A Guide to NeoSteam

Neo Steam was originally produced in Japan by Hanbitsoft, a Korea-based company. The game Neo Steam was first introduced to America in early 2008 through the GamenGame open beta. GamnGame and Game Networks worked together on this game and it was awesome. Unfortunately there where some issue they just couldn't seem to resolve as a result they never released the Premium Item Shop and the game was a flop. Due to not having an item shop or a way for members to purchase in game items. The game couldn't profit I'm amazed it lasted this long that way.

Around April of 09 Game Networks announced that they where dropping Neosteam They had sold it to Atlus. This was unfortunate for those who had been playing it all along. The sale didn't include a character transfer or any consideration for the original beta testers. Atlus on line did not like the original translation so they started over from scratch with a whole new English translation. They decided to call it "Neo Steam : Shattered continents" this game was finally translated enough for a release around august of 09. By then it had lost a lot of it's fan base.

I had already gone to lvl 96 in this game once. There was no way I was going to do it again from closed beta. So instead I continued to patiently wait and around 5 months later they had released Rope isle then I decided to resume play, at that time since nearly everything had been released that was before. From what I saw Atlus did a considerably better translation then GameNGame and they had begun to implement the Premium shop shortly after I arrived. Finally this game had a company deserving of it and it's following.

On a score from 1 to 10

Graphics 10 : The water looks good the entire game has an anime feel to it and once you turn off bloom you can really begin to see the how much effort was put into each piece of the game.

Sound 8 : There are not a lot of maps so the music gets repetitive it doesn't change during battle to add to the intensity. Otherwise the sound effects and music are high quality.

Gameplay 10 : the game play is solid and it's really very enjoyable it's based around a PVP combat system and much later in the game you begin to have all out wars. These wars include Steam Engines which you get to ride Tanks, Golems, Huge slimes, and fireBrands are just some of the Weapons you get to use during a RvR. Unfortunately RvR only comes once a week. In between RvR from week to week there are Battle Field events. These events don't give any rewards really but you get patriotism for killing the enemy nation in them the patriotism can then later be traded for items once you have enough ranking. Lower lvls have high experience areas but inside these areas you have to deal with open pking. The stronger "or more active that day" Nation will often kick the other nation out. Often times you may find it easier to lvl outside these areas.

Community 8: Generally the Community is Very nice and they help generate a enjoyable playing experience. As with all MMO's there are those bad apples (no pun intended; Apple, you know who you are.)

Movement 5 : The movement controls on this game have some serious issues. Especially if the server becomes lagged or you become lagged these issues don't really come into play unless you use WASD controls as the WASD is done locally without a check to the server so once your character moves the server will place you right back where you where when you finally get through to it.

Overall score 8: Some issues remain yet unresolved, but overall the game play is sound. The community is nice and RvR is fun even though it doesn't come around often enough.