to wear.