Vindictus is a Korean originated MMORPG game developed by devCAT and published by Nexon Korea in 2010. If it sounds familiar to you, that is because this is the same people who came together for the derivative game Mabinogi. Vindictus, otherwise known as Mabinogi Heroes in South Korea, is placed in a timeline as a prequel to the dying game. Having all eyes and anticipation laying on the game to successfully succeed the outdated gem, Vindictus had high hopes as the release drew near. This was soon to be broken with limitations.

As more leaks and news came about to the West, veteran players realized Vindictus will not be like Mabinogi in any original way. There was no fantasy life aspect, just the horrid grind of linear repetitive dungeons disguised under the name Battle Quests. There was nothing worse to have in the MMO genre than another Elsword type of system. What did keep people on board however, was the lore they kept to the original story and the new combat system that was rather fresh for its time.

In the beginning of the game, you the player, come along with mercenaries to calm the beast that the Oracle Tieve has been watching over. Under formorian curse, the large spider started wreaking havoc. (This whole section is essentially the tutorial.) After you slay the beast, Tieve finds you unconscious and takes you to Colhen's Inn. You give your name to her, and proceed out the door to meet at the mercenary outpost.



Just to bring some thought into how small this game really is, you discovered 50% of the towns available already! Congrats!

Even after 6 years, Vindictus only has two whole towns in the entire game. Rochester, and Colhen. There is a fishing boat, and docks to embark on battle quests, but that is it. To be frank, a 2004 game like Mabinogi has at least 9 different towns that has grown since its release. It would have been understandable to have only those two towns after its immediate release, but the only real updates this game has received were buyable outfits, some events, and some new classes. There were some chapter reveals, but those only added more battle quests and lore. To be a successor to Mabinogi, you would think they would keep to adding skills, more open world areas and more rich quest missions that had 3d NPC models instead of .png cutouts.



Why can't each story mission have moments like this all the time?



Another huge thing I should mention about this game is the dungeon player connection. This isn't like a regular mmo where you're connected to the official servers. When you enter the dungeon boat, you know bar levels next to your party members' names. This is because Nexon decided it would be a great idea to depend on peer to peer connection for these missions. You would have to hope you and your host has decent internet, or else you're going to have a really bad time.

After a week of play, the dungeons became lackluster and I just couldn't take the heap of back and forth dialogue anymore. Setting down my poor lvl 22 to rot, I mourned the game as it too will slowly die while not having a chance to capture the charming passion that was in Mabinogi.

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