[spoiler][i](Note 1: I played GW2 for 3 years before starting GW1, which influences a lot of my views.)[/i]
[i](Note 2: My review is only about PvE; I don't play any PvP.)[/i]
[i](Note 3: I used Idle Master to be able to leave a review, because the game counts all playtime under the new Reforged edition. See my profile for my real playtime.)[/i][/spoiler]
[h3][i]Most recent update: 2,500+ hours of playtime[/i][/h3]
A quite good and unique party-based, instanced online RPG. I recommend it, if you don't mind playing it mostly as a single-player game. Also, it's much more enjoyable if you're familiar with GW2.
"Instanced online RPG" means outposts and towns are shared with other players, but the combat and mission areas are instanced only for your party (typically at most 7 other players, but more commonly just you and your NPC heroes).
[h1]The good:[/h1]
➕ The gameplay feels tactical and methodical – GW1 is not about quick reflexes, but about being prepared for the challenge you face, and knowing which enemy to target and when to regroup.
➕ You can build your own team of hero NPCs, and run around with a small army.
➕ You can combine two professions and change the secondary one whenever you're not in an instance.
➕ The 4 campaigns have diverse themes and environments. My favourite is Factions that features East Asian-inspired atmosphere.
➕ The soundtrack is superb, although it gets a bit monotonous if you stay in one map for too long. I hadn't realised how much of it they lifted over to GW2 unchanged.
➕ Build templates! You can save profession/attribute/skill choices into txt files, and manage them via the game UI. You can also share the builds via template codes, and load other people's builds onto your team this way.
➕ The game offers both mouse and WASD movement. You can also target a player/NPC/object (even through walls) and automatically run to it.
➕ The UI and hotkeys are [i]very[/i] customisable. You can resize/reshape/move/hide most UI panels.
➕ GW1 works very well as a single-player game. If one prefers to play with others, there are many guilds around, the largest one with thousands of active members. (American districts are the de-facto multiplayer districts, even though the European player population is higher. Players can freely switch district in any outpost.)
➕ The trilogy version of GW1 includes GOTY bonus items, one of which is a very helpful summonable ally. Some bonus weapons are decent too.
➕ Last, but not least, as a GW2 player it's really awesome to experience all the places and stories I only heard of as historical events.
[h1]Mixed:[/h1]
〰 Very diverse skill and build options. It gives you great freedom, but it can also be quite overwhelming for new players. Unless you really enjoy theorycrafting, I highly recommend to look up build guides because GW1 is complex and doesn't shy away from throwing difficult challenges at the player pretty much from the start. (Here's a very good teambuilding guide for [url=https://gwpvx.fandom.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Beginner_Team]beginners[/url].)
〰 Lots of GW veterans praise the game's story, but as someone who started it as an adult: it's 90% nostalgia goggles. While there are some epic and poignant moments, there are many more plot holes and nonsensical elements. There's almost no character development over the course of the four campaigns. Overall the writing feels flat, which is actively made worse by the terrible voice acting (see below). That said, the secondary quests are often quite well-written.
〰 The visuals are nice for their age, but they [i]are[/i] made by a 2005 graphics engine, which shows, especially in the character models and animations.
[h1]The bad:[/h1]
[i]Most of the negatives are due to the game's age.[/i]
➖ The movement is clunky, characters are prone to some rubberbanding and getting hit by melee attacks while already 5 meters away. Positioning is supposed to be an important aspect of combat, but it's a pain in the arse in practice. This harms especially the melee playstyle, as you (and your melee heroes) spend more time running after enemies than actually hitting them. The pathfinding is also very janky, you get stuck on [i]everything[/i]. I also miss GW2's jumping – that single ability causes a fundamental difference in the map design of the two games. GW2 maps encourage you to scramble over diverse terrain, while GW1 maps often feel like series of long corridors.
➖ There is an intentional aftercast delay for most spells, meaning characters freeze and take no input for ¾ seconds after casting most spells. For years I thought it was jank due to GW's age, but turns out it's a feature, not a bug. Regardless, it's really annoying.
➖ No trading post / auction house. Getting most kinds of maxed out weapons is a lot of hassle, as the only way to do it is to sit in a specific city in the American districts, keep shouting on trade chat, and hope that another player who happens to have that item happens to be on the same map at the same time. Even this method is not reliable due to the low player population. The experience is so miserable, that I gave up on getting maxed out weapons for the specs that are not available from NPC crafters.
➖ GW1 has a very steep early difficulty curve. I struggled a lot until I reached a mostly meta hero team composition, which eventually removes almost all challenge from normal mode gameplay. Hard mode is another matter, it makes some areas downright brutal.
➖ The voice acting is pretty much the worst I've ever heard, and I'm not saying this lightly. It sounds like they grabbed random people from the street with no talent or training whatsoever. Most performances sound wooden, while some are cringeworthily over-acted or just bizarre. When the final epic dialogue of a campaign's main antagonist makes you laugh out loud, it kills all remaining dramatic tension that the mediocre writing left intact. ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0QfZdLgdTc&t=145s]spoilery example[/url])
➖ Might be a stretch to miss this from a 2005 game, but there's no wardrobe/skin system. Want a different look for your armour or weapons? Too bad, you can't just change the skin, you need to craft new pieces from scratch.
➖ Related to the above, the dye system is really convoluted to use if you want to stray away from the 12 basic colours and start mixing them.
➖ There are some annoying automated announcements that can't be muted without using a 3rd-party mod, and some of them not even with that. (People winning at a specific game mode every 15 minutes, random people in an outpost gaining new skill points or leveling up.)
[h1]Final thoughts:[/h1]
This game is much more enjoyable if you're already familiar with GW2. The awesome lore immersion helps to balance out all the aged and non-player-friendly aspects of the game. Still, it's a solid party-based RPG. If you enjoy complex and challenging games of this genre, GW1 can become a really satisfying companion that provides [i]years[/i] of fun.
GW1 has a small but extremely committed playerbase still playing after so many years. GW2's Hall of Monument feature also brings a steady trickle of new players to the game. As of May 2024, a developer is now working full time on the game again (after many years of 2 devs only being able to work on GW1 in their free time from their actual GW2 job.)
PS. If you pick up the game, the [url=https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page]official wiki[/url] is an invaluable resource.
PPS. The [url=https://www.gwtoolbox.com/]GWToolbox[/url] mod was finally officially approved in 2024, and I [b]HIGHLY[/b] recommend it to every player – it provides tons of QoL features and UI polishes, such as quick travel, team skill loadouts, an actually useful minimap, and much more!
