Soul of Guardian

Soul of Guardian is a browser-based action RPG set in a hybrid fantasy world. Players choose one of four classes and head off into the adventure in the virtual world. Alongside the quest line, players will sail through levels, finish tasks and unlock new features. Skill tree, mounts, pets, fishing, party, friend list, guild, various chat channels, dragon slaying, on and on – you can find them all, but you need to hold your expectation down so as not to be very disappointed when you really try them out.

You select gender, type a name, pick one class – Blade Warrior, Dagger Assassin, Hammer Judge or Spear Guard – and are loaded into the game even without seeing how your avatar looks like. Once in, you know how in-game self looks like – just as anyone else is. As you look around the not-that-fantastic fantasy world, an NPC pops up asking you to Go Visit another to take the first quest. There, you start questing and auto-running.

One quest gets you one level up. Quests are tedious, revolving around message relay, collecting and slaying whatever monsters that exist but to die easily. Perhaps, the story quests mean to provide the role-playing elements, but simply fail due to the lousy quest scripts (translated possibly). You know the jibber-jabber of quest-offering NPCs is the effort made to spin yore, yet you are just unable to be attentive because reading them is no fun – from what I conceive scrape by scrape, NPCs just badmouth each other or ask you to help handle a problem. You can ignore the texts and go on smoothly like anyone else, but you know all you have is monotonous clicking. What’s fun in mouse clicking and watching the jumbling screen?

Auto-run, auto-attack, auto-placement of learned skills and received potions, and auto-tips about equipping newly gained stronger gears. How much is left for you to explore and relish the joy of discovery? Novice-friendly though it may be, it overdoes and ends up being a little manipulative. Just take the tips for equipment for example. It pops up to remind you to equip a certain gear, but if you just ignore and close the window, it shows up again seconds later.

You level up to access more playable contents, such as mounts, pets (known as Soulbeast in the game), fishing (why always boring fishing!), body building, character attribute enhancement, guild, group fight and more. Variety is welcomed; sadly not a single variation is stimulating. No learning curve is there – monsters differ in name and looks, but not in style and strength. Quest texts are left mostly unread; monsters don’t provoke your fighting spirit; and there are so many auto-pilots to let you idle – isn’t it natural that you quickly grow mindless and careless and finally quit?

To become a VIP gets you exclusive contents like Dragonslay, of which I’ve no idea of what it is. Yet based on the free gameplay it grants, it’s really questionable that it’s a game worth your money. Soul of Guardian is mediocre at best. Playing it just lets me understand a bit why so many gamers have a problem with browser-based games.

Soul of Guardian Screenshots: