Online game "God of Night"

Esprit Games continues to release on PC games that were previously released for mobile platforms. Another interesting release was the conditionally free MMORPG God of Night, dedicated to Eastern mythology. Here the braves battle with rebellious demons that live in the mountains, talk to the characters of folklore, and also can become the embodiment of Sun Wukong - king of the monkeys from ancient literature of China, which is mentioned in the 16th century novel "Journey to the West. The entourage of the game is exotic, but it offers the standard rules of the genre, simple controls and spectacular battles. It's time to get acquainted with the novelty.

God of Night was released quite recently, in 2023, and it had to stand out among similar projects to attract the attention of the audience. That's why there is no usual fantasy elves, dwarves and orcs, and the overall style and interface MMORPG reminds another work of the same genre - Fox Legends. But if there were represented only four classes, here the choice of nine at once. After installing the client, which takes only a few minutes, you are offered to choose a role - and at the first stage there is something to think about.

All nine starting characters have six stats: attack, defense, control, evasion, health recovery, and critical hit power. Of course, each of the nine has a different distribution of these stats to give the heroes unique traits. Sky Warrior, wielding a spear, focuses on dealing damage in normal and critical attacks, Monk has all the power in crits, but slightly better control, and Meteor, the archer, to the set of advantages of the Warrior of the Sky has also received excellent evasion skills from the enemy lunges. The fox spirit sorceress is good on all fronts, especially in recovery, the swordsman Daos is a master of attack and control, and Lun Tzu with the same large sword is a specialist in dodging and crits.

There's also the Dragon, partly similar in skill to the Sky Warrior, the Phoenix Feather Girl, who fights with a pair of short blades, and the bamboo-staff-waving Wukong, the only non-human actor in the set. In fact, it seems strange that Sun Wukong has been singled out as a separate class, since every character in the story is supposed to be the incarnation of the king of the apes. Why go through chapters of the script when you can become the king of the apes right at the start? Be that as it may, the character editor does not please with an abundance of settings, even the gender of the protagonist you choose along with the innate properties. But there is a closet - you can see in advance how the hero looks like in this or that outfit.

After the introductory part, the adventure begins. You are not introduced to the story for a long time - you are immediately directed to the characters, who give you their quests and outline the storyline with a couple of terse phrases. According to the local story, you are a chosen hero and the living embodiment of a god. But this is inaccurate. After all, you have to slay quite a few monsters to prove your exclusivity. And at first everything, including combat and talking, is automatic - only after a while do you get to switch to manual control.

The single-player campaign is simple. You have story chapters, the finale of each of which involves killing another monster at the request of civilians. There are also world and personal bosses: the first appear every minute of the day and give you various items of equipment, including clothes, after defeating them, and the second are available in several pieces per day. Conveniently, the game immediately indicates what the trophy is due for a victory over a particular enemy - and if you do not, for example, not enough powerful talisman or stiff old boots, you can choose the fight, which will be most useful for the development of the hero. The "Boss" icon in the upper right corner of the screen helps you navigate the challenges - this is where all the enemies waiting to be challenged to a duel are gathered.

There are also a huge number of dungeons, such as "Emerald Valley" and "Altar of Cleansing" in the Kingdom of Swords, designed to be completed alone or with friends. But not all of the activities open immediately - most of them require you to level up your hero. And some, like the challenge to fight a paying boss, also require you to spend resources. However, each stage of the game has enough activities, and the more quests you complete, the more they appear in a special list - it's available on the screen on the left and immediately shows which missions are primary and which are secondary.

The hero is not alone in his adventures. You can move around the locations on a riding animal - there are, again, free and purchased racers of all shapes and colors. Like the classics - use a horse, and if the soul asks for something out of the ordinary, you can ride a lion, a bear, or even a chimera with fox and peacock features. In addition to the horse the hero uses pets - creatures that follow you everywhere and provide support in battle. Their variety is even greater than that of the riding animals, from all sorts of piggies and little pandas to fairies in revealing outfits. Separate mention should be made of the god of war - this is essentially an alternate form of your character, which he briefly takes during combat to increase the damage. All of the above entities, as well as the hero himself, can be improved at the expense of resources.

As God of Night belongs to the MMORPG genre, it has enough role-playing parameters and improvements to everything in the world. But the main characteristic of a character in any situation is combat power. It is its number (BM) that shows who the hero can handle and who you should stay away from. The game allows you to raise your BM up to a few million if you use paid bonuses and items from the store. But for those who are in no hurry, it will be interesting to develop the protagonist yourself, even if it requires more time.

The character's skill set depends on the class selected at the beginning of the game. Skills are always displayed at the bottom of the screen, and you can find out more about them if you open the progression window. In principle, autobattle makes learning any of these skills an extra work - the bot itself activates them when needed. But it is worth focusing on the main ability. After all, it turns the hero into a god of war - a giant, causing great damage to the enemy. However, this transformation is short-lived and requires a pause to recharge.

Although the god of war, riding animal and pet have their own characteristics, such as attack, defense and health, their pumping on the whole raises their BM, which is immediately added to the hero's BM. And it turns out that any action to improve something works on a single parameter. It's very simple, so you don't have to think about calculations.

The only thing to be distracted by is the "Strength Growth" icon, which lets you know what you can pump at any given moment. Everything is arranged conveniently: you click on the picture with a clenched fist and open the list of all the items you need to pay attention to, and there's just a mouse click on the auto-enhancement panel. Even in similar games, such as the already mentioned Fox Legends, the same process is more complicated.

Changing items of clothing and armor is also elementary - as soon as you get the new items, you can put them on your character. There's a lot of this stuff in the game, because it's shared by every boss in the world after you've been killed. The green arrow in the box with the item indicates that the BM trophy is better than what you currently possess. Naturally, over time your inventory gets clogged with different boots, gauntlets, cloaks, bracelets, and rings. And then there are boosts, stars, and gems. Remelting helps to quickly get rid of unnecessary items - however, it must be opened in a separate window, without the "press one button and it's done" style simplifications. But you'll free up space in the hero's stash and get some resources.

In peaceful locations on each server are the heroes of other gamers. You are immediately given to add someone of them as a friend, but at first, the support of partners is not really needed, because you can handle all the tasks alone. Even when it comes to team raids in dungeons, it happens without direct control - you just send your character into someone else's session, where he acts on his own. At high levels, duels open up in the arena, where daredevils find out who's the coolest on the server.

God of Night also features group activities like contests, creating clans, searching for clans (essentially the same dungeons of several levels), and simulating relationships. Every now and then someone gives someone flowers, making rose petals begin to fly on your screen, and if you want your friends are free to enter into a closer alliance for special bonuses. The same applies to clans, the main benefit of participating in which is the daily gifts.

Interestingly, the friendship menu is not only chat and exchange gifts, but also blacklist, where you can put anyone. It's also convenient that before each challenge, the game shows if it has a group mode. Nothing prevents you from doing without company when you don't need it, and if you want to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with your friends, it won't be hard to find such a battle.

There seems to be nothing outstanding in God of Night - it seems like another MMORPG where the bot helps to run around the locations and cut monsters. But the developers approached their task creatively - they took an unusual entourage and simplified all the actions in the game, which in similar projects requires more attention from the user. Some will also like the emphasis on single-player playthrough - adding friends to the company and challenging other gamers is optional. Others will appreciate the visuals that grab your eye during the battles, despite the overall simplicity of the graphics. In other words, it turned out pretty good - the game is worth trying at least out of interest to the genre.

Zarium. April 2023