Closers is a Free to Play Action Anime Side-Scrolling style MMO set in the year 2020. Dimensional Gates have opened all over the world and monsters have invaded every sector the gates have appeared at. As an Agent of the Closers, you’re one of the few with the physical capabilities to fight against these Dimensional Monsters and close the Gates from which they arrive. The game focuses the on the story of the Black Lamb group, which is a group of Highschoolers who happen to be Closers protecting New Seoul. Overall the gameplay is smooth and the story is quite engaging, following the character you choose who happens to be a Dimensional Monster themself.
Character Creation
In Closers, the character creation process is similar to a lot of Anime style action MMO’s, where you’re only able to pick preset characters with preset names. You can select one of 6 different characters, each with their own playstyle and skillset. You’ll start as a Rookie Agent and get more options for appearances later as you progress through the story. You can’t customize any part of the character’s look, so what you see is what you get. You can however give your character a nickname that other players will see, but the story itself will call you by the character’s real name. After you select the character you want and name it, you’ll be forced into the tutorial which explains the controls of battle and movement, as well as the overall idea of the game’s story.
Sectors
As you get into the game for the first time, you’ll be taken to a tutorial area. This is one of the Sectors, which is a series of city blocks that has become infested with Dimensional Monsters arriving from nearby Dimensional Gates. Each Sector consists of about 6 Blocks which must be cleared in succession in order to face off against the Boss at the end of the Sector. Initially, you’ll only be able to enter one Sector after completing the tutorial, but many more will unlock as you progress and level up.
The Story
Once you reach the Hub city of New Seoul, you’ll be greeted by a robot called the Cuckoo, which is essentially a communication device used by Vulture Co. to relay info to the Closers about their missions. You, being a Dimensional Monster, are not respected and are forced to obey the humans who employ you. You started by slaughtering a whole group of Elite Closers known as Wolf Dog Team, and were captured immediately after. You then find yourself doing the jobs they would have been doing, but instead of having a team, you’re alone. The Vulture Co. is the core group behind trying to close the Dimensional Gates that the monsters are coming from, and they have been tasked with aiding the group protecting Seoul, the Black Lamb Team. While you’re character is rather submissive toward the Black Lamb Team, they absolutely hate you and will treat you like the monster you are. As you progress through the story, more of a darker plot and the reason for the Dimensional Gates appearance is revealed to you.
The story is quite engaging and full of the classic Anime action style. From suspenseful walking and talking scenes, to the all out brutal combat scenes, the game has some excellent storytelling in it. Every character has a reason for being where they are and they’re all surprisingly tied together as well. I found myself locked into it and wanting to see how it plays out after the first 10 minutes of playing the game.
Pets
In Closers, you’ll be able to bring a Pet with you into battle. At first, this pet will start as an egg and you’ll have to hatch and grow it into an adult. After the pet becomes an adult, it will gain skills and be capable of assisting you in combat, which will prove useful when you’re facing off against swarms of monsters from all directions. There are over a dozen different pets, each with their own skillsets and assisting abilities for the Closer they serve. Initially, you’ll be given the Black Lamb pet after completing a mission for clearing your first Sector. The pets take awhile to hatch, but once they do, you’ll notice a pretty big difference in combat damage.
Costumes and Skins
Since you don’t get to customize anything about the character in the start, there appears to be a large number of cosmetic items like costumes. You can get new costumes by doing missions and from the Sectors you clear out as well as from Gacha boxes (of course). The outfits range from dresses to full body armor that’s on fire and glowing, and it only gets more crazy from there.
Skins are a different type of cosmetic appearance. These are rewarded to you once you reach certain Closer ranks. From what I saw, they change the way your character’s body/hair/head look and come with their own unique outfits fitting to the rank you use. These can be changed at any time after you receive them and don’t seem to serve any purpose other than cosmetic differences in the character.
Skills and Character Stats
As you level up, you’ll learn new skills and gain skill points to allocate into the skills you find yourself using the most. From summoning familiars, grabbing the monsters and throwing them around, and dashing through them at high velocity, you’ll be able to set up a pretty solid skillset matching your personal preferences. There are dozens of skills unique to each character class, and about 10 levels for each skill which improve the effect on them.
In addition, once you do the mission for DNA manipulation, you’ll be able to further customize your own character stats. These points will allow you to improve on various attributes such as attack damage or mana restoration. The DNA manipulation points seem limited, and are only given after level 20 through 60, so it’s a good idea to spend these only on the attributes you use primarily for your character class.
Dungeons and Crisis
Dungeons in Closer are much like Sectors, but with a team of other Closers helping you out. There are several boss phases in dungeons and the rewards for each get increasingly better. As with Sectors, you’re given a rank and EXP at the end of the dungeon. Each dungeon has it’s own story that plays out throughout the battle and you can learn quite a bit about what’s really going on by doing dungeons.
Crisis is a different story. These are more like raids and elite dungeons. They consist of much more difficult monsters in larger numbers, but the rewards are equally better. You can participate in a Crisis once a week from what I saw, and you’ll be in a team of about 10 other players. These are certainly a different style compared to the Sector and Dungeon instances, since they actively use a lot of boss mechanics that you’ll have to jump and dodge to avoid taking heavy damage.
PVP
In Closers, the PVP is much like that of League of Legends. You’ll be sent to an arena where two teams face off with small objectives between them. Each team will have 5 players, and will have to destroy the base of the other team to win. There are usually a few different lanes that you can use to reach the opposing base. The PVP doesn’t use anything special to make it too fair, but it does give slight buffs to equalize the base stats of the teams so it’s more bearable.
I found myself enjoying shooting other players with a barrage of fireballs from my scythe/staff thing. As a mage, I had to avoid any type of melee combat or I was sent back to my base as a fallen soldier of the cause. Keep your role in mind while in the PVP of Closers, since it plays a heavy part of winning the match.
Conclusion
Overall, I thought Closers was a great game full of an engaging story and plenty of action. It has a unique side-scrolling style to it, even in the Hub, so I was rather intrigued by it. The outfits look really well designed, and nothing feels generic other than the camera movement, which sometimes clips under the ground. There was times where I wish I had partied up to make things a bit easier, since I was a squishy mage, but I managed to solo pretty much every Sector easily enough. The combat is smooth and each class feels unique in their own style, so every time I played a different character it felt like a new experience.
Either way, if you enjoy a good Anime story, tons of action, and an MMORPG that’s not that common these days, then Closers is a good one to check out. There is plenty to do, and the player base is large enough that dungeon ques and Crisis wait times are pretty low allowing for instant action.