Prepare for (what I call) an in-depth review from a 5 year player as of 2014 that is completely my opinion; you're not forced to agree with anything below. There is a tl;dr for you lazy gondolas at the bottom.

First off: if you don't like/ can't tolerate anime, you're gonna hate this game. For reals.

Gameplay:
Dungeoning (PvE)
As fun and fast paced as you want it to be. You could just spam Z all day to win, but that's slow and boring. Using abilities makes the game much more enjoyable and satisfactory.

Versus (PvP)
I'm not a PvP guy, but from what I've experienced: extremely fast paced, everybody can kill each other in a couple of hits, and if somebody is lagging it's definitely not fun. PvP used to be a forced gamemode but was removed in Season 3.

Art Style:
Stage Designs
This is including PvP and dungeon maps. They're all in the fantasy genre, but the design is never breath-taking or extremely terrible. Some may say PvP maps are poorly designed for the gamemode but again, I'm not a PvP player.

Character Designs
Extremely arguable that they're either really neat-o, or extremely generic and boring. Basically, there's a martial-artist on fire (Jin), an immortal that harnesses the power of darkness whilst protecting the heavens (Sieghart), a stalker whorish demon chick who totally wants this other demon's D (Ley), an artifical being that wears orange sunglasses and has a talking greatsword (Zero), and many more. The only flaw of the character designs in my opinion is that all characters are well-rounded and could be the main character of the game (if one wasn't already present).

Overall Theme
There is no overall theme. It's all over the place. The game is supposed to depict a lot of "themes" such as steampunk, sci-fi, field fantasy, etc. But the game doesn't have just one theme. I have no opinion on this. Some could say this makes the game cool, others say the game is stupid because of this.

Story???
Yeah the um, story isn't that great. While there's a lot of back-story, it's not very worth finding out about.

Pay2Win MMO? Roles such as Tank, Support, Fighter? Stats?
As a player that spent just about $200 on the game over 5 years, I honestly believe the game is not Pay2Win. While it is true that paying for premium armor/accessories gives you higher stats, the stats are so insignificant that I would guess that comparing the stats of a fully cashed-out player VS a completely F2Player, the cashed-out player would only have just about 15% more damage (and in PvP, most people ask for a certain stat-range anyways so the only advantage they'll have is in Dungeons). Only damage, you say? That's what I'm gonna talk about next.

Stats in this game are lame as heck. There's practically no roles in this game either; everybody is the "carry," the damage dealer, the fighter, whatever. It doesn't matter how much you love this game; if you have a brain, you have to admit the stats are completely useless. There is no reason to stack any stat other than Attack... and maybe Critical Chance. Vitality (increases HP), Defense, MP Recovery, other stats: all useless. Critical Damage is probably a good stat, but definitely not easily stacked/not worth stacking. This is a real turn-off for those hardcore stat-loving MMO players who maybe want to be a tank, or whatever. But hey, after a while this game gives you a lust for damage which is kinda funny. I've thrown out multiple armors that give me 500 hp for another armor that just gives 50 attack.

Playerbase/Community
Playerbase? We're never given a number, but I'd guess in the thousands. Maybe ten-thousands. Definitely not hundred-thousands, unless I'm just being a spaghetti-noob who estimates numbers poorly.

The community is actually really nice. I've filled up my friends list to the max of 150 multiple times and not a single player I met came across as an immediate jerkbag. Although, there are many players that don't speak English very well. Some may find that irritating; I personally don't care, so long as I know what the player's saying, it doesn't matter to me.

END-U?? The Conclusion
Overall, a fast-paced side-scroller with spammy buttons and cool abilities.

Yeah this is the end. Here's your beloved tl;dr you lazy bungalos.

tl;dr:
LIKE TO PRESS Z? THIS GAME IS FOR YOU
HATE THE Z BUTTON? DON'T PLAY THIS GAME
no for real if you wanna know if you'll like this game, read the review

Edited on 7/19/14 for: +Story, +Finished Conclusion, +More logical tl;dr, -Censored words

OVERVIEW

Grand Chase is a 2D MMO brawler and it developed by KOG Studious. The same company that made Elsword and that game is a spiritual successor to this game. This is basically their first game they ever made before Elsword been born. If i am not mistaken Grand Chase was shutdown few years ago and have been revived to gain back the popularity and some fans of Grand Chase. If you have play Elsword,you will find that there is some similar character appearing in this game too but with different name ( except for Elesis ). The question is. Is this game worth to play even though you already play Elsword ? Let take a look shall we. Please do take note that i will be comparing this to Elsword just to see how much of a improvement they made.

GAMEPLAY : 7/10

As you start off the game,you are able to choose out of 19 characters. The massive character selection is a huge plus considering you can't create your own character like you can in MapleStory or LaTale. Each of them have their own set of unique skills & weapon. They also have their own pros & cons. Take Elesis for example,she have very high defense but low in vitality & attack. This could also be useful when playing with friends since each of them have their own utility skills that can help each other. First time player able to choose an option whether to start from level 70 or start from level 1 but gain a lot of rare & unique items.

You also able to advance your job levels once you reach level 35. After that the next job advance will require you to level up your character to 45 and the final would be 60. The max level for this game is 85. As you advance your job level,you will gain new skills to test.

However unlike in Elsword where you have two attack button ( light & heavy attack ),this game only have one attack button and the rest is just skills & pots button. You do gain more combo attack to perform once you advance a job level but that is if you handle the repetitive nature of this game. You can also cancel any skills to perform a devastating combo & high damage.

The controls is hard to get used too if you have played Elsword. It felt like the controls is not fluid. Nevertheless it function properly at least.

You could also buy or make your own pets to aid you in your battle though it make take very long time to level up if you don't have much K-Ching.

GRAPHICS : 7/10

Not sure if it just me but the background doesn't blend in very well with the character & monsters. There is not much graphics options you could messed around either.

The interface & UI is well-done though compared to Elsword. The art-style is impressive as well as the character animations & spells particles.

A lot of the map that you play felt different and doesn't flat out felt like a copy paste background.

AUDIO : 6.5/10

Can't say much about this section. However i will give them a credit for making an enjoyable soundtrack to listen and the audio skills is pleasing to hear. Voice acting in this game is not bad too though it will be better if the character is voice during conversation dialogue ( Elsword suffer the same problem too )

LONG-LASTING APPEAL 8/10

This game have some unique feature which no other 2D online game done. There is PvP system but it get bored fast considering the combat system is much more repetitive than Elsword. There is a Fusion System but it require some K-Ching. You could also play some mini-game though some of them only available during certain events. You could able to go to park too which is only for meeting new people & do some chatting.

Couple system is also exist in this game. If you level up your couple skills,you able to unlock new emoticon. You also gain additional exp & money depending on which ring it is used.

The most unique feature is the Playhouse System. Basically you could buy furnitue and set them in your house to make it appealing. There is a lot of decoration you can place too. You could even do gardening too which is something i didn't see in a 2D game. You could also unlock and set up a character for 50 stars points. Once you bought a character,you could set what actions you want them to performed and what dialogue they should say. You can invite player to come to your house too and they able to leave comment.

However to be honest,you will spend most of your time doing battle. It not bad if only the combat system have more variety put into it.

FINAL VERDICT : 7.1/10

While this game had it flaws,it is a well executed 2D online game. If you have play Elsword and haven't play Grand Chase then you owe it yourself to play this wonderful game. If you can get past through the repetitive combat system,then the game is very fun to play especially when playing with friends. Community is quite friendly too and the player base is gradually increasing. Both Elsword & Grand Chase is an awesome game and i enjoy them very much. Hoping for more future updates would be released to improve the game even further. Well done KOG Studious.

GRADE : C ( Good )

I reccomend this game for those who like challenges because there are some hard bosses but it's all up to you!
If you like to farm at higher levels then you would like this.
It's simple and fun, there are some dodging mechanics wich makes it a lot more difficult at higher level.
Everything else is nice ! Give it a try.

I prefer this over Elsword.

This is a fun 2-D brawler game, it has unfortunetly gone through a lot of changes and isn't that popular. It also currently won't allow you to link accounts through steam which is saddening for me ... However it is much more friendly to new players, and it is starting to gain popularity. Have fun!

P.S. Just a side note, there seems to be a huge inflex of hackers throughout the game. 2 examples of these people would be lNleo and Bonakid. Some of the hacks are just infinite mp, while others make you invisible, have increased movement speed, etc. Regarless its very disappointing to have all these people cheat on games like this, especially openly in pvp... (I like how this is longer than my review...)

1. This is going to be a long review. You have now been notified.
2. Of course, the hours displaying how much time I have put into this game must be about 0.1Hrs or so. But don't let this fool you.
3. I will not be diving deep into how game mechanics work and such.
4. Sorry about how my opinions and thoughts are all over the place.
Enjoy.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I am what you call... True veteran of this game. Ones who played this game since the beginning, back in South Korea, until the present. This game's been out for a LONG time and I have played this since the original season when it didn't even have the word "Season -Insert number here-", the game only had three original characters, Elesis, Lire, and Arme, and Lass later released some time later. This is arguably the first MMORPG I have ever set foot on, and that's really hard to say from a South Korean due to other popular MMORPGs like MapleStory.

There are very little people who remember how the original season was. The Quest mode, the Monster Hunting/Matches mode, the Job Advancement mode, etc. all in one single lobby between multiple servers. But of course, every game needs changes, right? For satisfaction of their custome... Ehem, pardon me... I mean, players.

Season 2 was a huge change. In fact, I loved the new change. Having so many new PvE maps, level cap increase, mission system, and the new characters. What I didn't realize back then, was that this was the genesis of frightening changes.

Every person who has played an MMORPG KNOWS for a FACT, that if new characters or classes come into play, they are ALWAYS overpowered and put the older characters to shame.
And Grand Chase is a MAJOR, if not BIGGEST, example of this fact.

Ex.
My favorite character is Lass. Played Arme since the beginning, but chose to leave her for Lass. I'm a gamer who always studies and learns about things beforehand to choose things that match my type of gameplay and style, and Lass was the one. Like how I mentioned above, the game had very distinguishable character system and one of them was the stat system.

ATT - Attack / DEF - Defense / VIT - Vitality / SPD - Speed
[Elesis was the "tank" character with high DEF and VIT for lower ATT and SPD / Lire was the "strategic" character with average ATT, DEF, VIT, and SPD / Arme was the "magical powerhouse" with high ATT, average DEF, low VIT and SPD / Lass was the "physical powerhouse" with high ATT, low(est) DEF, average VIT, and high(est) SPD]

Now then, you can see that there's ALOT of things wrong in that chart I showed you up above if you have played the game recently. Want to know why? Because our devs, after creating and releasing so many new overpowered characters, despite what the players have said, "balanced" the older characters rather than nerfing the newer characters. But is the "balance" worth anything? Not at all.

Ever since Lass was released (as the first new character ever to be released in the game), he hasn't gotten a single buff (Do not come here to tell me his Theif ST, his illustrations/facial motion, retouched class command lists updates were buffs, because they were all ABSOLUTELY useless compared to what other characters have gotten.) and has constantly been getting nerfed, and for no good reason!

Is he still the most powerful physical character now? Pfft, please.
Is he still the fastest character now? Pfft, please.
Is he still the character with the lowest DEF? Of course, why wouldn't he be?

They took away Lass's core strengths in the game and threw it away. Then they just left him as the character with the lowest DEF, next-to-nothing firepower, and speed thats now outshined by most new characters.

Now that that's over, back to the main topic of Character Balancing. The game has total of 19 characters, right? I lost track because there's so much. The game introduced 2 new game mechanics, AP and AMP system within certain characters. MP characters are free to hold down your Z button until a certain amount and perform specials. AP characters are free to customize the keys ASDFG with various Techniques and Specials and lets you cancel out of Specials with your Techniques for more freedom, all at the cost of not being able to constantly perform Specials due to cooldowns. AMP characters are a fusion of both MP and AP, and thus an overpowered mechanic.

Well, eventually the game devs actually saw that AMP characters were too powerful, so they decided to put out a new patch. The patch made it so that AMP characters cannot cancel out of Specials with Techniques, but what did that also do? Disable the function for AP characters, rendering AP characters almost useless, and it ESPECIALLY effected a character named Lupus (Rufus in NAGC) the most, because his gimmick as a character was to be able to constantly cancel in and out of Specials and Techniques as he wanted with average type of skills. Now Lupus has nothing and players in KGC have raged over at this situation yet nothing has been done over it.

PvE:
Dungeon system is fine, but with major flaws. Instead of just giving new attacks, having more buffed monsters, etc. guess what the game does to raise its difficulty? Making mobs go into constant super armors and dealing obscene amounts of overpowered damage. Yet, somehow our life count has been cut down to 1 now instead of being able to go up to 5. If we only get one life from the start and not be able to gain any more without the use of Bonus or Natal Ring, what is the point of that "1" on the tip of our HP bar now?

PvP:
Prepare for the worst balancing in PvP history. Unless you are VERY skilled with no lag, you will have no chances to win. All these overpowered characters rule over PvP with insane amounts of super/hyper armor time, obscene amounts of buff/abnormal status effect skills, overpowered 1st MP/AP skills... If thats not all, if the opponent lags and you don't know how to abuse grab mechanic, prepare to rage quit. It's funny how out-of-country players complain about not being able to play the game... If they cause so much trouble in PvP, they should stay out.

Story:
The game has a storyline. Even if you always skip all dungeon dialogues, you will be greeted with some sort of forced storyline cut-scene such as the epilogue of the last dungeon in Archemedia and Veigas' character dungeon. For a game that constantly tries to delve into the story, its plot is horrifying. Not only are there numerous amounts of plot holes, there are things that you NEVER get to find out unless you personally visit KGC's Naver Blog! Why is it not in-game? Who knows, because I sure don't.

Updates:
The updates... Reason why I say "customers" above on one of the top lines is because the major things they update most of the time are RNG-based Gacha items with low chances of dropping. And when KGC DOES get a true update, NAGC updates in slow fillers...

In Conclusion:
Now most likely you will only see these characters in-game:
Lire, Ronan, Sieghart, Dio, Zero, Rin, Asin, Lime, and Edel.
Why, you ask? Because the balancing is terrible and those characters above are overpowered monsters without a single noticeable nerf. If you are just starting Grand Chase and don't choose any of those characters I mentioned above... Good luck.

Try to have fun in a PvP match against any of the characters I have mentioned above. Pretty sure you won't. Also, there are multiple people who self-acclaim to be the "#1 -Insert character name here-" that use one of those characters up above and do nothing but generic BS in a match to win and are so darn prideful that they constantly make up excuses whenever they lose.

After all these years of playing the game, I have quit and only go to the official website to see what is new. But even then, the updates are slow and have nothing new besides new cash-related items.

Be wary of your character choice and the players around you.

Before you judge my decision, please be aware that I loved this game.

So Grand Chase, yeah. This was my most favourite side scrolling action mmo, that no other game of this type could beat. I prefered it over Elsword, LaTale and all of this kind of stuff. It was kinda original and it felt just so good to play it and level up all of your heroes under one name. I did not play for long and when I saw the annoucement that it comes to Steam, I was really happy and looking forward to download it.

However, everything was wrong. You need to buy character slots, no more character quests, servers are ♥♥♥♥, community dead, also it stutters alot for no reason..by moving it on steam, or by Elsword company taking over it the game died. Everything good is gone, and I am quite sure it wont be any better, cuz they have already the Elsword game, which is more popular, and they wont care about this game too much (I guess). However, I would not be mad if I could get suprised and this game became good again, but that just never happens.

It was a good game, I've played it since age 11 and now I'm 17, but what I see is some complications: Leveling up became too easy, they give a lvl 70 jump right when you begin, removing the thrill of boosting that character's level. Since I just started season five, it's become much harder to coordinate between screens (as in tasks), like now the shop which was once GP and Coins, became only coins and you can only access shops once unlocking each continent, and each continent contains a shop with different items, making it a pointless challenge to get new items rather than recieving them from drops. Another issue is now it's no longer F2P (Free to Play) since there are SOOOO MANY microtransactions to be made as well as needing CASH ($$$) to get new characters rather than acquiring them through character missions. Well, that's my review but I hope they bring back some old time stuff which was pleasurable to have.

Let a veteran from a time long forgotten tell you something: This entire game has been pay to win from the start, and it has been evident ever since Dio came out that this travesty that the corporate snake KoG calls a "game" was dying. So in their mind, having insanely oped characters constantly spewed out, giving out free cash sets at reaching SS rank, giving you stupid amounts of free KC for migrating accounts will keep their mentally deprived community from leaving, and you know what? They were right.

People still continue to support a game with a hell of a lot more misses than hits, and the logic behind that will forever be a mystery to me. In short, don't play this game.

Free 2 play, pay 2 win.
Seriously, people who cash can get their stats to SS without even trying. And why can't we buy character missions now? This is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

i use to love this game but now now its all paywalls and ♥♥♥♥

I played this game when they used to only have 5 characters and now that Im back years later I cannot believe how nerfed this game has become.

Pros
+You can select any character from the start
+Many gameplay mechanics are still in place that keep to the sidescroller action
+Armor designs are still pretty awsome(only after hitting lvl 20)
+A guild system
+Theres more dungeons and bosses including event dungeons
+A larger character roster of 20 characters to chose from

Cons
-Your limited to selecting 4 out of 20 Characters and you cannot delete them to chose another, you can get free slots but only in certain events which dont happen often, otherwise you must pay for them which is 10$ per slot so if you wanted to play all 20 of them in dungeons thatll be 160$ please
-They added a new gacha machine which nobody is even going to bother with, if you like gambling save that money go to vegas
-Many of the outfits you pay real money for look ridiculous to the point were some apparal doesnt even look attached to your character.
-As others have already said Pvp is about stats not skills
-Early dungeons are many and too easy, theres no benifit to playing those dungeons with other people considering its tutorial lvl difficulty making the game boring even at lvl 35+ so any arcade like difficulty is dead and gone.
-Some skill trees require REAL MONEY to unlock.
-Theres no Xbox 360 controller support so expect your triggers, Right thumb stick, and d-pad to be totally useless and with the expanded skill tree and skill bar means youll have to give up some bindings.

Overall Grand Chase has lost alot of its faithful fanbase due to its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nerfing and new stats system to win pvp, if you wanted a challenging arcade side scroller its not here.

No controller support of any kind, doesn't support widescreen modes at all and this game has turned into nothing but a cash grab since you now have to fork out 990 K-Ching per character slot (roughly $10 per slot) which isn't how it originally was and it never was meant to turn into an Elsword clone which is what it is turning into now.

New accounts are stuck with only the option to create 4 characters and you can't even delete them either.

So avoid this game that was once a good game before Kill3rCombo got a hold of it.

I'll add that the controller support and widescreen support has always been a problem with Grand Chase ever since it first released back in the Netreev day's.

As a game itself, I would recommend giving it a try.
Good challenges in both PvE and PvP, and very fun... for about a month or so.

Unfortunately, this game is very old. Community is shrinking everyday, and gameplay is very repetetive.
Well, doing the same dungeon over and over to get an item is fine for me, since doing dungeons are fun with this game. BUT the ultimate goal of this game - getting higher rank and more dmg - is meaningless without more content added to it.
I no longer find it worth playing more than a month.

Most new characters are playable, but the biggest dissapointment is you have to be a cash player to make an awesome character. some skills are also need some cash to unlock. Not the type of game I would play.

Press Z simulater 2014!

Grand Chase was a good game, was, season 3 and 4 was its peak, but I don't think I will continue to play this... maybe it's the time for shut down... since you could only enjoy the game fully if you got the wallet, paywall makes ppl cry... they made me broke to tears, but it was long ago, now it's worse, ok let's say the paywall is not that bad... but long time ago.. you could PLAY EVERY CHARACTER WITHOUT SPENDING ANY real life money.... you must however, unlock them by doing overly long mission, but the point is, you could unlock them, somehow.... without spending any munny, now, it is different... while you can initially choose any character for free... you got 4 slots for this... after that, you'd need to spend your wallet on buying the extra slot... also did I said the character you've picked can't be undone? yep. more minus... I, however, do respect ppl who still going to play this despite the said reason, wholeheartedly, and without any sarcasm... but I think I'm too old for this kind of joke of a should-be-released-as-mobile game, just hope season 6 will come and done with less expensive way to enjoy this (Oh what am I talking about)

This game isn't anymore free to play...
If you want all characters you need to give REAL money!

So fwck yea!
I don't play anymore this ♥♥♥♥.

Best regards, one veteran!
Season V = GC dead

Launcher uses IE, fail # 1.
Activated account through Chrome, tried to play through launcher, fail #2.
P2W game, fail#3.

I played this game an absolute ton when I was younger, so I’ve invested plenty of time into this game previously, and this review is more about the changes it's undergone over the years since my hiatus.

First up, is that the game has changed. A LOT! When I started, they gave you 3 starting characters then from that point you would buy quests, using in-game currency I should add, then do the quests to receive the character. Sometimes it was an absolute pain to get the character, but you could get it without paying real money, and there was no character limit, unlike there is now. One upside though is you can choose pretty much any of the characters when you start and you’ll keep them forever without having to worry, but now there’s a limit. You get 4 character slots before you are forced to pay with real money, so alarm bells already start to ring there, since before there was no limit.

So alright, I got through that and went into the tutorial, and I’m pleased to say the combat hasn’t changed much, and I’m glad. It was the main reason I had stuck around for so long and I’m happy to see it’s still the same 2D brawler action that was a load of fun. But with a positive comes a negative. I went into the shop and to my surprise, EVERYTHING now costs real money! I couldn’t even figure out what the in-game currency was for anymore. You can’t buy armour or weapons with it, so it’s become effectively useless. Back in the day you could, but now it’s only for those with their wallets out!

I hate what they’ve done to the game. I wouldn’t say its pay to win, but it certainly is pay to enjoy the game properly. They’ve done so much wrong with this game and it’s nothing more than a cash cow with all the money grubbing tactics and microtransactions they have in place. I enjoy the gameplay, but with all these restrictions I can’t see myself coming back to this game, as it’s been left a husk of its former self and it’s clear to me the developers only care about your money, nothing more.