JX2 Online Review

JX2 is a fairly old game based on ancient China's mythology. In a way its similar to other games like Hero Online and 9Dragons but each of them have enough differences to make them stand out. JX2 caters to those who are more in favor of old school games like Conquer, Eudemons, and pretty much anything else made by those guys. I'm still amazed they didn't get the license to this game.

Story:

War, land divided, some stuff about fighting for some relics to gain control of the land. Other than that, the story is basically nonexistant.

Graphics:

JX2 is a pretty dated game. To me, its 2D sprites on a 2.5D background. It has enough details to make it look decent, but its not good and not bad. Expect to see yourself around a lot because there's only 4 character models to choose from and each clan in the game provides you with a standard outfit you're expected to wear. The item mall provides for a few different looks, but in the end its all the same. Expect to see clones in the hundreds.

Gameplay:

When you create a character you get to choose between 2 male and 2 female characters. There's no difference except looks and that only males can join Shaolin and only females can join Emei. Equipment is specific to each clan and character type but its quite even so that 1 isn't significantly more expensive than the others.

JX2 plays like any other MMO, point and click. The controls are very simple. Press # to hotkey skill to right click, right click to use skill. Its very easy to get around. If you get lost, you can just die, go to the closest safe zone, warp to the town and just go between the towns from there until you get to where you need to go.

The leveling and skill system is based on exp. Depending on your level, you have different caps for storeable exp, fame, and school reputation. All of them are needed for skills. When you meet the requirements, you can trade in exp to learn the new skills instead of leveling up. Every 10 levels you get an extra stat point each level. Physical and magical characters are pretty well balanced since their skills account for weaknesses. For example, the Emei Zither uses magic attack to determine damage instead of normal physical damage. Each clan has unique skills, but some are clearly superior to others creating a noticeable imbalance. They use to have a rest exp system where someone who only plays for 1 hour a day could compete with someone who grinded for 10 hours a day, but that got taken out.

Emei Zither users are the best for power leveling. They have a skill with a huge area of effect which you can keep spamming. If you use a 2^nd account with a healer, the healer can restore the MP of the Zither user and you can just spam non stop to level. The result is that it is very fast for people to power level weaker characters and is done frequently.

The game more or less centers around repeatable quests. You do these repeatable quests for small money, reputation, and exp rewards. They add up, but constantly repeating them for the sake of continuing the game gets boring fast. Its walk to point A, kill, walk to point B. Repeat 9000 times. All of the good repeatable quests require items from the item mall but you can buy it off other players who buy it from the item mall. Item mall users get rich off of this very fast.

The thing I hate the 2^nd most about the game is the PK system. You can remain in peace, but other people can kill you if they feel like it. They suffer little to no penalties from PKing. You can just run off to the safe zone and wait it out and suffer no penalties from it. If you do die while red, you do suffer a little bit more, but its hardly noticeable in the big picture.

The thing I hate the most about the game is the clear overpowering advantage item mall users have over non item mall users. Each time you repair items, the maximum durability goes down. Eventually you will have to buy a new item and despite the spectacular stats on the old item, you can't use it anymore without it breaking on you after 1 fight. There are also events exclusive to people who buy from the item mall. They would get an extra item reward that gives them overpowered level 50 or level 70 items. They have these so frequently that most high level players can afford to buy them before reaching that level. There's also no restriction on the sale of item mall items so lots of real money trade goes on and nothing is done about. So it basically ends up as whoever has the most money wins. You also have to spend real money to enter the instance dungeons.

Groups/Guilds:

JX2 has different varieties of grouping and guilds. The first is regular parties. Party for bonus exp that is shared and party bonus on top of it. The second is a lover group. When a married couple party and fight together, they get exp and stat bonuses. There's also guilds in the game, but they don't serve much purpose other than large scale guild wars. They're suppose to implement a mentor and apprentice system soon where the mentor gets rewards when the apprentice levels up and the mentor gets a special item should their apprentice reach level 100. Its a nice way to promote group activity.

Overall:

JX2 is a fairly dated game. If you like old school games, JX2 is for you. There are numerous problems with bugs and game balancing but it looks like they won't be addressed. In the end it boils down to whoever has more money wins and regular players are pretty much unable to participate in the late and end game content. If you have access to that material, then it isn't a problem.

Final Score:

3/10 – A dated game with a large amount of problems. Tons of issues are ignored and game is heavily unbalanced in favor of specific classes and item mall.