Granado Espada - My Impressions

Yesterday while I was in town, I came across one of the latest computer gaming magazines, and as I had a bit of spare change handy, I decided to pick it up. Generally when I buy a magazine of this type, it's due to the featured content they have on the free CD's attached. This month, it came with the full client for the MMO Granado Espada. I've heard a bit about this game, and I figured now would be a good time to give it a look. Especially since this magazine saved me 4gig worth of downloads.

Granado Espada is a free-to-play MMO, with the option of micro-transactions to attain better and more powerful items for your character. I've always been a bit of a fan of the free-to-play MMO's, but generally after a while, they tend to be a bit of a let down, so finding a good one tends to be a bit of work. Granado Espada may have worked out the right formula to keep the player interested.

The world of Granado Espada is typically 1700's-esque, and is a pleasing departure from the typical fantasy setting found in most MMORPG's. You begin the game on a ship, you and your family being bought to the New World, a brave new frontier where anybody can etch out a new beginning. The game eases you in by providing simple tutorials on moving about, controlling your character, combat essentials and so-forth, and once you've got your footing, you're off.

Granado Espada provides you with five different character classes, the Fighter, the Musketeer, the Wizard, the Elementalist and the Scout. Each class is fairly straight forward in their role (except for the Scout, which as well as being a melee fighter, is also the typical healer as well), and each one can be customised in many different ways using various stances (progression trees) to access stronger and more varied skills.

Your family is simply the characters you are able to create at the beginning of the game. Upon creating your first character, you choose a family name which most NPC's will lovingly refer to you as, and then for each character you assign their given name. Pretty easy. Though it is the concept of the family which makes Granado Espada stand out among most other MMO's. The family is an innovative feature, in that it allows you to control up to three characters at one time. Such a refreshing change, as now you're not forced to spam chat channels looking for extra members for that one difficult quest. Controlling your party of three characters is pretty simple as well. Each of their abilities are hot-keyed to your keyboard (Q-Y, A-H and Z-N), and individual abilities are activated on the go in this way, allowing you ease of use without breaking the pace of battle. With a mixture of available classes, you can have whatever type of party you desire - a balanced adventuring team, a melee-heavy or a ranged nuke party, it's all up to you.

Granado Espada doesn't appear to have a strong storyline - or I just didn't pay enough attention in the beginning - and as such, players are left to forge their own way throughout the New World, acting as a freelancer, helping out the many townsfolk with tasks they need assistance with. Luckily, as with most MMO's, the available quests help guide you along in a linear-ish manner, making sure you're not too far out of your depth and running into high-level zones you're just not ready for.

I will admit I've only played the game for a day or so now, so I haven't seen nearly everything there is to offer, though what I have experienced so far has been rather promising, and I've only had a few small gripes with the game thus far.

So far, the only real problem I've come across in Granado Espada, is that some of the games systems aren't really explained all that well, and can leave you guessing. Another thing, and this could be just me, is a few quests I've undertaken at the recommended have been nearly impossible for me to complete, and frustratingly so. After failing a particular mission one too many times, I've simply walked away to spare myself tearing my hair out, and came back at a higher level to complete. So far I'm putting it down to my lack of experience with that game, though it's hard to not feel a little cheated when a quest is recommended for a certain level, yet gives you such a beat down, even when you're higher level. The saving grace for this is that most of these quests aren't essential to advancing your character, so if they are a little difficult, you can leave them and come back later on.

Being a renaissance-esque setting, the graphics in Granado Espada complement it rather well, with the type of characters and architecture you'd expect to come across in that period. While they could be a bit more flashy, especially with today's machines, it still works, and does it's styling well. Granado Espada's music is worth mentioning as well, though unlike the graphics, it doesn't typically complement the era. The compliment of music you'll hear, especially while battling, are typically soft techno/trance/dance tracks, and about the same portion of your typical instrumental music thrown in too. Again, I never found this to detract from the experience in any way, as the songs are rather pleasant, even for someone who doesn't like the techno genre like myself.

As mentioned at the beginning, Granado Espada is free-to-play with micro-transactions optional. Again, with most free-to-play MMO's, the option for micro-transactions allows those who are dedicated to the game to acquire more powerful items than are typically available in game, and I also believe with a small payment option, you are able to raise your level cap so as to enter otherwise dangerous or inaccessible areas.

All in all, despite my small frustrations with the game, Granado Espada is well worth a look if you're searching for a casual MMO to fill in your time. Be aware, if you are looking to download the game client, it is roughly 4gig in size, so if you have a download limit or a pay-per-meg internet contract, make sure you've got the allowance to accommodate the download.

The Granado Espada Official Home Page
Download The Granado Espada Client (Large Download Size!)
Granado Espada Screenshot Gallery