Alright, so you’ve heard about me talking about Altantica Online. What’s so great about this game other than its gigantic 2.15gb file size to download? Firstly, if you’re tired of the same old hack and slash, nuke and grind MMOs out there, and you’re looking for something new, then you’re in luck.

Altantica Online is a crossbreed between Final Fantasy Tactics, Luminary and a dash of Silkroad Online. It’s a turn-based MMO where you control up to 9 recruitable characters. Finally a game that requires you to think a little before you act. Your character lineup and their position is vital to your survival. Put a Gunner out in the front and she will get mowed down faster than you can say Bang. Recruit an army of 9 melee characters and discover how they can’t hit Flying type monsters (which appear very frequently late in the game).

Atlantica Online also offers Luminary’s in-dept economy and town management systems. Aside from managing your characters and their growth, the game offers you to take control of game market. Almost everything can be bought from the market. Most items have a fixed market price and this helps controls insane inflations that many MMOs have (ie, Granado Espada). Players would usually sell under the market price and this helps newer players purchase what they need and continuously simulating the economy.

Refining in this game is painless, all items have 100% success rates all the way to +10. All you need is the equipment and an equilivant equipment and the enchantment stone. Weapon and Armor loots comes in Equipments boxes that you random for. Keep what you need, and sell what you don’t need.

People who love crafting will be pleased to know that this game is very crafting-centric; basic needs like potions and food all the way to weapons and equipments to even scrolls and bullets can be crafted. Crafting levels also can be taught from player to player (provided the learning player has the experience), and the teaching player recieves exp for doing so.

This game also promotes guild activities. There are many features of the game only available to players with guilds such as guild quests, town control, usage of the training centres, town quests, collecting taxes from players who use your town’s facilities as well as NPC residents living in your town. Towns in this game by the way, are named after actual countries (Which is why some guilds fight so hard to get Tokyo, lol).

Guild members grind guild quests to earn guild points which in turn allows guild leaders to bid control for towns around Atlantica Online. The winning guild gets to control the town for 1 year (game time) and as they farm more town quests to improve the towns, they get to increase taxes for all the facilities available in the town. Highly populated towns by players = more taxes gained = more money earned. NPC residents pay taxes monthly (game time), which officers can draw to pay their salaries. Money making in this game is easy.

Atlantica Online also offers players the opportunity to bet on AI-controlled battles in Arenas to earn money everyday (10am Singapore time). The payout is very lucrative. PVP Tournaments based on level brackets are also held daily together with the Arena and prize monies are very attractive. All of these events are part of the game and not engineered by the GMs, which means you don’t have to wait for GMs to get their lazy asses off to organize one.

The learning curve in Atlantica Online however, is steep but not difficult to master. The interface takes some time to get used to, but as soon as you get use to it, this game is almost perfect. Graphics in this game is suprisingly good for a tactics game.

If you’re looking for a game that will last you for a while, this is the game. We’ll be here for a long while, from the way I see it. Join Yakisoba if you want a closely knitted guild when the next beta starts!