Vindictus is an action MMORPG and one that satisfyingly fits that role. I say this coming from the mindset that all MMORPGs are action-based, but few of them actually seem to understand the visceral nature of the action genre. The action-based game is always about the action, most MMORPGs are a series of action-reaction sets. The action is planned in a succinct manner that is different, and much more like planning, in almost spreadsheet-like fashion, the moves and counter-moves to every possibility.
Vindictus is very much an anti-spreadsheet. Every move is a fast, powerful attack that empowers the player and gives them a great deal of agency over the battlefield. Because an MMORPG is a controlled environment, taking agency away is ultimately what happens to the player character. The more the player is allowed to affect the environment, the more “dangerous” they are to the environment. In a shared environment such as an MMORPG, such dangerous actions are generally disallowed for purposes of maintaining a level playing field.
Vindictus does contain the level playing field. But it feels far more transparent than any MMORPG I’ve played. The ability to manipulate the environment is not only a great thing, it seems to empower the actions taken, even if the actions themselves are obviously repetitive and mechanical, the act of grabbing an enemy, smashing them against a wall, and the wall crumbling from the force of your blow, is an exceptionally satisfying experience. Ironically, what Vindictus is doing is emulating the action-game’s virtual god complex inside its controlled environments.
Effectively, the player is making choices that cannot truly affect the game world, but nevertheless, the decisions that you can make feel powerful, despite their modesty. That’s actually a rather unique achievement for any game, particularly when so many games give the appearance of godliness for achieving what is meager under the system’s constraints.
The game itself is also a beautifully realized world, one that has been expertly instanced into small, playable chunks. A good choice for an action game, as rather than trying to make an entire, huge world, the game is simply comprised of levels, each of which contains bosses, mini-bosses, and various bonuses. In doing this, the game retains the heart of what makes up action games, speed running, score keeping, and special parameters, effectively adding life to the levels.
Vindictus is a sum of parts. Most of these parts are taken from action games and they are satisfyingly woven together to create a fast, delicate experience where combos and throws are king, rather than long ability lists. It’s an MMORPG for those of us who don’t want to play Excel with our RPG to actually be any good at it.
Recommended: Yes