(21 votes, average: 3.33 / 5)
Loading...Twelve Sky 2
Twelve Sky 2 is a huge world overflowing with unique enemies to be taken out by your blade, lute, or whatever you decide to pick from the numerous choices at character select and along your journey.
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Publisher: Red Fox Games Playerbase: Low Type: Fantasy Release Date: September 09, 2009 Pros: +Well modeled. +Fluid animations. +Huge environments. Cons: -Repetitive questing. –Empty world. –Illusion of choice. |
Twelve Sky 2 Overview
Twelve Sky 2 prominently features a cultural rich theme with fluid stylistic animations and appropriately modeled player characters. Set off on an adventure exploring every nook and cranny of this incredibly grandiose world with several different clans and weapons. Take down the fiercest enemies with an assortment of unique skills to aid you in every situation. Break up the questing and level grind with player vs. player combat to earn points and glory for your clan.
Twelve Sky 2 Key Features:
- Ginormous World - Travel for hours on end, discovering new locations in a thematic world.
- Multiple Classes - Choose from three factions dictating a new character appearance and clan.
- Diverse Set of Skills - Use 7 different skills in battle, or focus on just 2-3 to take down enemies.
- Clan-Based Warfare - Take to arms with your friends to sit atop the leaderboards.
- Well Realized Theme - Dive into the intense Chinese-influenced cultural world that serves as the foundation of Twelve Sky 2.
Twelve Sky 2 Screenshots
Twelve Sky 2 Featured Video
Twelve Sky 2 Classes
Imperial Dragon- The most balanced class for everyone to enjoy. Wield all manner of weaponry and fill any position necessary whether that be a front line tank or a deadly warrior.
Royal Snake- Quick reflexes and sinister striking is the Royal Snake's motto. Fast and incredibly mobile, even the highest attack power in the world doesn’t matter if can't make contact with the Royal Snake.
Fierce Tiger- Few survive to tell the tale of the savage Tiger. Abominable strength is the best offense and defense. Though lacking in speed, the Fierce Tiger only needs to hit once to cripple any foe.
Twelve Sky 2 Review
By, Charlie Perez
Twelve Sky 2 won’t win any rewards, be remembered fondly, or do well in anything really, but, it’s not terrible. Everything you’ll find in this game is perfectly average, from the unengaging combat to the empty worlds filled with copy and paste NPCs. But hey, not everyone is a star or a stinker.
An Enemy of My Enemy is Still an Enemy
Generally the entire game is heavily influenced by Chinese culture. Slick deadly dragons and artisanal weaponry spice up a world otherwise blanketed by snow. Character modeling across the board is superb and theme fitting. Your adventurer comes equipped with heavy coats to battle the intense winter and brings only the sharpest blades to stave off blood thirsty enemies.
However, not all enemies are seeking to destroy. The goblins living just outside the starting village just chill out waiting for inevitable death. It may not have been intentional but the walking animation on these sorry creatures is hilarious; they walk with a strange zombie strut of pulling their legs almost perpendicular to their waist and then quickly following through the step.
Further outside the village you’ll find all manner of foes, from a flying fish to a dual wielding gorilla in full armor and a behemoth of epic proportions carrying a blade worthy of its size. The unfortunate part is that, generally, their animations are as bare bones as possible, probably due to the sheer number of them.
Armor Up
Excellent player character animations bring the fantastic modeling to life. Full follow through on sword swings and other stylistic choices push the mindset that you’re in ancient China. This may be a result of careful observation of theatrical works to give a genuine feeling of authenticity.
Contrary to the Explosions in the Sky third album, the world is indeed a cold dead place. This grandiose world in both size and scope fails to have a liveness about it. There isn’t anything interesting to see or explore; go in any cardinal direction and you’ll only find the same snowy mountainside—no interesting buildings, enemies, caves, or hills; simply a flat nothingness.
Move Damn You!
As if being uninteresting weren’t punishment enough, actually traveling through the world is a pain. Instead of the tried and true WASD keys to move briskly through miles of in game world you have to deal with right clicking like a MOBA. There isn’t a key to auto run either. The option menu in general is shockingly sparse—both extremely limited in gameplay/key rebinding and in graphical options. The game client is stuck on full screen and will probably be stretched like pants after Thanksgiving due to the native 4:3.
Continuing on with the theme of limited options is character selection. Yeah, sure there are a few different classes with different weapons to pick but it doesn’t matter. You’re given the illusion of choice as each class plays in a very similar fashion. On a side tangent I really like the look of the female characters in this game. Typically, MMOs will have scantily clad or otherwise weaker looking women but in Twelve Sky 2 there is nominal difference. Probably because it’s freezing outside and anything less would be ridiculous.
Anyway, as mentioned before it doesn’t matter if you pick snake or lion or whatever because of how your character is built stat wise is through stat allocation. Now that’s not a knock against picking where each tick of strength or health goes; that’s a fantastic system to differentiate later game characters. Illusion of choice is on trial here. Also at character creation you can pick which weapon you want to start with. Once again it doesn’t matter as you can pick up another weapon type soon after starting.
On Point
Learning skills is certainly archaic. Instead of a natural progression of using a weapons or traditional level up, you travel to the far reaches of newbie city to a rather height-lacking NPC, to buy skills earned with points acquired upon leveling up. Being able to pick and buy half a dozen skills ten minutes into playing is certainly strange and confusing for newer players. What’s the difference between this attack boost skill and this other one? You’ll be left with a lot of questions and few to no answers, a bittersweet feeling. On one hand it’s nice to be left to discover what works and what doesn’t, on the other hand having so much choice so early on can be frustrating.
Looking good is all the combat does well. Get used to standing around auto attacking while occasionally pressing a number key. Granted, some character progression paths lead to at least a small amount of strategy or preparation. For example, a DPS warrior will activate an attack speed buff before combat to significantly increase damage output. You can increase the effectiveness of said buff by spending skill points on it until its capped.
Guts and Glory
Unengaging combat doesn’t bode well for the equally boring quest system. Go here, kill five of these things, come back; cha-ching, reward. accept quest, go there, kill seven of that thing, come back; cha-ching, slightly bigger reward. Chatting with the townsfolk won’t do much either. Typically it’s the sob story we’ve all heard before, “Brave adventurer! Please, my family is dying! I need you to collect "X" flying fish so we can live.” Pfft get a job old timer. Strangely enough these NPC’s will use American idioms where they don’t belong, for example, “Wow you did great! To the ‘T’.” It’s an often hilarious oversight.
There is a distinct lack of drive for the player to do anything. Why should I waste my time battling progressively tougher enemies past newbie town? The combat isn’t worth doing, cosmetic options are limited, and worst of all, no story—not even a save the world from the baddie wizard or even save the princess.
Final Verdict: Good
In general the character modeling and animations are okay but not breathtaking. Dragging them down is the combat and world building; while not awful, simply boring. Games like Twelve Sky 2 are always the hardest to review, nothing amazing to praise but nothing bad to rant about. Ultimately, Twelve Sky 2 is mediocre in almost every aspect.
Twelve Sky 2 Screenshots
Twelve Sky 2 Videos
Twelve Sky 2 Links
Twelve Sky 2 Official Site
Twelve Sky 2 Wikipedia
Twelve Sky 2 Google Play Companion App
Twelve Sky 2 Wiki [Database/Guides]
Twelve Sky 2 Wikia [Datebase/Guides]
Twelve Sky 2 Facebook
Twelve Sky 2 System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP / 2000
CPU: Pentium III 800mhz
Video Card: GeForce 5200 or Radeon 7600 64 MB
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 3 GB
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP / 2000
CPU: Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz
Video Card: GeForce FX 5600 or Radeon 9550 128 MB
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Disk Space: 3 GB
Twelve Sky 2 Music & Soundtrack
Twelve Sky 2 Additional Information
Developer: ALT1
Publisher(s):
Europe - Mayn Interactive
Philippines - GameClub
Korea - Paran
China - Gfyoyo
Taiwan - Gameflier
North America - Aeria Games and Entertainment
Game Engine: GXD Game Engine
Release Date: September 09, 2009
Development History / Background:
Twelve Sky 2 is developed by Korean development company ALT1. Twelve Sky 's backstory and lore are derived from Chinese Cosmology, as such Twelve Sky 2 is especially popular in the Asian marketplace. In 2008 the development team attended the 6th annual ChinaJoy Expo which featured their game. Soon after the game was also featured on the UDN news site garnering numerous photographs and commentaries. Twelve Sky 2 utilizes an in-house designed engine called GXD, lending to the game's unique atmosphere and presentation. ALT1, formerly known as Gigasoft, is primarily known for developing the Twelve Sky series. They also developed the now defunct 3D fantasy MMORPG Troy Online, released in 2011.
