Sphere 3

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Classes

Paladin – front-liners dedicated to protecting their comrades in battle. They have high defense and the ability to use healing skills but have low damage compared to other melee classes.

Barbarian – blood-thirsty melee fighters with incredible strength allowing them to wield massive two-handed axes. They have strong physical attacks as well as the highest HP and critical-hit chance but are reliant on rage to trigger abilities.

Warrior – heavily-armored professional fighters adept at using swords. They have strong defense and high physical attack rates but lack defensive skills and have low resistance to magic.

Ranger – the only ranged-class in the game and can use abilities to slow down or stun enemies. This class has the farthest range and can summon pets to keep the enemy occupied but are highly vulnerable in melee combat.

Monk – a well-balanced class that can use offensive, defensive, and supporting skills but doesn't have a particularly strong side. They have the highest magical defense among the melee classes along with teleporting skills to chase down enemy units.

Assassin – a class that relies on stealth and agility to deliver precise attacks that inflict high damage in a short period of time but have low health and defense. They can also use poison to soften up enemies for the killing blow.

Sorcerer – relies on spells for both offense and defense. They have the strongest magic attacks and can deal massive damage but have the lowest health among the classes and are also vulnerable to physical attacks.

Priest – the most important support class in the game. They can heal and resurrect allies but have low attack rates, health, defense, and mobility.

Necromancer – uses dark magic to cast debuffs as well as curses that deal periodic damage (DoT) to enemies. They can also summon the dead to assist them in battle. Their spells, however, require HP and necrotic energy to cast.

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Review

By, Marc Marasigan

Sphere 3: Enchanted World is a fantasy-themed 3D action MMORPG that drops players into the middle of an all-out war between the forces of good, made up of Humans and their allies, and the forces of darkness, made up of Demons and their allies. Players choose from one of the two-factions and go on quests that start out in the safety of their lands but will eventually bring them into contact with members of the opposing faction.

Sphere 3 looks a lot like a slightly-cartoony version of Neverwinter or Tera. The artwork is good but the graphics look a bit dated for a game that came out in the last months of 2015. From what I’ve read, the developers intentionally lowered the graphics quality to allow players with mid-range rigs to experience the game’s mass PvP events. The game features generic epic-fantasy music and sound effects which are good but sadly unremarkable.

To Kill or Not To Kill

As soon as the game-launcher opens up players are given a choice of entering one of two servers: Anhelm for PvE or Nomrad for PvP. Choosing a PvE server doesn’t necessarily mean that PvP is non-existent. PvE servers allow players to choose whether or not they want to engage in PvP which allows them to enjoy the game’s PvE contents without having to worry about being PK-ed or killed by other players, at least until they come in contact with the opposing faction. Players in PvE servers can also engage in Castle Sieges and other voluntary forms of PvP. For players who opt to join PvP servers, remember that PK is an everyday part of life except in a few starting zones. Going on an all-out killing spree, however, doesn’t come without consequences. Players who reach a certain number of bad karma points from killing other players will lose both gold and items when they die which, I think, is only fair.

Create and Customize

In both PvE and PvP servers first-time players start the game in the character creation screen. Once they’ve created characters, succeeding log-ins will start them in the character selection screen instead. Players can create up to 5 characters per account per server. Unfortunately, characters created in PvE servers will be unavailable in PvP servers. Creating a character in Sphere 3 works just like any other MMORPG: pick a faction, pick a class, customize, and name. As of this writing, the game only has two playable races: Humans and Demons. That’s one race for each faction. The Dwarf and Elf factions, allied with Humans and Demons respectively, are yet to be unlocked—hopefully in the near future. Classes are also gender-locked which, based on experience,is an absolute no-no for an MMORPG. The game doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to customization aside from a handful of pre-made options for the character’s hair, face, nose, mouth, tattoos, and horns for the Demon race, so apart from hair color, every character basically looks the same, even the demons.

The Journey Begins

Depending on their chosen race players start off in different locations, Ericuria for Humans and Tir-Twayd for Demons. They also follow different quest and storylines. Players are shown the ropes through tool tips that appear when a player encounters something new which can easily be turned off by a click of a button. Like any other MMORPG, Sphere 3’s core gameplay revolves around completing quests for various NPC’s. These quests take players on a wild goose chase around the game world until they eventually reach level cap. Like World of Warcraft and Tera, Sphere 3’s quests are level-based which means that players have to be at a certain level to access quests, even ones that are required to move the story along. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of quests and side quests to accomplish. This ensures that players are always within the main quest line’s level requirements. If by chance you do run out of quests, then some good old-fashioned grinding should do the trick.

I Can Do This With My Eyes Closed!

Like most action MMORPG’s Sphere 3 makes use of the WASD keys for movement and the mouse to aim their attacks and abilities using the crosshair similar to games like Tera, Dragon Nest, and Neverwinter. The game also features a non-target combat system which is basically a crosshair that uses colors to tell you which attacks are effective at a certain distance and not much else. Personally, I’m not all too convinced that the game merits the action MMORPG description since there’s nothing at all action-y about standing in one spot and spamming the left mouse button until the mob dies. A typical attack rotation would be 1, 2, 3, LMB, LMB, LMB, RMB, LMB, rinse and repeat. Although, most of the time, spamming the left mouse button 3 or 4 times is enough to take out the game’s easy-to-kill mobs. Oftentimes there would also be attack delays where nothing happens even after clicking on an ability a couple of times. Might just be lag but quite a few players have noticed it so far. Jumping also needs a bit of work so players don’t get snagged on an itty-bitty fence that should have been easy to clear.

Slow and Steady…

Slow character progression is usually the norm in most big-name MMORPG’s like World of Warcraft and Tera, which undoubtedly is where the game gets its inspiration from. Sphere 3’s progression, however, may seem a bit too slow to some players, especially with the absence of a sprint ability and considering all the walking required to complete quests. Obtaining a mount at around level 5 or so makes things a bit faster, but only by a hair. I was able to make it to level 5 in a little over an hour which isn’t bad but still a bit slow by my standards. Leveling up rewards players with skill points that they can use to improve their basic attacks as well as the skills that they automatically unlock upon reaching certain levels. Gaining levels also allows players to equip better gear which is highly important considering that character stats are equipment-based.

Cash Shop

Sphere 3 is a free-to-play game supported by microtransactions by way of an in-game cash shop where players can by premium items in exchange for real-world money. How players see the cash shop is entirely dependent on what type of server they joined. The cash shop contains items that greatly increase the chance to upgrade and enchant equipment which might not be a big deal for PvE players but may be considered as pay-to-win by PvP players. The only way around this would be to create separate cash shops for each server which I doubt the devs will be doing any time soon.

The Final Verdict - Fair

Sphere 3: Enchanted World doesn’t bring anything new to the table. There’s nothing wrong about copying features that worked for other successful MMORPG’s. The key is to making sure that it’s better than the others or at the very least working like it should. Outdated graphics, gender-locked classes, lack of character customization, and slow game progression, not to mention the laggy and unresponsive combat isn’t exactly what I or other players are looking for in an MMORPG, especially one that came out in the last months of 2015. The game, however, is still in its infancy and might show improvements in the future. But for the time being players would be better off trying out other free-to-play MMORPG’s.

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Screenshots

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Sphere 3: Enchanted World Videos

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Links

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Official Site
Sphere 3: Enchanted World Steam Page

Sphere 3: Enchanted World System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7, 8, 8.1 (32 or 64-bit)
CPU: Dual Core, faster than 2 GHz
RAM: 2 GB RAM
Video Card: shader 3.0 support Geforce 6600, Radeon X1600, 256 Mb RAM and DirectX 9.0c support
Direct X: DirectX 9.0c
Hard Disk Space: 6 GB available space

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows Vista or Windows 7,8,8.1 (32- or 64-bit)
CPU: Quad-Core, faster than 2 GHz
RAM: 4 GB RAM or more
Video Card: shader 3.0 support Geforce 8800, Radeon HD4000, 512 Mb RAM and DirectX 9.0c support
Direct X: DirectX 9.0c, 10
Hard Disk Space: 6 GB or more available space

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon!

Sphere 3: Enchanted World Additional Information

Developer: Nikita Online
Publisher: Nikita Online

Distributor: Steam

Writer: Alexander Zorich
Sound Design: Strategic Music Company

Closed Beta: May 19, 2015
Open Beta (RU): August 18, 2015
Open Beta (NA): November 11, 2015

Official Launch Date: December 2, 2015

Development History / Background:

Sphere 3: Enchanted World is a fantasy-themed 3D MMORPG developed and published by Nikita Online, a well-known Russian game developer. The game is the third installment of Sphere, the first Russian-made MMORPG which was launched in 2003. The game’s closed-beta phase took off on May 19, 2015 before going into open-beta in Russia on August 18, 2015 followed by a global open-beta test on November 11 of the same year. Sphere 3 was also Greenlighted on Steam on August 2015 and was released globally on December 2, 2015. During the game’s development, the developers sought the help of Russian-speaking sci-fi and fantasy writer, Alexander Zorich as well as sound designers from Strategic Music Company.