Riders of Icarus

Pros

• Pet and mounts system builds off of a genre standard in some truly compelling and exciting ways
• Environments are varied and utterly gorgeous to explore
• Game play systems are balanced and well implemented

Cons

• Apart from the mounts, game does little to separate itself from other genre entries
• Largely forgettable story with little in the way of memorable characters

Publisher Nexon promises the moon with Riders of Icarus - a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game that lets you ride dragons into battle - and while it performs admirably in many respects, it clings a little too closely to established formulas to truly deliver on its core premise. Pets and familiars have long been a component of the MMORPG format. Sometimes they're a core aspect of a certain class' kit, while they're other times an accompaniment accessible to anyone.

Riders of Icarus makes pets the highlight of the experience to a degree where they tend to outshine practically everything else in the game. Various monsters wander the world, and they can be tamed by characters of any class and turned into mounts. With a little extra effort, these mounts can be transformed into loyal and dedicated pets. Almost every creature in the game, including bosses, can be tamed by players, and the larger winged monsters even let you take to the skies. It's an intriguing system, but not one that's strong enough to overcome otherwise generic aspects of the game. The biggest problem with the pet and mount system is one endemic to many RPGs. Pets work off of a stamina bar and have a long cool down period between use, meaning that you have to carefully swap out pets to account for more interesting pets that could be out of the picture for hours or even days.

Once you get beyond the core pet system of Riders of Icarus, you're left with a well made but largely by the books fantasy MMO. The world is broken up into various quest hubs that generally offer traditional collection and hunting tasks. A dedicated crafting system allows you to build your own equipment and items for your characters to wear or for you to sell on the open market. Combat plays into traditional MMO notions, relying on hot keys, positioning, and the balance of cool down bars rather than on the more action oriented approach that many modern entries in the genre have been moving towards. The seven classes generally constitute the balance of tank, damage per second, and healer that serve as the guiding principal for the majority of MMORPGs. They include an assassin, trickster, guardian, berserker, priest, and wizard.

Riders of Icarus' systems may be well traveled ground, but they're executed with aplomb. And the setting may play hard into fantasy genre conventions, but it's exceedingly pretty to look at. If you're looking for a "theme park" MMO that's all about exploring pretty but shallow worlds, you'll feel right at home here. The landscapes here are gorgeous and varied, even if they don't cover all that much new territory.

Pros

• Pet and mounts system builds off of a genre standard in some truly compelling and exciting ways
• Environments are varied and utterly gorgeous to explore
• Game play systems are balanced and well implemented

Cons

• Apart from the mounts, game does little to separate itself from other genre entries
• Largely forgettable story with little in the way of memorable characters