NCSoft and Tencent Games will be launching the ultimate closed beta for Blade and Soul Mobile in China on December 8. It’s a QTE card-based game that will contain some familiar items and faces from the MMORPG - Blade & Soul. From December 8th to 11th, players can register for the game on 12 am each day.
Official Website Page: http://bsm.qq.com/
Pre-register Page: http://bsm.qq.com/act/a20151107release/1.htm
Charge & Rebate Page: http://bsm.qq.com/act/a20151107release/rebate.htm
From the next page, I will introduce what kind of game Blade and Soul Mobile is from the aspects of its story, gameplay, PVE & PVP contents and daily restrictions.
Blade & Soul Mobile is a card-based mobile game developed by NCSOFT; the chinese version of the game is distributed by Tencent. The CBT is held from 18th Aug to 7th Sept 2015 and all data will be wiped after that. CBT keys are given to Blade & Soul Online CN (MMORPG) players, along with handsome rewards, including in-game items and gift pack for the upcoming OBT (only if you have reached level 45 on the mobile games before the CBT ends).
Initially, I have only started playing Blade and Soul mobile because of the event which offers in-game items for the PC version of BNS. To be honest, I am not a real fan of mobile games. Furthermore, there are various bugs and compatibility with BNS Mobile, for example, the game refused to run on my ASUS Zenfone 5 and i had to switch to Samsung Galaxy Note to play the game. It is currently only available for Android phone as well. However, BnS mobile exceeds my expection!
Story
Surprisingly, the game turns out to be really good and lives up to the reputation of Blade & Soul online. It is after all made by the same developer who have produced BnS. The story of the game occurs before the event in the original BnS. You will see many familiar characters which you have encoutered in BnS. You play as a lad who have come across a ring, which harbors a ring spirit.
Upon wearing the ring, you somehow become delusional and start seeing man as young girls. This creates various funny scenarios during the early part of your adventure. More importantly, it gives the developer a good reason to turn some familiar male characters in BNS into the cute or girly characters. However, as the story unfolds, it turns out that the ring possesses some dark energy and might turn you into a demon. You will journey across the world of BNS to uncover the mystery revolving this magic ring.
BNs mobile complements the original game by expanding the character developments of main/side characters in the original story. In fact, the main character of the original BNS will appear in the BNS mobile as well. If you have played the original BnS, this game will definitely appeal to you.
Gameplay
The game play of BNS mobile is based on card game with simple rules. You can choose up to 5 cards; place 3 of them at the front row and 2 of them at the back. In order to win, kill (deplete HP) all your opponent's card before they do.
The slots are numbered 1 to 5 and that is the order of your cards attack and being attacked. For example, slot 1 which is at the middle, will be the 1st to attack and it will be the one who sustain all the damage from the Normal attack of your opponent. 1,2,3 are in the front row while 4,5 are in the back row.
Each cards has up to 4 skills, which can be either active, passive and combo skills. The 1st skills for all cards are active skills, which can be triggered by touching the skill icon once your MP is filled up. Some skills are combo skills, which can only be triggered when a special condition has been satisfied, for example, when your opponent is stun or when you have blocked an attack. Combo skills does not require MP.
For this CBT, there are up to 65 cards in the game, each representing a character. All cards belong to one of the 7 classes: destroyer, blade master, kungfu master, assassin, summoner, force master and gunner. Despite being the same class, no two cards have similar skill effect.
For example, both Mushin and Yukson are kungfu master. Mushin's active skill silences all enemies on the same row while Yukson's inflicts stun effect. However, the 2nd combo skills for both Mushin and Yukson shares the same characteristics: deal damage to stun target and move to the front row. All Kungfu master have high evasion and magic defence, perfect for tanking magical attack.
I will not elaborate the details of each class, but briefly, destroyer are the typical tanker with high HP, physical & magical defence. Blade master has high physical defence and block rate. Assassin has high physical attack and their skills attack the target directly in front of them (instead of aiming according the usual order of attack). Force master is good at dealing AOE magical damage while Gunner skills can hit the back row cards of your opponent. Summoner is the dedicated healing class, although there are a few special skills of other classes which can heal too.
Typically, you are only allowed to select up to 5 cards for battle. Careful card selection and timely skill casting are critical to victory. Each card can be equipped with a weapon, necklace and earring, along with 3 gems. Each equipment can be leveled up and imbued with additional stats. Players can freely customize the gear and gems to build their unique cards. The gears and gems can be removed and re-equipped to other cards if needed.
PVE & PVP Contents
The main PVE contents are in the form of node exploration system. Proceeding with the story and reaching the required level allow you to unlock higher level nodes. Enemies awaits at each node, and typically there are 2 to 3 rounds of battle in 1 node.
Besides the node exploration system, there are other forms of PVE contents, such as the familiar Mushin Tower (10 floors), World Boss (only spawns at certain time), roulette battle (need to satisfy the specified condition to win the reward) etc.
There is also a ladder-ranking system for PVP. You will need to set a "defensive" party in the PVP system. This party will be matched randomly when other players requested for PVP. You don't have to do anything during the ladder PVP. Your party will automatically fight with the opponent and depending on the outcome, your ranking will increase or decrease. Your ranking determines the PVP reward given out daily at 22:00.
The real-time PVP tournament between active online players are conducted from 20:30 to 21:50 daily. This is the real PVP whereby, both players are actively controlling the skill casting. The reward for PVP tournament will be given out weekly.
Daily Restriction
There are many daily restrictions on the PVE and PVP contents of BNS mobile. You are allocated a specific amount of Vigor per day. Vigor is required to perform various PVE activity, including the node exploration and farming of cards/items from the nodes. This imposes a limit on the amount of stuffs you can gain per day and slows the card building process. As you have more cards in late game, you will have difficulties in upgrading them due to such restriction. The ladder PVP and PVP tournament are each restricted to 5 times per day as well.
Conclusion
Blade & Soul mobile is a solid game which lives up to the reputation of the original game. I am really looking forward for the OBT release.
