Aion 2 is a Game of This Year
Clickbait-y title? Yes. Do I think its funny? Also yes.
Aion 2 came out today for everyone to play globally and boy howdy it sure is a video game of all time. If we ignore the biggest pain point in the mixed Steam reviews of Aion 2 (monetization), the rest of it is really a mixed bag too. Friends of mine will be aware that I've been an MMORPG player for a long time, and that Aion 2 is also an MMORPG, hence my interest. For those that don't know me and stumble across the ranting and raving of my lunacy, I've been playing WoW since Burning Crusade (2007ish) and have spent a lot of time playing WoW until BFA as well as a lot of FFXIV. I've dabbled in many other MMORPGs however, Aion 1 included.
Aion 2 feels like a mobile game that's been upscaled and ported to PC. To be clear, I did not make it that far in the game if only for the fact that the game just wasn't enjoyable for me. According to some, it gets better in the late game but that circles back to the issue I didn't want to talk about (monetization), so we'll skip that. For now. I'll come back to what people have said about it later.
The music is forgettable, the combat is bland, and the story is pretty awful to start. The game looks good by virtue of UE5 and the tendency for Korea to put out gooner MMOs. If you don't believe that's a trend, look at a dozen Korean games and tell me they don't goon-bait. Nikke, Lost Ark, TERA, Aion 1, Lineage 2, Stellar Blade, and I'm sure there are more. Aion 2 features crazy body customization including inhumanly thin waists, massive ASSets, and large uh... chests. This is assisted by a non-insignificant amount of armor also showing off the female form. I don't want to imply this as a negative, but just an objective note that it is a gooner game. Additionally, the UI is a dumpster fire. While the amount of menus isn't as egregious as Where Winds Meet, there are a LOT of menus.
The music existed for the sole purpose of having background noise. I remember nothing from it. The English voice acting is in dire need of help. They state on their Steam page that AI was used for some in-game assets and frankly the English voicing might be one of those in-game assets. The Japanese voice pack wasn't much better, as many of the character designs and attitudes seemed strange when paired with their respective voices. I didn't try the Korean one, but I'd hope that a Korean company would use real Koreans to do their voices. Speaking of Korean voices, a fun thing I heard was that no matter which voice option you pick, your character sounds VERY Korean. Speaking gibberish, but still Korean sounding. The only thing I liked were the sound effects. They sounded mostly apt for whatever situation they were in.
Combat was something I was hoping would be enjoyable, but it is very milquetoast. Nothing about it stands out. You can have a more modern action RPG control scheme or a more traditional hotkey MMO control scheme, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter too much. You always have your basic attack as something you hold or toggle, you have your heavy attack, and some spells on surprisingly long cooldowns. According to the mixed reviews on Steam, a lot of the combat at endgame is fast-paced and frantic. That sounds great! BUT! Apparently people just macro it all together so you don't actually have to keep pace. I'm sure you could play manually, but it seems that the developer's intentions are for you to utilize macros. Now, I didn't get to that point myself but this is something multiple people that have been playin' early access have said.
Story-wise, I really hope it was written by AI. The introductory story is awful. Spoilers start here, though I wouldn't consider it consequential. You escape a dangerous situation and get into a town. The townspeople seem nice, if not wary of outsiders. You later learn that they're being mind-controlled by a dragon or some nonsense. But this changes nothing for you. You need to go find people whose airship crashed. One guy is fine but oh no, his buddies have been captured! So you go to rescue them. One guy is dying but you learn one was a traitor! Oh no. I wonder why. You go to rescue the last guy and he warns everyone what's going on, because he's figured it out. He informs everyone, but nobody takes him seriously. Your character says nothing even though you also know what's going on, so the plot can happen. Suddenly in the night, surprise attack! Everyone in town, who previously seemed like a normal person are now basically zombies. People fall down a 15-ish meter cliff and get up to attack you. You eventually escape on an airship that's weirdly reminiscent of Pelican 1 from Helldivers (or the Halo pelican. I'm not a Halo person so I think Helldivers) and then immediately get taken down and have to swim to shore. Now I did play a bit more to see more of the plot but I just did not care and couldn't get invested, and frankly it did not improve.
Okay now on to the last contentious point. Monetization. Those who know me will know that I support monetization when it has been earned. Helldivers is a game I quit due to their monetization. Yes you could get every warbond for free, but the amount of farming and praying to RNGesus required was too much with my limited free time. I've payed for gacha because I've spent a significant amount of time playing the games for free. Granblue, Umamusume, NTE, Genshin, Honkai Star Rail, and WuWa for a start. I'm not against microtransactions. However the allegations presented by people on Steam are damning, and the defense has been lacking in my opinion. The defenses presented are much like the ones given by glazedivers. You can earn everything for free! You don't have to pay! Paying isn't required. And from what I can tell, for Aion 2 that is also true. But the fact of the matter is that paying in Aion 2, much like Helldivers 2, gives you a tangible benefit. If you don't believe me, read the Steam reviews and see for yourself.
This doesn't even discuss the non-progression related microtransactions, of which there are many. NCSoft even had to change their Founder's Pack rewards because of the negative reception. Initially, rewards were only available on one character for all rewards. Some rewards are still locked to one character. However there are multiple things that are tied to real money transactions that are character-bound. This doesn't sit particularly well with me, especially since many rewards in FFXIV and WoW were account-wide, and for those games the microtransactions that were character-locked were advertised as character-locked. You knew full well what you were getting.
Overall I quit just before hitting 2 hours logged on Steam because I was markedly unimpressed. It is pretty and there's lots of character customization, but that doesn't make a game. I'm reminded of a very old Nintendo Power article. A game might not look great, but the gameplay is what keeps you coming back. Pear Stair 64 might be the most graphically realistic game, but you as a pear need to climb stairs. And pears don't have limbs so good luck with that.
3/10.