Grand Chase

Grand Chase File:Gcelogo.jpg
Developer(s)	KOG Studios
Publisher(s)	Gamania, Ntreev Soft, Level Up! Games
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Release	August 2003 Gamania Gamania August 10, 2005 June 28, 2006 & December 28, 2007 January 31, 2008 November 18, 2008 October 22, 2009
Genre(s)	Fantasy MMO Fighting Platform Side-scroller
Mode(s)	Multiplayer

Grand Chase (Korean: 그랜드체이스, lit. Grand Chase) is a free-to-play, two-dimensional side-scrolling MMORPG developed by the Korean company KOG Studios.

Grand Chase has servers in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Philippines, United States, and Thailand. Alternate names for Grand Chase include 3小俠 (Chinese: lit. Three Young Heroes) on the Taiwan server, however, Hong Kong server do not use this Chinese name.

Story

While Grand Chase is primarily a sandbox game, it also has a short back-story for each character, as well as one for the continent of Bermesiah, which is the player's starting point. A continuing story of the Grand Chase universe may be revealed through visiting all the dungeons in the game in the order they are listed.

While the back-story for each character is the same throughout all servers, the back-story of Bermesiah, as well as the spelling of certain places, may differ across servers, although the events which took place are more or less similar.

Storyline

The Serdin and Kanavan Kingdoms, the biggest kingdoms on the Bermesiah Continent, coexisted in peace until their lands were slowly overcome by the evil Queen of Darkness, Kaze’aze. Kaze’aze managed to infiltrate the Kanavan Kingdom by murdering the Kanavan Queen’s most loyal and trusted retainer, and then disguising herself as him. As a result, Kaze’aze was able to get close to the Queen and entice her with the ways of darkness. Kaze’aze blinded the Queen of Kanavan’s eyes to truth and led her to wage a five-year war against the Serdin Kingdom. All of Bermesiah Continent was devastated; many heroes fell in battle, and even the Queen of Serdin sacrificed her life in hopes of ending the fighting. The death of the Queen of Serdin broke Kaze’aze’s hold over the Queen of Kanavan, who, after finally regaining her senses, erupted with fury over Kaze’aze’s treachery. Kaze’aze escaped before the Queen of Kanavan could execute her. This lead the Queen to dispatch Trackers to punish the Queen of Darkness. But after years of searching, she was nowhere to be found and the Queen’s Trackers vanished as well; forcing the Queen of Kanavan to abandon her search. The Serdin Kingdom experienced a series of bizarre incidents related to Kaze’aze after the Five-Year War: these events revealed that Kaze’aze manipulated the Kanavan and Serdin Kingdoms into fighting each other. The newly appointed Queen of Serdin is now determined to prevent Kaze’aze from starting another war between the two kingdoms for the sake of the entire continent. The Queen of Serdin has prepared to confront Kaze’aze and counter her evil plans by organizing Grand Chase, an elite corps that will fight for all of Bermesiah.[1]

Gameplay

An in-game screenshot of the player's selected character attacking a boss monster.

While gameplay in Grand Chase is primarily keyboard-driven, the game menu's interface is, by contrast, primarily mouse-driven, although some in-game key commands may be user-defined. Due to the combos and special attacks, the game has a feel that is similar to side-scrolling fighting games such as Double Dragon, while the appearance and design of the backdrops, as well as the characters and monster, puts the game in an anime-esque setting. While it is an action game, the designers took care to not make a "button masher".

The game is free-to-play, where players need to earn currency known as Game Points (GP) from completing dungeon quests, individual missions, or defeating other players to buy better equipments or items, but there are some items that can only be purchased with real-world currency. In Grand Chase, players start off role-playing as one of three main heroines (or Seighart on the Korean server), and will be able to unlock more playable characters by completing specific missions. However, the player may freely switch among the characters he or she has unlocked before entering combat, each with their own specific equipment, skills and experience level.

Experience

After each expedition into a dungeon, characters gain experience points. While the amount of experience gained is partially dependent on the player's performance in a dungeon, and the player's character's level, every player will gain some experience. The player's character is also given additional experience upon the completion of every mission. When sufficient experience is obtained, the player's character will advance by one level. Higher levels improve statistics and grant access to better equipment. Experience can also be gained through player versus player, and the amount of experience gained through this game mode is significantly higher than the amount awarded through the completion of dungeons at higher level.

Dungeon Mode and Parties

When entering a dungeon, it is advisable to form a group of players, also known as a party, to complete it. When choosing a dungeon to play, the player is given the option to create a party of his or her own or join one created by another player. The creator of the game, known as the host, can regulate whoever joins his or her party by locking the game with a password, or otherwise leave it unprotected, allowing any user to join. He or she is also given the option to kick any player prior to or after the completion of a dungeon.

Certain items found in dungeons, such as weapons, armor and special missions, are assigned directly to the player. Other items, either refining tools or special accessories, can either be distributed randomly to the party or picked up on a first come, first serve basis; the host of the room can decide the method used. To encourage group play, there is a slight experience boost when working together. Because each party has a maximum limit of four players, and each player may freely choose whichever character he or she wants to use, there is a chance that two or more players will control the same playable character. However, they can be identified separately through their screen name.

Skill Trees

Each character is slowly gaining a customizable moveset called a "skill tree." To be able to use different moves, a player must collect skill experience from either participating in Player vs. Player combat or going through a dungeon. Once a player collects enough skill experience, this allows them to gain a skill level and one skill point. Skill points are then used on moves to change them or learn completely new ones. Most moves available on the Skill Tree are available to all players but there are special skills that can only be unlocked using a "skill key". Skill Keys can be purchased with real money at the shop in-game, or earned through the occasional event.

Boss Rush

Boss rush is a mode that can be found in a Player Versus Player room by switching the mode from survival to Boss Rush. This mode is similar to dungeon in only that the players are directly transferred to the boss. Up to 4 players may join a room, and play the mode all at once. The only difference between the boss in boss rush, and the boss in dungeons, is that boss rush bosses have much higher stats which makes them harder to defeat. Any boss that has been released in a dungeon can be chosen. This mode is only available in Korea, Taiwan,and Hong Kong.

Player versus Player(PVP)

Players can also compete against each another in combat. Grand Chase offers two types of player versus player combat — Team Battles and Survival — with an additional option of choosing between Tag Match and Item Mode. Win/loss statistics are tracked for these matches. There is no time limit.

Player versus Player Modes

Team Battles

Team battles consist of two to six players and can be played in two- and three-a-side formations. Each player is given the option to join either the Serdin Team or Kanavan Team, although they cannot change sides during a match. As such, it is theoretically possible for a Team Battle to be unbalanced in terms of the number of players per side. Team battles encourage players to plan their attack strategies and co-operate with one another to defeat the opposing team.

Survival

A mode where anywhere between two to six players battle with the other players until only one player is left alive. In addition, should a Survival match comprise of three or more players, the surviving player and the final player to be defeated are considered to have won the match.

Smashing

This mode appears as a special event, usually centered around holidays like Halloween and Christmas. This mode is generally considered the same for all special events. The only difference in this event is the target of the "smashing". For example at Christmas the target of the smashing might be a snowman and for Halloween the player might be asked to smash pumpkins. When smashing, two teams attempt to smash the special seasonal items that belong to the opposing team. The team who accomplishes this first wins the game. However, like Team Battles, the opposing teams can be unbalanced. Players are still allowed to kill other players in this mode. However, it should be noted that every player in a smashing event has unlimited lives during the event and if a player is killed he will respawn after a 3 second countdown.

Honor Guard

This mode is essentially a team battle where one member of each team is randomly selected as a 'Warlord' upon the start of the match, shown by a red/blue marker. The aim of the game is to successfully defeat the opposing team's Warlord twice before your own is beaten. Warlords are given double regular stats to help defend themselves from the opposing team, while other players have stats equal to each other. Furthermore, a Warlord has only two lives, whereas other players can respawn after defeat endlessly. Should a Warlord be defeated once, the other team's Warlord suffers from a drastically lowered level of defense for 10 seconds. Similar to the Smashing modes, respawn time is increased to 5 seconds for all players. This mode was available to the North American Grand Chase for a brief time near the beginning of 2009.

Player versus Player options

Tag Match

Tag Match allows players to play with two characters of their choice. By pressing a button, they can switch characters during the course of a fight. However, if one of the characters is killed, the player can no longer switch to that character. Then you are automatically switched to your other character.

Item Mode

When Item Mode is turned on, power ups will be dropped onto the battlefield at regular intervals throughout the match and can be used by the player that picks them up. These power ups grant the player special abilities, such as invisibility or invincibility, for a short duration of time. Each player can store up to three (3) power ups at any time and use them in the order that they were picked up, beginning with the latest. Selection can be rotated by pressing the X button, and activated with the C button (by default).

Characters

There are multiple playable characters to use and players can switch characters between dungeons. Each character is leveled and equipped separately. Most equipment is character-specific, and the choice of character is similar to class choice in most MMORPGs. Players are given three characters as their starting characters (four in Korea), and unlock other characters through quests. These quests can either be purchased through GP or real-world currency. There are currently a total of 10 different characters available, although one is only available on the Korean server.

Releases

Grand Chase was officially released in Korea sometime in August 2003, and Brazil on June 28, 2006.

There was also a Japanese version of the game that commenced beta testing on August 10, 2005, and went gold three months later. However, the Japanese servers have been taken down as of June 22, 2007.

Beta testing for the SEA server commenced on November 21, 2007 and ended on December 28, 2007, whereupon it was officially released to the public. The SEA servers have been taken down as of April 14, 2009.

In North America, the game was officially released on January 31, 2008..

A server has been set up in the Philippines in October 2008 and is in commercial release as of November 18, 2008.

A server has also been set up recently in Thailand in September 2009 and is in Open Beta release as of October 22, 2009.

Expansions

In its initial release on all servers, Grand Chase only includes Elesis, Lire and Arme as playable characters, Bermesiah as a playable continent, and all the various game modes, albeit being restricted to areas on Bermesiah only, with additional content and bug fixes added into the game through patches.

In January 2008, KOG Studios released an expansion titled Grand Chase Season 2, which is essentially a patch featuring a plethora of new feature, map and characters. Currently, all servers have officially incorporated Grand Chase Season 2. In December 2009 Grand Chase Season 3 has been released and started off with a new character, Mari

Notes and references

Notes

1. Ciabai, Calin. "Family-Friendly MMO, Grand Chase Getting Closer — This is the sixth MMO game from AsiaSoft". Softpedia. Retrieved 2008-06-11.

External links

• Korea website
• North America website
• Philippines website
• Grand Chase at IGN
• Grand Chase at MobyGames