Review for Black Desert Online. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 14/07/2015 The version for PC came out on 03/03/2016 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 30/06/2018 The version for Xbox One came out on 07/01/2018
With Black Desert, which we tested on the PlayStation 4, the Korean studio Pearl Abyss tries to expand this new MMORPG experience to the players of the Sony home console, after its popular Xbox One version. Black Desert looks like an RPG with a strong action character, immersed in a fully explorable world.
The beginnings
A very violent war is underway between two kingdoms: the Republic of Calpheon and the Kingdom of Valencia. The reason for the contention is the exploitation of the desert that divides the two territories to extract the Black Stones, minerals with magical and occult powers linked, in some way, to the mysterious disappearance of the ancient kingdoms.
Alongside your protagonist in the story there will be the Black Spirit, an entity that will accompany you throughout the game and will guide you towards the discovery of this dark power and its connection with the Black Stones. After watching a short video that will introduce you to the adventure, you will move on to appreciate the first great positive side of the game: the character personalization. The creative phase is extremely detailed: you go from physical construction of the character a the character one, with even the choice of the zodiac sign. You will be able to choose the type of animations that your character will be able to perform during the gameplay and also the basic configuration of the armor at the beginning of the game. One of the fundamental aspects we want to describe in this Black Desert PlayStation 4 review is about the choice of the class of your character, which will unequivocally affect your gaming experience.
Choose your hero
To date they are present 6 classes and, as happened for Xbox One, during the game's roadmap others will surely be added through a series of updates programmed that will enhance your final gaming experience. Here are the classes present:
- Berserker: endowed with brute strength and fueled by anger, he manages to wield two axes ready to demolish anyone in his path. Skilled in hand-to-hand combat, he is a master of combos.
- Ranger: a robin hood with a devastating bow and extraordinary agility. Effective in one-on-one combat and very skilled in getting out of dangerous situations trying to maintain useful distances for engagement.
- Sorceress: black magic is on his side and is able, keeping a safe distance, to generate a lot of damage. Its attacks are capable of hitting a multitude of enemies but it does not possess good physical resistance to damage.
- Warrior: shield and sword expert, it is the classic entry level class, perfectly balanced. His excellent defensive skills allow him to enter the heart of battle and unleash devastating attacks.
- Witch: the physicist does not help her but she is not intimidated by this. Dominator of the battlefields thanks to her powerful spells that she will cast against groups of enemies. Each of his spells will take a cooldown.
- Wizard: ruler of the elements, his magic requires persistence and learning. Used in the right place and at the right time, they allow this class to be very dangerous.
Action RPG, the new life of a classic
As we began at the beginning of our Black Desert PS4 review, we are faced with a RPG with a very present action component. You will be able to perform chained combos and attacks which, depending on the chosen class, will have completely different animations and effects. Each class, therefore, will characterize your way of fighting in a sensitive way. This is an absolutely important innovation for the MMORPG sector which, between Active Time Battle and scripted actions, had never bothered with the action component.
You can unlock combos, different for each class, progressing through the game and by using the Combat Points which, as you can well imagine from the word, can only be earned by fighting. It will not be easy to understand how to dodge, attack, defend and counterattack but everything is re-enacted in a very simple concept: the management of the visual field. Everything in front of the character can be attacked and dodged and the joypad responds to this logic. Memorize winning engagement patterns and you'll be able to keep entire armies of enemies at bay.
Not just quests
The game world offers a fed list of activities to be undertaken. The most important for the advancement of the story are certainly the main Quests that will be entrusted to you by the Black Spirit and will take you to visit the huge game map. Next to these there are the secondary ones that are activated by interacting with the numerous NPCs present. In addition to these two categories, as soon as you reach an adequate level, you will be able to face repeatable quests useful for gaining experience and rewards.
Black Desert, as previously mentioned, is a MMORPG with a strong open world component, both at the map level but also from the point of view of living. Take this last word in the literal sense of the word, because the developers of Pearl Abyss built a real infrastructure of secondary activities almost at the level of Second life: you will be able to fish, cook, forge weapons, cut wood, buy houses and furnishings. There is a shop for each of your passions, made with an incredible wealth of detail. This is another skill to recognize in Black Desert, an aspect that is not always easy to find in an RPG. We move from the more generalist shops to the more specialized ones, in order to satisfy the most disparate requests.
Even the collection of materials is as close to reality as possible: in order to collect wood we need an ax, a pickaxe for the stone and a fishing rod for the fish. The objects necessary for the various actions and those collected can be sold in shops or used for crafting objects and / or weapons.
The war of knots
In Black Desert there is also one commercial strategic component noteworthy: first of all we need to understand the concept of nodes, of places on the map that connected together form a network. You can invest and buy one of these nodes and hire workers within them. Your workforce will be responsible for earning you useful resources to purchase a new node. The only sine qua non condition to be respected is that its purchase must fall within the connected network of nodes.
But in reality it is not just about business, but also about power and domination. If you are part of a Guild, a necessary condition in our opinion to have fun with Black Desert, you will be able to participate in the war of nodes and attack that of an enemy clan. Your goal will be to take over the enemy fortress in order to increase your dominance and exploit its resources.
This is just one of the PVP components that the game offers you, available upon reaching level 50. Other than that we have it battle in arenas against random opponents and Red Battlefield, a fight to the death 5 vs 5 with no holds barred.
Our review of Black Desert for PlayStation 4 concludes with a slight bitterness in our mouth. Pearl Abyss creates a one-of-a-kind port for the Sony console, creating a noteworthy open world action RPG. Unfortunately it is not very usable due to the total absence of localization in Spanish. The game is completely in English, sometimes even difficult to understand. The graphics are good even if on certain occasions there is an important frame drop. The multiplicity of missions, activities and quests, on the other hand, is absolutely noteworthy. Nice, but it could have been gorgeous. Sin.
► Black Desert Online is an Action-MMORPG game developed and published by Pearl Abyss for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 14/07/2015 The version for PC came out on 03/03/2016 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 30/06/2018 The version for Xbox One came out on 07/01/2018
