Sojo

Disclaimer - I was part of the beta test of this game. Pros/Cons at the bottom of the review if you want to skip the general text heavy section. SOJO is a deceptively complex game that often times hides behind it's comfortable and non-threatening visuals. Kind of like if a Minecraft aesthetic met the original Everquest, with just a drop of Dark Souls esque lack of any sort of hand holding for the player. It begins simple enough, you design your character, pick your class (Rogue, Mage, Warrior, Priest) and hit the ground with nothing but a loincloth and stick. You fight enemies, get gear, sell things for money, buy more gear and so on and so forth. This core loop lasts you a little while, until you feel you've got a grasp on things, at which point it becomes apparent that gear, not levels are the real power up for your character, that vendor gear only takes you so far and you need to begin looking for more special gear from the enemies on the Island. The setting is small enough to feel cozy, you're on an island that generally can be traversed in a few minutes, but due to the design (lack of a map/compass) it feels much larger than it actually is (remember the game doesn't hold the players hand too much). The Island is dotted with patrolling enemies of varying difficulty for all player levels/gearings, as well as random encounters (that match the difficulty of the area you're in). Combat is turn based. Your player character has an initiative bar that when full allows the player to perform an action. Certain classes are faster than others, which results in more actions compared to others in the combat (friend or foe), and this of course can be improved/reduced by gear. Generally speaking combat feels quick and fluid, not quite the quick reactions of a Mythic Retail WoW, but certainly not clunky. This also helps mitigate issues like latency, a high ping doesn't have too much of a negative impact. The classes all feel unique enough, with a nice range of abilities that differentiate them from each other. Having played through most of the game (we're still working on the final boss), grouping up with others of different classes is very very helpful for the harder combat encounters, and usually is required as each class does bring unique abilities that are often required to defeat the harder opponents in the game. Rogues are generally the single target damage dealers. Mages are a bit more AoE focussed. Priests (more like d&d clerics) are the healers, and warriors are the tanks. All classes can certainly solo their way to max level, and do decent damage out in the world, whether healer or tank archetype, but they do fall into their traditional roles when in group combat at the top end of the game. The "world" itself presents information through NPC's that the player needs to interact with. With no quest log/journal, the only information the player has at their disposal, is what they've been told by talking to the npc's dotted around the Island, and remember. It can be incredibly helpful to make notes in a notepad/sticky note with what your current objectives are/what you're farming etc. Pros - Gearing up feels very rewarding. Once I discovered how impactful gear is for your character, I was chasing the next upgrade. Every upgrade is noticeable, especially at lower levels and makes you feel like you've increased in power. - The gameplay itself is engaging and suited to both long duration plays, or even just popping in for 15 minutes to farm a bit. It's not difficult to make noticeable progress on your character (farming crafting mats/items) in a short period of time. - It's easier to accelerate the growth of new characters once you have a single well geared/high level (farming items/crafting mats for your alts). Knowing the world/locations also significantly increase the speed of progressing secondary characters. - Combat scales nicely, starting encounters are easy, gear upgrades on the Island keep you on pace with the enemies you face. Late game bosses are appropriately challenging with interesting mechanics. Cons - It can be difficult to know what to do early on. The game does not hold your hand, there is no quest log. I don't mention the quest log necessarily as a con, but for a new player it can be difficult to know exactly what you're meant to be doing. It requires some perseverance, which might not be what more casual gamers are after. - Not able to trade between yourself, no mailing system means relying on others to transfer gear/trade items to alts. (Playing with friends hugely improves the game experience). - No social UI options (no friends list), makes it difficult to group up/find people to group up with for content. I have heard that there are planned upgrades for this though down the road. Overall - I really like this game. I've sunk plenty of hours into it, and still enjoy logging in/working on other characters. It's fairly novel, and doesn't try to be something it's not ready to be. The features/mechanics are suited to a small single dev team, which does mean that some of the larger quality of life features and gameplay mechanics that are found in larger MMO's are absent from this game. The developer has been active on the games discord responding to feature requests and actively fixing bugs through the beta (which shouldn't be surprising or even counted as praise, as it should be expected), and it looks as if that will remain true through the launch of the game. I don't believe this game is necessarily well suited to those looking for instant gratification, or easy wins, but more suited to those who enjoy encountering puzzles and obscure hints/clues and then figuring things out based on the limited information made available to them. Having friends or people you play the game with adds significant value/gameplay experience, as going at it solo can be more difficult/daunting.

I'll preface this by stating I'm aware it's early access, but not worth $15 for how unpolished it is. it's a lot of free/paid pre-built unity assets slammed together. some good ideas but not well implemented. Just moving can be a challenge on the terrain, bouncing around and getting stuck on seemingly nothing. there's no quest log, minimap, any sort of UI to help the player or any guides. they've shown they have the ability to have nameplates but don't have any on any of the NPCs. Interacting with NPCs is awkward with a keybind. Your mouse snaps to the center of the screen any time you left or right click. The first dungeon just kills you instantly for walking into the second room. combat while neat isn't very engaging and doesn't require any skill. If you want a better more polished version of a bunch of unity assets together get Solace Crafting.

When a friend of mine showed me a game his friend was the sole dev of I never thought I was going to get into this game as a Beta tester, but one rainy day I gave it a shot, and then I became obsessed with finding everything that could drop along with all of the hidden things there are to discover from [u]hidden areas to crazy jump puzzles[/u]. I have fallen in love with Sojo- starting off this game is 100% harder than other MMOs. There are not a lot of hints or tips out there besides talking to all the NPCs multi times/other players giving some hints to help along the way. But its nice- makes you have to figure stuff out, interact with everything to find out if its something you can pick up or fight. The game is fun with a group of all four classes but you can mix them up and play how ever you want. My experience has been great and I was playing with 1 friend I had from other MMOs, and met the other 2 we play with in game. Us 4 have pushed through the whole Fortress and on and it has been a wonderful experience. Everyone trying to get all 4 of us as geared as we could, farming different consumes to help get past some of the harder bosses. The people in game are great, they take in to count your experience and don't want to ruin things, so most don't spoil, since we have done it we just try to give a few hints to get people there after they squirm for a bit, like we all had to do. A group isn't required because you can meet people in game to play and assist you, but friends do make it that much better! [b]The last thing I will say about this game is that you better like jumping, or at least get use to it under some pressure[/b].

These is no map, no mini map, no quest indicators or markers of any kind. There is no quest journal, the quest info just pops up in chat, so you better write it all down. Hard to talk to a specific npc for a quest with no indicator or nametags. I really hope this game improves I look forward to seeing more. I really don't want to run up to a dozen different npc's before finding the second person in the whole game I'm supposed to talk to.

Sojo does things other MMOs do a little differently. Like having the button to interact with NPCs on your hotbar, or to turn in a quest you need to trade with the NPC who wants the item(s). People who first join will not immediately know how certain things work, and that's ok, because once you figure it out, the game opens up and is actually pretty fun. Dev is helpful and open to suggestions/criticism and is super active with responding to things in the discord. Updates come out regularly and everything seems balanced with no 'one class is obviously better than the other.' No intrusive cash shop or microtransactions. No pay-to-win, etc. It has lots of little secrets and hidden things that reward people who explore. Takes you back to the golden age of MMO's where there is no LFG queues you can sit in town in, you actually have to talk to people, run to the dungeon and figure things out yourself. Boss fights have mechanics that need to be dealt with, its not just "guy hits harder and has more HP". There is a small but tight community around the game since it was in development, and everyone inside is more than welcome to answer questions / help people out in game.

A promising game with a dedicated dev. Can't wait to see the future of sojo!

highly addictive, super fun

This is what you have been looking for boys.

Addicting gameplay. Can't wait to see what the future holds.

Pretty cool