Vindictus is a free to play game that has great combat at its core. Honestly the combat itself pretty much sold me when I first played this game. It is extremely face paced and reactive compared to most traditional Mmo's I have played. Though the reason for that is because of it being dungeoun based which helps performance wise. Its a peer 2 peer hosting when it comes to boats and i soon realized that I need to quit anything that gives me less than 3 bars or the entertainment would become rather weak due to lag.

The environments themselves are full of traps you need to overcome in order to progress. Sometimes you might end up grinding because of not finishing enough quests or simply wanting to rush levels by repeating a map that pays off alot more than others. I found grinding not to be to bad as far as doing the same exact area over and over again until you hit level 43~ where hidden is.

The classes stick out alot in this game due to how the gameplay itself varies greatly from hero to hero. Playing as for example Kai will feel dramatically different from a evie even if they both use range attacks and are not as complex as the other heros. You will find yourself trying out all of them because they got alot of varation to offer you.

Equipment is not to hard to get to be useful until you get level 59+ where it becomes more of a challenge. That being said since the big payoffs are the daily raids its worth it just to login to play against epic bosses and have a lottery ticket chance at the nice items possible to drop from them.

Now the question you may have is. Is it free to play or pay to win? Really I would be sort of lieing if I said that money didn't give you ridiclous advantages over others. It is far easier to upgrade your equipment and get stronger gear. As a free to play model it ranks average seeing as how gameplay wise it mostly just benefits people who party with them but at same token this game is mostly geared towards PvE so its not really that much of a concern when the heavy hitters are on your side 99% of the time.

I've played this game since CBT and it's been awesome. It is a very fast paced action oriented MMO. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to the story as I played it like Monster Hunter. I enjoyed this game even without the story. The beginning can be very dull but it gets better later on. Having friends and guild members to mess around with in instances and raids definitely makes a difference. There won't be much players on lower level instances for the most part unless there's going to be a new character released. Expect to grind for materials for armor unless you have the cash to buy it.

Disclaimer: I haven't played the game too much after season 2 arrived

Pros:
- Unique and fun Characters
- Character skills are awesome
- Each Character has a choice between two weapon types
- Amazing visuals
- Combat is fluid and fast
- Very challenging (soloing instances, raids etc)
- There's a storyline
- Perverted camera at the end of each instance
- No more token system
- Spin to win (go play spear Lann, though you probably will get kicked from raids)

Cons:
- Gender locked (for those who have problems with this)
- Lag/DC out of an instance (I remember the servers lagged pretty hard and everyone was trying to crash it because it wasn't getting restarted)
- Grind fest
- Pay to win (can buy revives and instant potions to your advantage)
- Enhancing/Enchanting weapons may require you to spend real cash (not required though as it just increase the chances of success)
- You have to go through the cut scene on the boat every time :/
- Can't hide megaphone chat

If none of the cons bother you, check it out its an amazing game.

Very well-done Korean Hack n Slash MMO-RPG..Co-op? game. I've been playing since Closed Beta, there are ups and down such as usual lags that most of Free-to-Play games tend to have, games combat area is hosted by a player rather then Vindictus server, so connection between you and the host tend to be very important, and sometime Vindictus decides to go on maint for whole day and what not. Oh, and when they say its for limited time only, they mean it, those things never comes back on sale except on very rare incident. (real money outfits. If its rune of some sort, high chance it will be back later on).

To answer if this game is Pay To Win, I would rather say this game is more of Luck to Win. There are so many RGN (Random Generated Number?) things are there, such as
95% of raid drops, which you kinda want a good drop for money if you do not want to farm (personally I dont think Vindictus is a farming game, its a bit hard to 'farm' and time consuming compare to other mmo) However this doesnt really happen often that sometime you wont even really get anything thats worth a money untill couple month later of running every daily raids.
Enhancing (Success rate 100% -> 75% -> etc etc decrease down to 40%)
Enchanting (Depends on Ranks, and your input. Almost everything thats useful enchants have 40~50% rate of success and it can blow off your equipments.)
This is most reason why people tend to quit this game, this goes same for Enhancing
Infusion (Either gives you crappy ♥♥♥ stat or even negative stat)

Characters have their own name(other then the one that you name. People call out the characters given name to defind their 'Class'), and are gender locked. I didnt really mind about Gender-locked system really, since I was never really bothered by 'I really wish I could play as a female/male character' All 7 Character, Plus the one that have been teased have their personal weapons that does have very different characteristic and I suggest you try other 'class' if you do not like the one you've chosen.
So far in order of release -
Lann - Dual Sword (Shares with Vella)/Dual Spear
Fiona - Hammer/Sword + Small Shield/Large Shield
Evie - Staff / Scythe
Karok - Pillar/Blaster
Kai - Bow/Crossgun
Vella - Dual Sword (Shares with Lann)/Dual Chain
Hurk - Great Sword
Lynn - Battle Glaive (released in Korea, not released in NA)

Combat system is very well done that I could not play any other MMO after playing Vindictus because I felt 'bored' just messivly clicking my left mouse botten and number pad. Its harder to control since Im not messivly clicking 1~0 number pad and such. Very awesome effects (counter side : Req for computer, sometimes becomes messive 'Wherethefkistheboss' situation when the boss happened to be a normal character size, with no option to turn off other peoples effect).
The downside of not messivly clicking number pads and servers not providing dungeon server is that connection between you and the host tend to be reallllllllly important. You will NOT have a fluent movement and attack if you are running with someone thats not able to host or in long distant area from you.

Story, you will love the story compare to other mmos if you are interested in reading them. There are two story, Season One, and Season Two. Dev have said these two story does not connect with each other and Season Two is completely differnt with Season One however they do some-what connect (lol). Which one is better? Personally I will say Season One. Season Two is not yet complete (Korean ver have ended) but I did not like the Season Two story compare to Season One. One or couple area will be bored for some and new players and quits mostly in that area which is around level 25 ~ 35 esh. However It is very veeeeeeery well done that I suggest everyone to read them (well maybe not Episode 9,10, I felt they tried to wrap it up quick as possible). I wont say much since it could become a spoiler.

You like dress-up games? because Vindictus do a good job of it. Yea sure they do have couple outfits you have to buy in real money to enjoy your new look, but there are only maybe 3-4 outfits thats not limited time only and all of them arnt really customizable compare to the ones that you can get from in-game. They do have stats attached to them however they arnt so game changing, limited outfits does have higher stats, but personally I dont see much difference, it helps for lower ATT users to join higher req dungeons which is set by another player. (Limited time only outfits have 500+ ATT/MATT increase)
Games town really have nothing to see if you are into looking for every single details. the very first town we incounter is the most populated place and people tend to hang around there, making new friends, untill they find a guild that is active and have their 'own' channel.

Community is.. bad..? Im not sure honostly, since I've found my 'buddies' shortly after started playing this game. I did play around in Vindictus offcial community forum as Seanna, translating Kr stuff. But I got busy and stopped translating things. When sometime I visit the forum, it kinda shows that they arnt taking care of their forum that much. As long as you find group that you like, you probably wont really care about the rest of community.

Review Edited - 2 March 2014

The only MMO experience that I've actually enjoyed. (Dev's note: Look to this game for ideas for your MMO. Vindictus actually has characters and narrative with a little substance rather than a sequence of generic fedex quests. The UI is also brilliant. Game mechanics that actually get you into the fight rather than spamming macro keys. That being said Vindictus does fall flat in a few areas. It would be far more immersive if NPC dialogue was voice acted. More/better ambient sounds wouldn't go astray either. My biggest gripe though is that the F2P micro-transactions really aren't that micro... $30 for increased inventory space? Really? That's more than I purchase most Steam titles for. I would be more likely to make purchases if it seemed like better value but you could easily spend a tonne of money in this game for really minor customizations. Over all though I highly recommend this to anyone new to MMOs, or to anyone who finds traditional MMOs too generic and hollow.

One of the forerunners of action based MMO, and it's still going strong with new updates coming up. If you are looking for some good solid hack and slash MMO instead of the normal click and wait ones, then this is your game. The graphics and physics of the game are awesome, and quest/storyline is well written and engaging. The combat system is innovative and continues to entertain players with new contents.

The few downsides are mostly ignorable, but game does experience constant glitches and errors from update to update. Connection is troublesome as it depends on the group leader to be the host (thus the rest of the party could lag to death, speically if you fail to dodge boss attackes on time). Personally I dislike the price of the cash items in game...despite mostly cosmetic in nature, i think some utility items such as name change coupons are too overpriced.

Despite the love-hate relationship, overall, Vindictus is a solid game well made.