Time to call the Closers!note
Closers
is a Korean free-to-play side-scrolling MMORPG slash Beat 'em Up from folks at Naddic Games, which is made up of former Elsword's KOG employees including Elsword's original artist, RESS. It is published by Nexon (in Korea), Sega (in Japan) and En Masse Entertainment (North America and Europe).
The modern world was invaded by inter-dimensional monsters, leading to the First Dimensional War. Luckily, the ‘Phase Energy’ emitted by the gates between two worlds granted certain individuals psychic powers, turning the tide of war. Skip forward to year 2020, the monsters have re-emerged in New Seoul. But this time UNION and their Closer agents are prepared...
Closers puts you in the role of one such agent to fight the new crisis, with the story and game areas divided into episodic fashion. The game lend itself heavily into 'anime' influence from the characters, wads of fancy costumes options, almost every stereotypical Shōnen Demographic tropes possible crammed into storyline and Stylish Action combat which borrows some mechanics from Fighting Games.
North American and European audience can grab its Open Beta version (as of December 2017) here and through Steam platform here.
Compare Elsword, another side-scrolling MMO game that came out earlier.
The game provides examples of:
- 2½D: The game plays out in 3D, but the movement is horizontal with some minor Z-axis shift.
- Action Pet: You can have pets tagging along with you. Doing so grants you small passive bonuses, and some can deal small damage in combat.
- Another Side, Another Story: The Wolf Dogs follow a different storyline from the Black Lambs.
- Anti-Grinding/Anti Poop-Socking: The game has a stamina gauge which decreases every time you enter a sector, putting a limit on how many experience points you can gain in a day.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Season 1 ending for the Wolf Dogs. They end up stopping Shia and the government higher-ups' plans to start a War for Fun and Profit, and Vulture Co. is demilitarized and placed under the leadership of someone with actual morals. However, Shia ended up dying on her own terms, the government and UNION end up covering up what happened, and the Wolf Dogs are framed for the incident, forcing them to go on the run for now.
- Boss Warning Siren: Every time you are about to encounter a boss, complete with its own animation.
- Darker and Edgier: The Wolf Dogs story. Unlike the Black Lambs, the Wolf Dogs are continuously being forced to further the aims of the villains against their will, their main story Non Player Characters are constantly hostile to them, and anyone who actually treats them decently eventually gets memory wiped both to hide their actions and to torment them.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Misteltein. His dress costume you can equip isn't helping either.
- Dueling Player Characters: A few single-instance bosses fought during the story missions are actually other playable characters, depending on which storyline you're following. Wolfgang is one of the few that can be refought when he shows up as a boss in the Hunting Ground.
- Enemy Civil War: In Season 1, the dimensionals are in the middle of one between Astaroth, who usurped control of the Dragon Legion in the middle of the First Dimensional War and defected, and the rest of the dimensionals, led by Ash and Dust. Since Ash and Dust can't defeat Astaroth since his domain makes him invincible to any human or dimensional, they sought to create a hybrid with the powers of both in order to defeat him. They end up settling on temporarily empowering the Black Lambs to do the job.
- Fanservice: The chances of seeing bouncing breasts and getting a panty shot are a lot higher in this game thanks to the physics engine. And the game provides plenty of Stripperific outfits to choose from for most characters.
- High School AU: One story arc for Black Lambs team members edges closely into this except it involves said school getting wrecked from start to finish.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight against Ash and Dust. Both of them are level 99 when the player is probably around their late 20's to early 30's. After you die, the level still clears after some dialogue.
- Humiliation Conga: Kitae suffers one throughout a good part of the Gangnam Invasion arc. First, he ends up losing his phase force before he gets a chance to take on Hecatoncheires like he planed to, then when he tries to pin all the blame for his plan on Celine and Director Lane, Celine decides that she's had enough and reveals that she kept incriminating emails that she was supposed to delete that reveal that Kitae was entirely complicit in the current crisis. Finally, after escaping from confinement and joining the dimensionals in order to get his phase power back, he's beaten by the Black Lambs and executed by Astaroth.
- Interface Spoiler: The game did a bad job of concealing some plot elements. Halfway through Guro Station arc, for example, you will be told to move on to other areas and let senior Closer agents clean up. But the map will tell you that you're probably not done with the place.
- Just One More Level!: What Seha would rather be doing instead of fighting real monsters.
- The Legions of Hell: Most of the inter-dimensional monsters looks like this.
- Malevolent Masked Men: Kalbach Tux. It is said that he used to have a face until it got ripped off by Dust.
- Mexican Standoff: Due to the manipulations of Kalbach Tux, Kim gets ahold of the trigger unit for the Wolf Dogs' collars while the Wolf Dogs gain control of a fully armed airship and threaten to fire if the collars are activated. Thus, with both sides on equal ground, Trainer negotiates for the Wild Dog's bounty to be removed, in exchange for them working alongside the Black Lambs, all according to Kalbach Tux's plan.
- One-Winged Angel: when you fight David at the end of season 2, it looks like he's been defeated but then transforms in the angelic divine judge David, he even grows wings half way through the fight.
- Out-Gambitted: The Black Lambs story at the International Airport happened because David wanted the black box of the Lambs Keeper, which UNION assigned Kim to deliver under the pretense of going to a promotion ceremony. It turns out that Kim suspected that David was evil and bought a fake black box with her instead. Thus, while David and the Veritas Brigade searched the entire airport for a black box that wasn't even there, a cooperating Closer gathered evidence of David's betrayal.
- Pet Monstrosity: Some of the pets are actually mini versions of monsters you encounter in the field.
- Police Are Useless: UNION personnel do almost nothing to help you out in combat. Commander Song complains that due to factions inside UNION in-fighting whether to send help to the Closer agents, you ended up not getting any reinforcements during Gangnam arc.
- Red Herring Mole: During the Han High School arc, you're warned that one of your two classmates, Hana or Jungmi, are secretly The Mole for Ash and Dust. At first, alot of suspicion is placed on Jungmi since not only does she openly hate Closers, but Ash and Dust seem to be particularly interested in her. However, it turns out that the real mole was Hana, who was secretly jealous of the Closers and worked with Ash and Dust so she could get phase force. The only reason Ash and Dust seemed to focus on Jungmi was to throw the heroes off.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: In a bid to get his phase power back, Kitae becomes a commander for Astaroth's army. However, after repeatedly failing due to the Black Lambs, Astaroth decides to kill him for his failure.
- Played with in Hana's case. After failing as a mole for Ash and Dust, the two of them transform Hana into a monster. However, after getting over the initial shock, Hana finds herself enamored with the powers her new form gives her and fights back against being turned back to normal.
- Rule 63: The Pandimension Closers are gender-bent versions of the playable characters, with some differences:
- Seha's counterpart Seri is also a Brilliant, but Lazy gamer and only joined so that her father would raise her allowance.
- Sylvi's counterpart Gangwoo is the main character of a drama rather than a fan of one.
- J's counterpart Jania looks and acts like an elementary school girl due to the experiments on her body.
- Yuri's counterpart Gangcheol is a major flirt who figured that being a Closer was more attractive to the ladies than Kendo.
- Misteltein's counterpart Mistel is a Bifauxnen adult woman instead of an feminine-looking little boy. She's also noted to be terrible at art in contrast to Misteltein's habit of drawing pictures.
- Levia's counterpart Ladiva is a muscular man who's lauded as a hero in contrast to Levia who's feared as a monster.
- Nata's counterpart Natasha shares the same Blood Knight attitude but isn't nearly as revenge-driven. She also works undercover as a normal student as opposed to Nata's being deprived of anything resembling a normal life.
- Tina's counterpart Tina F Kazinsky is a grizzled war vet who died and was resurrected as a cyborg. His dynamic with Trainer (called Trainee in his universe) is also reversed, with Trainee being a soldier who trained under him.
- Shout-Out: The dance emotes for each of the characters are references to various dance groups and music videos.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Choi Bona's over-eagerness to prove herself better than the adults causes her to ignore several red flags about the Planar Gate, which almost leads to a disaster. The Black Lambs are luckily able to calm her down so that she could come up with a solution.
- Token Mini-Moe: There is pretty much one per faction on the game, with said characters being Tina, Seth, and Lucy. There is also Misteltein who is a male example.
