Rosh Online Review

Warning: players may experience deja vu. Ignited Games recently launched Rosh Online, which is an updated version of Karos Online. The game is fundamentally the same as before, with some quality-of-life improvements as well as a few new options to set it apart. The game still looks and feels like Shaiya and Last Chaos, providing high quality graphics and detailed environments.
Character Creation — Still Boring
Karos Online offered six classes: Mystic, Bowmistress, Blader, Paladin, Rogue and Sorceress. Rosh Online adds a new class to the mix: Gunner. Character creation options are the same, limited choices as before, giving players only three face options, four hair style options, and eight hair color choices. Classes are gender-locked, meaning you will only ever see female mystics, bowmistresses, paladins, and sorceresses, or male bladers, rogues, and gunners.
Each class has their choice between two specializations. The level requirement for this job change has been reduced to 10 in Rosh Online (from 15 in Karos Online). A second class specialization for each of these secondary jobs can also be unlocked to further develop each character’s skills, and offering a total of 28 top-level classes to choose from.
What is Instruction?
Karos Online simply threw you into the game, with no instructions on how to move or interact with the world. Rosh Online has done nothing to correct this issue. While this poses no problem to MMORPG veterans, new players may quickly find themselves overwhelmed or frustrated by the lack of a tutorial. Almost all in-game interactions are accomplished by right-clicking: right-clicking an NPC interacts with them, and allows you to receive quests, while right-clicking on an enemy will initiate auto-attack. WASD can be used to move your character; click-to-move is also available. Skills are used off an action bar by pressing the appropriate number key.
Tightened Progression
There is no innovation in the combat system between Karos Online and Rosh Online, and it remains fairly simple in its design. One thing new players may find confusing, however, is the dual leveling system. Character experience and levels are earned normally through killing monsters and completing quests. Rosh Online has improved this system by making monsters worth more experience than in Karos Online, but the game still requires a significant amount of grinding in order to unlock new quests.
Once you’ve leveled up, you receive a skill point to place in your class abilities. Each skill has five levels, which are gated by your character level. The game, however, also has what’s called the Fletta system. Fletta is gained only by killing monsters. Each time you gain a fletta level, you can put a point into one of seven different stats. Yin and Yang affect magic and health regeneration, respectively. Earth increases defense and magic defense, air increases your attack speed, fire builds up your attack power, wood increases magic attack power, and water affects both run speed and critical hit chance. Fletta points can also be spent on item enhancement, just like in Karos Online.
Questing is still far more efficient in terms of leveling, when you can do so. Quests offer far more experience than simply killing monsters. Several repeatable quests also become available as you progress, and these are by far the best way to gain both character levels and fletta points, since most send you off to slaughter a lot of monsters. These quests, at least, give purpose and extra experience to your grinding.
Inventory Woes
A major complaint with Karos Online was the limited starting inventory space. Bags were expensive to make, and many people did not sell them to other players. Rosh Online helps alleviate this problem slightly by offering a couple of bags as low level quest rewards, effectively doubling a new character’s starting inventory. Even so, inventory space remains a premium, especially as all quest items take up a slot in your inventory. Crafting remains rather costly, with many items requiring uncommon or rare materials. New characters receive a very powerful set of starting equipment that will last them for a very long time, thankfully, which will help stave off crafting costs for a while.
Mounts and Pets and Fighting, Oh My!
When people think of mounts in an MMORPG, they usually don’t associate them with shoulder armor. Rosh Online simplifies the mount system by doing just that: putting the item on your shoulders. Using the V key (by default) with a mount equipped allows you to summon your companion to ride. You cannot equip items, attack, or interact with NPCs and objects while mounted. Additionally, players can collect minipets for show. Pets can also help you loot items, or recover health and mana faster.
Player versus Player combat has also received a significant overhaul between Karos Online and Rosh Online. Players can turn on their PK flag at will and engage other players who also have the PK flag turned on. However, Rosh has increased the level requirement for this function to 35, far from the level 10 requirement in Karos Online. Guild versus Guild siege warfare is also promised in Rosh Online, giving players many options should PvP appeal to them.
Final Verdict: Good
Rosh Online makes some strides in improving some of the negative aspects of Karos Online. Experience gain is much better in Rosh Online, and inventory space has been improved upon. The level to initiate PvP has been increased so lower level players aren’t as punished for their decision to PvP. For all that Rosh Online has done to improve upon Karos, however, it still fails to address concerns about lack of direction for new players, or provide innovation to the original game’s systems. Still, it’s not a bad game by any means, and fans of Karos Online may find some welcome changes.