This review is going to be very in-depth. Ignore the number of hours, because I have spent well over 5000 hours on this game - no joke. I used to play this years ago, and not much has changed since it's recent second release. Here we go...
Pros:
1) You have the ability to be better than everyone else. That feels good. There are like 155-160 levels, and nobody is even close to that mark. That means that if you play and level up, you can be the best. Other MMORPG games have a level 60/80 cap. That sucks because after you work so hard to level up, you're just like the other 50% of the users in that game. In Ares, if you get killed by someone, you just work hard and get better than them and kill them back. It's a pretty good feeling being the best player on a game.
2) The armor is really cool! If the graphics were better, this would hands-down be the best MMORPG just because of their armor and skills. You spin a 360 when you strike a sword with some of this skills. It's crazy but not too crazy.
3) The PvP is amazing. Since there are two factions, you can just waltz through a cave and end up in the other faction's base. There, you can literally just start killing the other noob players - no mercy. It's kind of mean, but it's pretty fun when you are a low level and you know that at any time, a player on the other faction can sneak into your side and fight you.
4) There are wars that actually feel like wars. Back in day, where there were more players, it was awesome running around.
5) The economy is amazing. It is not pay2win. This is the only game where you trade items with players by finding players with items and showing them your stuff. There is no auction house and there is no buying money. There is no inflation and it feels awesome. You want that super cool sword? Sucks because your poor. Get other stuff and find someone that wants your stuff. Do you have 100,000,000 coins? You can buy one thing with that. Make it count.
Cons:
1) The graphics suck. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use a different engine and start over. Same theme, different engine. This will fix almost ALL of your problems...
2) The English can be pretty bad... This was developed for Koreans, so get over it.
3) The creaters of this game exploit women with inappropriate NPC every once in a while. WHY? Only really bad games attempt to add inappropriate content because they're desparate. This games shouldn't do the same.
4) There's not a lot of players. That can be a good thing and a bad thing.
5) The paid content is a laughing stock. It's like $35 if you want to boost your stats dramatically. Get real!
6) This is a grinding game - not a quest game. This can be a pro and a con, but most people would see this as a con. The grinding is similar to Runescape amount of grinding. You will grind and grind and grind because secretly... YOU LOVE IT.
7) There are still glitches. I randomly got stuck in a tree because I walked toward it. That's some old-school glitches right there.
8) The leveling gets really hard around lvl 60.
9) It can get boring, but it's worth the bragging rights that you'll never get in WoW.
Basically, if you want to play WoW and you don't care about quests and you actually want to be the best player, this is your game. If you don't care about graphics and you care about quality, this is your game.
