KurtzPel Game Review

Alternate Title: KurtzPel – BRINGER OF CHAOS
Developer: KOG Games
Publisher: KOG Games
Type: Online ARPG
Model: Free-to-play
Platform: PC
PvP: Arenas
PvE: Instances

KurtzPel, the Anime MMO we’ve been waiting for all year. From what I experienced, the game is more comparable to something like S4 League then it is something like Dragon Nest or Soul Worker.
Which is more than fine, we need more original games on the market and this is a fantastic addition to it.

So, I got in-game and was greeted by one of the best animated openings to an Anime game I’ve played yet. The quality was beautiful, like legit, if they made a KurtzPel Anime series I’d watch it. Especially with how dark the atmosphere felt.
Kinda gave me Attack on Titan feels just a little bit..
But it sets up the story quite nicely.
We’re apparently some weird, demonic spawn referred to as a “KurtzPel”. The bad guys want to murder us because.. well, we’re essentially the “chosen one” and will bring about their end.
I mean, makes sense. When you’re the dominant force in the world and your existence as you know it is threatened, naturally you’d do whatever you could to hold onto what you have.
So can they even really be considered bad guys? There’s a tough question for ya!

When beginning your journey throughout KurtzPel you’re given quite a unique way of going about your character creation. You’re prompted to fill in a simple questionnaire that determines your character’s personality and customization options.
You can freely change your personality at any time during the character creation process, and each personality type provides different hairstyles, faces, physiques, and demeanor.
I ended up on Genius, ’cause.. I mean, naturally. Wiggy ended up as Healer, my wife MrsStix ended up as Supporter.. or maybe Wiggy was Supporter and my wife was Healer.. I forget. Finally, Wiggy’s boyfriend got Advisor.
This provided an interesting group dynamic. I was the mastermind behind everything we did, Ev was able to advise me on how poor the decisions I made were, to no avail, Wiggy tried to heal through my poor decisions and my wife MrsStix supported me as best she could.

Character creation in the game though was superb. I wish the game provided the option to more freely customize your characters face but your characters are perhaps the most beautiful I’ve ever seen in an Anime MMO.
Being able to adjust their height, their weight, the actual style of their body, basic facial features like their eye style, brows, pupils and overall skin color made it possible to create something pretty unique. Especially once you reached the hairstyles.
KurtzPel actually provides players the ability to edit the front, back, side and tail-end of your hair, making it possible to heavily customize your hairstyle.
Adding on to that is the fact that you’re capable of coloring each invidual hair slot, providing even more customization.
I’m not really a fan of highlights in hair as I’m fond of things matching, but I did see a lot of people that took the time to take advantage of this.

Finally, and most importantly, you have the bust and hip size. You can make your girl hella thicc or teeny tiny. Unless you’re a guy, in which case.. sucks to be you.

There are 5 total classes in-game as of right now. Each class is referred to as a “Karma”, with the game allowing you to equip 2 simultaneously, providing the ability to swap between them mid-combat.
I opted for the Great Sword Karma, “Sword Talaimh” because I love huge swords. And I’m a melee fighter at heart.
The other 4 Karma’s are the Longbow “Dance of the Wind”, Staff “Diabolic Witch”, Gauntlet “Blazing Fist”, and finally the Dual Swords Karma that is unreleased I believe.

The combat was nice and smooth, You had your basic combos at the top right of the screen, the gameplay flowed nicely and the special effects were probably the best I’d seen in an Anime MMO.
If you want something flashy, then that’s what you get.
The game has two forms of play, PvE and PvP.
PvE has you dive into instances, like Soul Worker or Phantasy Star Online 2 and fight large bosses to progress through the story, learn more about the world you inhabit, and unlock new Karma’s, outfits and more.
Story-related quests are solo but repeatable with a group, and can honestly provide quite a challenge. Especially as a close-range melee fighter. At times I felt like a punching bag for the NPCs I was fighting.

PvP, like PvE, takes place inside small instances and pits groups against one another.
While it’s easy to get overwhelmed due to using inferior Karma’s and lacking the required skill, the PvP is exhilerating and provides an opportunity for players to test their skills against one another.
Honestly, I just wanted to play the Gauntlet Karma but from what I could tell, if you weren’t playing the Witch… then you were pretty much screwed. They absolutely destroyed me and I had regrets playing melee.
Alas, that’s the life of a melee in most games: Get kited to hell.

Every encounter is either prefaced by a cutscene or followed by a cutscene that introduces the game’s primary characters.
Some of them are actually pretty entertaining, while others are just cliche and cheesy. But that doesn’t equate to being a bad thing, it’s just.. not something I found outside of solo games.
Most MMOs or online games, even, don’t really provide much personality to their characters outside of the odd line here or there that makes you chuckle, with the exception of a few good ones like WoW, Final Fantasy XIV or Guild Wars 2 as examples.
So seeing a game like this ported over that actually has personable, relatable characters is promising for the story. And let me tell you, there was a ton of story. I spent a solid 30 or so minutes of my first 2 hours recording just story.
Thankfully I’m a huge lore buff so that was enjoyable for me.

I spoke a little on combat earlier but I wanted to elaborate on it a little more here: It can be very, very difficult.
The story missions, as I mentioned, are solo, meaning you can’t do it at least initially with friends or other players. So progressing through the story means you’re required to do it alone.
The same goes for the unlocking of Karma’s. You must complete the quests to unlock them, along with the characters associated with them by yourself.
However, once you manage to overcome those encounters, you unlock them for play in multiplayer – which is honestly where the fun comes into play.
While yes I had a lot of issue as the Greatsword Karma, actually failing one of my missions, and while that was frustrating ’cause that Ganondorf looking dick beat me senseless, tackling them again with my wife was far more satisfying.

The bosses were actually several times more powerful, had several times more HP and required a little more coordination.
Especially if one of you are getting murdered repeatedly.
Although we only tested a few bosses out, the amount of fun we had greatly increased once we could play together because playing with a friend, a loved one, you know.. is just so much more fun than playing alone.

So, at the end of the day, KurtzPel is a unique semi-MMO? MMO-lite? Mini, Massively, Multiplayer, Online? MMMO?
Iunno. Either way, it’s a very unique game that is probably the most aesthetically beautiful Anime inspired game of its kind.
I had an absolute blast in-game, and I’m glad KOG reached out to provide my wife and I beta keys to try the game out. We would’ve missed out on this otherwise, and you guys wouldn’t have been able to see how fun the game is.
Especially if you’re a fan of hub-based MMOs.