Kill or be killed...
Rakion: Chaos Force, or simply Rakion, is a Free-To-Play 3D fantasy action Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy developed and published by Softnyx, with Mobius partnering as co-publisher. It was released in closed beta in a limited group of countries in August 2005 and to the public in December 2005, with South-East Asia gaining their own server in 2007.Set in a world in a world overrun by monsters kept in check by the White Dragons while humans are a small community struggling to survive. After the humans rose and trained to fight, Zadros, their king, offers a truce with the dragons. Amused since they are the only ones to offer a truce, the dragons gave the humans 500 years while they go back to hibernation, but not before leaving a gift for them. A thousand years later, a magical comet called "Alcon" made its way towards the continent and powered all the monsters, setting the stage for all conflicts in the story.
Players can choose between five classes: The goliath Blacksmiths, the diminutive Mages, the lithe Ninjas, the eagle-eyed Archers, and the Jack-Of-All-Stats Warriors. A new class called Dualist is later added to the roster of playable characters, bringing it to a total of six. The game features third-person combat similar to shooter games and requires players to learn combos and delays of each skill to guard and counter their enemies.
Steam later acquired and released the game on March 25, 2020, reviving interest in the game and making it possible for players all around the world to match up without being divided by region.
Rakion: Chaos Force contains the following tropes:
- Action Girl: As the game offers no gender choices, the Archer, Dualist, and Ninja classes are all women that can hold their own against the other male classes.
- Ambiguous Gender: The Mages' short stature, doll-like clothes, mask, and slightly shrill and raspy voice make it hard to determine if they are male or female. The game and the wiki even refers to them as it instead of a pronoun.
- Assist Character: Players can summon Cells, creatures that can assist in killing enemies and can be upgraded to become stronger. Players can equip and summon up to three cells in a match.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: Archers wield a bow as their long-range weapon and a short sword they can switch to if enemies come near them.
- Combat Medic: Mages can produce 4 healing orbs per round that allies can approach and absorb to heal a percentage of their health. Their Chaos Mode can summon a healing circle that heals nearby allies up to 30% of their health.
- Competitive Balance: All classes have different playstyles that balance the gameplay:
- Blacksmith: A Mighty Glacier tank that deals slow, easy to dodge melee and ranged attacks with their trusty Warhammer, but deals heavy damage if it connects. Vulnerable to speedier classes as they have a delay in their attacks. Turns into a hulking Golem-like monster sporting an Epic Flail in their Chaos mode that expands their area of attack.
- Archers: Female long-range support class that can deal damage from afar, but can defend with a short sword up close. Their melee attacks are weaker than a warrior, except for one special attack that is the strongest special attack in the game but hard to pull off. Their Chaos Mode lets them shoot five arrows that spread out in different directions and upgrade their shooting speed.
- Ninja: The other female class. Weak in terms of attack, but are the fastest and stealthy of all classes as they easily evade attacks and hard to hit in the right hands. Their Chaos mode powers up their attack and throwing power while leaving explosions after attack combos.
- Mage: The only magic class and a support class. Small, slow, and weak in single battles yet they are a force on the battlefield as they can deal devastating range attacks and freeze enemies up close, making them perfect for team battles. Summons a chaos magician in their Chaos Mode and their skills gain a larger Area of Effect that deals huge splash damage.
- Warrior: Your standard Jack of All Stats class. Can deal decent damage up close and decent armor that can guarantee them surviving easier than their brethren on the battlefield, but a little weak in ranged attacks. Their Chaos Mode upgrades their attack speed.
- Dualist: Another Jack of All Stats class that is very similar to warrior, but wields dual blades that make them more flexible in the field. They share stats with Warriors with a decent melee attack and weak ranged attack. Their Chaos Mode transforms them into a winged demonic warrior and its attacks can go farther.
- Creepy Doll: The Mage's small stature and white mask that sports a stitched-up mouth evokes the image of a living creepy doll.
- The Dragons Come Back: The lore hints about the dragons returning in order to fight against humans. In the game proper, Dragons are one of the creatures that are fought and can be summoned.
- Dual Wielding: The Dualist wields two longswords in their regular and Chaos Modes.
- Epic Flail: Blacksmiths wield one on their chaos mode, and their attacks can easily hit multiple enemies.
- Falling Damage: Falling from high points can take off a chunk of health, but spamming space at the right time can prevent damage from happening. Even the game teaches this in the tutorial.
- Fragile Speedster: The Ninja class is the fastest one of all the classes in terms of attack and movement speed, but can only take a few hits before crumpling like a piece of paper.
- Glass Cannon: Mages have slow but devastating long-range attacks, but their defense is up to par with ninjas and only has a short-range weak melee attack to defend itself if the enemy gets close.
- Golem: Golems are featured in Golem War mode. They're quite tanky and can defend themselves to a certain extent, requiring a bit of time to kill even with many players ganking on it. It's also available to buy as a Cell summon that players can summon on the battlefield.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Understandable considering this is an old game (released in 2005). The game registers hits in places even if it visually didn't hit the character. This is noticeable in mages and ninjas since they have shorter and lithe body sizes compared to the bulky armored classes.
- In the Back: Players can activate Rear Grip attacks if they approach the enemy from behind. In terms of attack animations:
- The Archer's grab animation shows them stabbing the enemy in the back with their short knife many times.
- Ninjas stab the enemy in the neck before flipping them over.
- Warriors stab the enemy in the back once, then again while they're on the floor.
- Mages summon pillars of ice to stab through the enemy.
- Blacksmiths grab the enemy's neck and wring it hard before dropping them to the floor.
- Jack of All Stats: The Warrior Class is designed to be this, with average attack power and defense, but poor range attacks compared to the other classes.
- Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Some maps feature molten rivers that deal damage over time while inside. There's usually a portal that teleports them out of the lava pit, so it's usually a race of time to find it before running out of health.
- Ninja: The ninja class, female Fragile Speedsters that use shurikens to attack enemies from afar. Some skills can also make themselves disappear for a few seconds before reappearing to attack enemies.
- No "Arc" in "Archery": Averted, arrows shot by archers slightly arc the further it goes. It's much more noticeable in their Chaos mode when their arrows leave trails of light.
- No-Gear Level: Inverted. Basic mode adjusts player stats to level 1 and can only summon the lowest cell, but item stats still carry over.
- Painfully Slow Projectile:
- The mage's special skill has the longest range out of all range skills, starting off slow but gains speed the farther the distance, but alert players can just sidestep or guard once it's near to easily avoid it. They can also throw bombs mid-range but it has a delay before it explodes that there is enough time to dodge it.
- Golems long-ranged attack shows them throwing a rock at the target. Fortunately, even the slowest ranged attack can be cast and have time to move out of the way before the rock hits the player's previous location.
- Player Versus Environment: While the game markets itself as a PVP-based game, there is a PVE mode called Stage Mode that lets players team up in various maps to fight creatures and complete a mission.
- Player Versus Player: The main premise of the game as players can join servers and clash against other people all over the world. The game offers six different game modes: Boss War, Clan War, Golem War, Stage, Solo Deathmatch, and Team Deathmatch modes. Each of them has different objectives to win from killing enemies, protecting the base to fighting who would be the top player.
- RPG Elements: The game has an RPG-style leveling system where players can level up equipment and stats.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: In the story, humans discovered the "Cells" containing monsters absorbed by the dragons in the last war. Humanity didn't hesitate to make them their tools for war and even fight alongside those monsters.
- Stripperific: The female classes wear skimpier armor compared to the bulky and well-armored male counterparts. Ninjas have the skimpiest outfits, wearing only leather in their base outfits and this also translates to them having the weakest defense.
- Super Mode: After a certain number of kills, players can activate their "Chaos Mode", this transforms the character and boost their stats and skills for a limited time.
- Timed Mission: There are a few timed missions where players must reach and kill the end boss before running out of time and fail the mission. The mission ranks are also determined by the time, the longer the timer runs, the lower the final score players can receive.
- Tower Defence: Golem War is the "Tug-Of-War" version of this, requiring players to defend their own Golems while simultaneously attack the enemy's golem. Whoever destroys the Golem or deals the most damage when the timer runs out wins the game.
- Weak, but Skilled: The archer and ninja class playstyle relies on evading or staying away from other enemies as they can't take too much damage, but can easily dominate the field in the right hands.
- Victory Pose: Winning teams or players will raise their weapons once the timer runs out or if a team wins the stage.
