Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) Online was a game that I was eager to play a long time ago after I tried Lineage 2. Back then it would have been great, but now it seems very questionable. There was a nice concept behind it and it looks nice, but the actual implementation of the system is very lacking. I found myself having numerous issues with the controls despite having the option of choosing either keyboard or mouse movement.

Story:

Didn't care. I stopped caring after the village raid or whatever in the beginning.

Graphics:

For a game that is a few years old, it still looks pretty nice. The characters look nice although they could use more variety. The towns feel a bit plain but once you're out into the later areas, it looks really nice. The only problem is you have to up the gamma settings a bit so it isn't too dark. The annoying part for me was that the game didn't have a built in window mode so you have to use the hidden ctrl + enter or some other combination of keys to set the game to window mode. It got annoying to have to do that every time I played. If you don't do this, you get disconnected if you alt + tab for too long.

Gameplay:

Initial character creation is very plain. There are like 4 hair styles and a few tattoo options. You have about 5 choices for your height and most of it won't make any significant impact unless you're standing right next to someone else. The hair styles are quite different but the face you won't be seeing much. There isn't a lot of variety in clothing so expect a lot of clones since there are only 4 classes. There are a total of 4 classes and each are gender locked. 2 are male an 2 are female.

The 4 classes are Valkyrie (Ranger), Elementalist (Mage/Priest), Berserker (Damage Dealer), and Dragon Knight (Tank). Berserker and Dragon Knight are almost interchangeable in my opinion. Each class also has at least 2 sets of different skills. 1 is more leniant on offense while the other is more leniant on support. From my experience, you should only choose to specialize in 1 other you face severe skill penalties later on. The more powerful your skills, the lower your stats will be.

For the most part, the game is easy to level as long as you quest. EXP is very plentiful in the beginning, but the grind sets in after the first 30 levels or so. At that point you may need to start grinding in order to reach the next level because the quests don't give nearly enough.

When a character levels up, they gain a total of 5 stat points and 1 skill point to use. Unlike other games, SUN Online is a bit tricky. In order to learn skills, you need to put points into the category of skill you wish to learn. When you put enough points into that type of skill, you can learn a new skill or upgrade an old skill in that set. Equipment also has stat requirements rather than level requirements. Its up to the player to decide which they want to focus on first. Either powerful skills or high stats. Some form of balance is needed in the end and hybrid builds tend to fail due to weak skills. Putting points into a certain type of skills also allows special weapons with special bonuses to be used. A standard weapon may only have -5% MP cost but if you put points into offensive magic on an Elementalist, you can use weapons that add elemental damage.

Combat is straight and simple. Point and click, attack. Use skills by pressing the key. Wait till it dies, move on to next target. This is fine unless you're playing as an Elementalist. Then things get tricky. There is no option to turn off auto attack. You can make your character move around when in combat but you can't turn off auto attack. None of the options in the options and controls menu fixes this. The only way to avoid this is to use TAB and cycle between targets. This is very difficult to do when you're being mobbed. There is the option of skill queueing so you can just constantly spam skills if needed which is a nice touch but the auto attack can screw you over if you accidentally click a strong mob when running by.

So far the only time I have had problems with combatwas when the game's instance dungeons decide to pull a cheap shot on me. They had mobs hidden behind walls in more or less walled up coffins shooting you. If you're a melee class you might have to break through the wall to hit them. If you're a range class you can just blow them up first. Fortunately, this works both ways. If you're a range class, try to find a cliff where you can snipe and beat the crap out of the mobs below you.  When I reached the last part of one of the dungeons, they decided it would be a good idea to spawn about 20 new mobs behind you so if you're in front, you're screwed and if you're in the back, you're screwed. Way to promote party play.

I have some issues with the game balance. Melee characters tend to be weaker early on but become more useful early on. Range characters are quite strong early on and for the most part maintain their strength reasonably. For the most part, range based characters seem to have a significant advantage at least for a majority of the early levels and at least for a fair amount of what I consider the middle levels. As a comparison, as an Elementalist lvl 12, I manage to solo the Cerberus dungeon using a total of about 6 HP potions through a combination of attack spells, MP regeneration, and HP healing skill. Other people couldn't solo until lvl 18+ with other character types. With my Valkyrie I managed to successfully solo it at lvl 15 but I have yet to succeed with a Berserker. With my Elementalist I manage to solo all the quest monsters so far through a combination of healing potions, the heal skill, attack skills, and running back and forth. In the meantime, I watched a Dragon Knight and a Valkyrie struggle to fight just 1. This is suppose to change later on, but it feels like they're just trying to overwhelming you through pure numbers and force. Lots of quest enemies are insanely tough or are near a large collection of enemies making it difficult to fight.

The game is meant for WASD period. If anyone tells you they can play with just the mouse, they haven't played this game before. I like the option of having to use just the mouse to play my MMOs. The mouse is there, but mouse controls are terrible and you must use the keyboard to move. The first instance dungeon quest already involves you jumping over a ledge which requires you to use W to walk foward and space to jump. This is the only way to get past it and there is no way to jump with the mouse. The same applies to collecting quests. If you only click on the object, your character usually doesn't even move. You have to walk up to the object which is only possible using WASD and get within touching distance of the object before clicking on it. Otherwise your character gets stuck.

Something that really bugs me is that every area I walk into, it says PvP is enabled in this area. Does this mean I can be PKed any time anywhere as long as I'm not in a town? I have yet to encounter a PKer so hopefully this is not the case.

Guilds:

I find the guild system in game fairly refined. The only problem I have is the money requirements to expand the guild. They are very demanding. Not only do you need money, you need some semi-rare drops to use as contribution. Fortunately, leveling up your guild gives you more options and features for your guild which is a nice touch, but some of thse feels like they should have been included by default such as a guild icon. It gives a large group of players something to work towards, but small groups will suffer as a consequence.

Overall:

SUN feels like a game built for groups of players rather than players who like to solo more. The stat distribution system kind of annoys me because both stat and skill points basically share the same points which makes it harder to advance. The controls definitely need an improvement. The keyboard controls are lacking. The Elementalist feels like a severe disadvantage yet is probably the strongest class early on in the game. There are a large number of quests available but grinding becomes a significant problem once the quests are complete. There are plenty of things to do if you have the friends and time to do it.

Final Score:

6/10 - The game needs some refinement. Especially on the controls and the balance of the game. The two melee classes for example are far too similar and lack of customization options.