Forsaken World's Identity Crisis

Perfect World Entertainment (PWE) has given us so much online games to choose from. Perhaps the most memorable for fans of the company would be their flagship game Perfect World. Despite the overused oriental plot and setting of the game, the gameplay and delivery had a generally-positive reception. Up until now, Perfect World is still one of the more popular free-to-play MMORPGs to date. Still, the road to innovation and success is not dependent on one flagship product alone. This pushed PWE to create more content, thus leading to what they've offered to us gamers so far. Jade Dynasty and Ether Saga still picks up from oriental motif of Perfect World, but their latest masterpiece deviates far from their norm. Forsaken World (FW), the latest addition to PWE's resume, has the makings of a pure fantasy MMORPG. Because of PWE's previous games, FW is being compared to Perfect World, just like how Jade Dynasty and Ether Saga were treated too.

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Through the Looking Glass

What makes Forsaken World's gaming identity buried in crisis? Is it because of the game's looks? Is it because of the developer? Or is it just because gamers are being swayed by the reactions of some gamers? Whatever the reason, Forsaken World has been labeled as a "Perfect World" clone by some, due to its alleged similarities with the latter. For starters, what does Forsaken World look and feel like anyway? Is it enough to merit it a clone of its predecessor?

For a moment, let us play devil's advocate. There are quite a number of factors that may cause such identity crisis between PW and FW. Let's start with the most obvious one: the title. It's a simple replacement of words. From "Perfect" to "Forsaken," we're taken into a world crafted by the same minds and the same corporation. We can further speculate that the developers may have opted to reuse the title format and built a story around it. Look at that map too. For every established virtual world, there's always a map to explore. Just like Perfect World, FW's story begins in the corner of the world map. When PW began a few years ago, the world map was limited to a mere southwest corner of the map too. In both FW and PW, the map expansion possibilities go from west to east, with every additional area possibly limited for characters level 30 and up. The barren terrain looks and feels like it was taken out of certain areas in PW, like Sand Village perhaps? The elven village feels like the starter village for PW's Winged Elves too. There's no wonder a lot of people mistake this game for a Perfect World clone. It's from the same developer, the look and feel of some parts in the map is similar to PW's Pan Gu, and even the title is a dead giveaway. Not only that, even the interface and controls pick up from PW too.