Anyone who has talked to me recently has undoubtedly heard about Black Desert Online from me.

Despite all of the constant back-and-forth in the community over the buy-to-play model with a cash shop and the more general localization woes, I’ve remained more or less excited for the game and have been anxiously awaiting the release. And now with the second closed beta underway, many players have gotten another chance at giving the localized version of the game a go.

I’ll begin here with a short disclosure: I haven’t played too terribly much of the localized game, and I’ve only played as a Witch so far. However, I have experience with the Japanese version of the game more extensively than I’ve played the beta.

First and foremost, the game is breathtaking visually. It’s vibrant, colorful and generally full of life. One of the things that struck me when I first gave the game a go was how much life there is in the world, and I don’t mean enemies.

There’s guards and other NPCs walking the streets between towns and travelling. Kids playing all over the place. It’s great to see so much going on in the game’s world as it helps it feel more genuine and alive. And while these NPCs aren’t all exactly useful, it certainly colors the world more than most MMOs, where a large city seems to have a total of 35 inhabitants sometimes.

Of course, as anyone who has seen bits of the game already knows, the graphics are beautiful. Running the game at the highest settings is stunning – while it may not be as graphically impressive as some of the games out now, the visuals are damn impressive for a game of its size.

On the other end of the scale, the lowest settings of the game are very well optimized for players with low-end computers. While you’ll get a noticeable slow down in frames per second, the game will generally still be playable.

Another aspect of the game that everyone knows about is how in-depth and robust the character creation is.

Daum Games uploaded the character creator separate from the game a while back for players to have fun making characters, whether or not they’ve pre-ordered or even plan on buying at all. It’s been a blast to spend hours just playing around with all of the molding tools.

This sort of creation model helps make most characters appear different in-game, especially for those that spend hours on their character. And furthermore, all the details that you see at the character creation screen make it into the actual game. Nothing gets lost in the transition to in-game models, which used to be pretty commonplace with games like this.

When talking about gameplay, Black Desert Online gets more difficult to discuss. At the bare minimum, combat is a blast. The action is fluid but weighty, and tons of fun. It takes a bit of learning to get used to, especially if you play with the fighting game-esque controls, rather than hotkeys.

In fact, for an action MMO, I feel like the fighting game style controls fit perfectly. You’ll have skills mapped to different directions plus buttons, leaving you to skillfully link combos together during a fight.

The downside to the combat comes through the game’s design.

Much of the leveling process is done through grinding mobs, which means you’ll be fighting tirelessly to level rather than running quests. This means you’ll be mostly trying to group up enemies and use AoE attacks to bring masses down at a time. It takes skill, but does get repetitive after a while.

However, the game really shines when you consider what else it offers. Combat is great, but between all of the trading, working, fishing, breeding, and other stuff to do, you’ll never be bored.

In fact, I find myself doing combat for a bit and switching things up to hang out with my horse or just lounge around – and that’s where the bit about the world feeling alive really shines. There’s always something to do, even if it’s not combat.

So, while I don’t want to judge the game based solely on this beta, right now I can confidently say I think Daum Games is moving in the right direction. Many of free-to-play and pay-to-win elements have been altered or removed in favor of far more balanced gameplay and extras.

And while paying really money will certainly improve your quality of life, it’s not going to give you a leg up on other players beyond convenience really – which is the greatest part of the localization so far.

So, to wrap up, I’ll say this: my outlook on the localized Black Desert Online is favorable at the least – and definitely worth looking into if you’re an MMORPG or sandbox game fan.

And if you’re a role-player, this may be one of the best games on the horizon for you.