Rakion: Chaos Force/Gameplay

Rakion is an online-only, multiplayer fantasy action computer game made by softnyx. It was in "closed" beta testing from August 11 - 25th 2005, meaning that it was in free beta testing in a limited group of countries (which includes the United States and the UAE). It switched from development to open beta testing on October 13 2005. When the beta testing ends, it is assumed that the game will follow the same model as softnyx's other multiplayer online game, Gunbound, which is to offer the entire game for free, charging money only for specific, powerful, in-game items. In addition, players can buy a "Power Card", which makes them a power user, which comes with benefits like more powerful characters.

Gameplay and Controls
The core gameplay of Rakion consists of player-versus-player battles, usually involving ten to twenty players at once. A player controls his character, who appears in a standard "third person" view, using the WASD keys and the mouse to move, and the mouse buttons to attack. The left mouse button is a character's normal attack, and the right mouse button is used for a stronger, slower, and usually "unblockable" attack. Both mouse buttons pressed simultaneously, while the player is in direct contact with an enemy player, performs a "Grip" (throw) attack, which does significant damage, and renders both characters invulnerable for the duration of the attack. The shift key is used to block, and the space bar is used to jump. The Q key switches between a character's melee and ranged weapons. The first three number keys on the keyboard can be assigned to summoning different monsters to fight alongside the player. Once a player has killed enough other players in a match, the C key activates "Chaos Mode", which temporarily turns the player into a monster which is significantly more powerful than the player's normal mode. Each characters specific attacks, keypress combinations for additional attacks, and the monster a character turns into during Chaos Mode are all determined by that character's "class".

Classes
As in most fantasy games, player characters are broken down into distinct "classes". Unlike most fantasy games, however, the race and genders in Rakion are strictly determined by the classes. Only two classes are humans. Rakion's five classes are:
 * Swordsman: A male "knight"-like character with a sword. The most well-rounded class. The chaos form is a blue, very shiny looking and powerful character who excels in close combat. Swordsmans are humans.
 * Archer: A female character with a bow and shortsword. Naturally, Archers are heavily slanted toward ranged combat, and are not very effective up close. The chaos form of an archer is considered one of the most powerful because of a very special move dubbed the "shotgun". A ~2 second charge up of the right mouse button and the chaos archer will send out 5 arrows horizontally at a 5 degree different - each arrow is unblockable and knocks down. Most people think Archers are humans, but they are elves. Their ears are pointed.
 * Blacksmith: A large, "orc-ish"-looking male character with a warhammer. Blacksmiths have the strongest attacks of all the classes, but are also one of the slowest class in the game. A Blacksmith has a very effective jump attack. It's chaos form is quite powerful, although still quite clumsy. Blacksmiths are golem type creatures, although thier real rece is unidentified.
 * Ninja: A lavender-haired female character with a dagger and shurikens. Ninjas are the fastest characters in the game, and particularly excel at "grip" (throw) attacks. They make up for their speed with weaker attacks and a lower defense than the other classes. They have a special move using their shurikens which shoots out 9 shurikens at once-perfect for killing golden golems or ordinary golems but not so useful against other players. Ninjas are the other human class.
 * Mage: A small, male, moogle-like creature with a staff. Mages are primarily designed to be "support" characters, with both healing magic and a range of long-distance magical attacks. While in its chaos form, the former mage rides on top of a larger mage - seemingly controlling it. The chaos ice spike is one of the most deadly attacks in the game. Mages wear masks over their true face, which is never shown in the game. A full grown mage is much shorter that any full grown human, and they live longer (not in the game) than any other human.

Game Modes
Aside from the Stage gameplay mode, all of the modes use the same collection of arenas. The various modes are:
 * Stage: Single-player or cooperative missions, all of which involve running from one end of a dungeon to the other, killing all monsters encountered along the way. The amount gold and experience awarded at the end is determined by how quickly the mission is completed.
 * Team Deathmatch: Battle between two equal teams, over a set number of rounds. Each round ends when the time runs out, or when one team reaches a set number of kills. Slain players respawn after 15 seconds. Between rounds, the game will automatically swap skilled and unskilled players between teams to balance the skill level between the teams.
 * Solo Deathmatch: A battle royale between all of the players, over a set number of rounds. Each round ends when the time runs out. As in the Team Deathmatch, slain players respawn after 15 seconds.
 * Golem War: Similar to Team Deathmatch, but each team is assigned a huge, indestructible "Golem" monster. A "Gold Golem" exists at a point between the two teams' golems, and the first player to kill the Gold Golem receives the "Golden Sword". The player with the Golden Sword is the only character who can damage either of the team golems. Unlike the other modes, slain players in Golem War do not respawn until the beginning of the next round. Each round ends when one of the team golems is killed, all of one team's players are killed, or time runs out. As in Team Deathmatch, the game will automatically try to balance the teams between rounds by switching skilled and unskilled players.

Profanity Filter
The in-game chat system automatically replaces all profanity with the word "LOVE", as in "You LOVEing LOVELOVEer!" Unfortunately, the filter isn't limited to whole words, so typing the word "class" (which is used fairly often in Rakion) will appear as "clLOVE". You can type crap though.