Shaiya is a 3D Fantasy MMORPG that allows you to slay terrible beasts and wield hundreds of powerful weapons, but also offers an Ultimate game mode, in which death is permanent.

Shaiya looks and plays almost identically to Lineage 2, but fortunately brings plenty of its own flare along for the ride. Adult's only, sure thing. I suppose it needs to be mentioned first that Shaiya is officially rated as an adult game, recommended for persons over 18. This stems mostly from high quality graphical violence, and sexual depravity/nudity. Of course, these types of warnings are rarely taken seriously in an MMO and in my experience this rating has had little to no effect on the gameplay.

Clearly the most obvious innovation in Shaiya is the ability to choose your difficulty before you begin playing a character. The four modes, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Ultimate - all boast unique challenges and rewards, some different than many of you will have ever experienced.

Easy mode gives the most experience (XP) from enemies, but doesn't allow the use of special skills or high level equipment, and is capped at level 30. Normal mode monsters reward slightly less XP, but special skills are enabled, the level cap is removed and players are able to wear the DREAD equipment type. Hard mode is unlocked by achieving level 50 in Normal mode, provides less XP than Normal mode, but allows the use of LEGEND grade equipment and awards players addition skill points upon levelling.

Ultimate mode, reserved for only the most hardcore of players, is unlocked upon reaching level 60 and provides the lowest amount of XP from enemies, but allows the use of GODDESS grade equipment and rewards players with more skill points upon levelling than any other difficultly, ultimately allowing the most powerful characters. The catch however, is that upon death you only have 3 minutes to be resurrected, or risk losing the character forever.

As in all things, the highest rewards come with the highest penalties. With Shaiya, the choice is up to you. This choice isn't easy either. After choosing your desired difficulty, your next choice falls in allegiance, namely between the Alliance of Light and the Union of Fury. It's a fairly cliched light or dark decision, but as your race and class is determined by your decision you may want to take a moment to think about it. The Alliance will offer you choice between the Humans and Elves while the Union houses both the Vail (Dark Elves) and Nordein (Orcs). Humans offer classes in the form of Fighter, Defender and Priest and Elves offer Ranger, Archer and Mage. Whereas the Vail house the Assassin, Pagan and Oracle classes, and the Nordein give choice between the Warrior, Guardian and Hunter.
 
Once again, Shaiya follows closely in the footsteps of Lineage 2. This is obvious mostly in the art direction, as both games look strikingly similar in locations, characters and equipment; and also in gameplay; repetitive grind-based levelling. Of course, with a 4 year gap between the two games release Shaiya takes the lead in that department, but luckily doesn't stop there. Deciding to abandon the click-to-move for the more appropriate W,A,S,D was a fantastic idea, and adding the ability to jump and dodge, by pressing spacebar or double-tapping the appropriate direction accordingly was quite frankly the best idea for grind-based MMOs to date. These simple changes add an unprecedented amount of activity to an otherwise boring style of gameplay and by doing so breathe new life to the genre.

PvP takes many forms in Shaiya; you can challenge members of your own faction to a duel, face off against opposing faction players on the field at any time, engage in large-scale guild warfare, or participate in 1500 VS 1500 realm based battles. For the most part these modes are fairly standard in an MMO, excluding of course the realm battles. When participating in a realm battle the objective is to inflict as much damage as possible against opposing players or their heavily protected relics. Once enough damage has been inflicted, and enough relics destroyed the winning realm is given the Blessing of the Goddess, a buff that provides all players of the realm with a wide variety of bonuses including increased attack power, defence, mana and health, even an increased success rate for upgrading equipment.

Shaiya is the forerunner of the free-to-play MMORPG genre; it incorporates many traditional elements of the style with several innovative additions, and as it has been available for several years, offers new players a wealth of unique content to explore for free. 

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