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While Guild Wars Prophecies introduced us to the continent of Tyria, Guild Wars Factions brought us the continent of Cantha. A place of feudal traditions, huge cityscapes, the blasted desolation of the Jade Sea and the deep darkness of the Echovald Forest.

The introduction of additional character classes (Assassin and Ritualist) and more skills is a good lure for many original Guild Wars players. Plus the ability to take your existing characters to the new continent and adventure there is essential to the game make up, allowing exploration, great battles and new items to the already loyal fanbase.

The Assassin, fast and flexible in the field of battle, high attack power provided by low level weapons but very fast striking ability and superior attack skills. However this is balanced by the low durability of the profession, with a low armour value and being prone to rely on enchantments for personal protection. They have the unique ability to gain higher critical hit percentage (more hits they land are "critical" i.e they cause maximum damage) which allows for even higher damage rates.

The Ritualist, much slower than the Assassin but then the play style is very different. A Ritualist relies on weapons, spirit summoning and the ability to imbue or steal from their spirits health pool make this a great support cast, with healing ability that has become almost PvP requirement over the last few years. They have the unique ability to summon creatures with higher health.

Over all the addition of these two professions has had a positive affect on the game, new builds and the constant balance updates are always being made and done to the game. So there are no imbalances to worry about.

The main problem comes when played alone. This game is hard to pick up if you don't have any previous Guild Wars experience. This is mainly due to the storyline, which while not as fragmented and with slightly more options than the first can be confusing and lead to being left in a somewhat sorry state when trying to understand it.

Guild Wars Factions is a reasonable game by itself but it really comes into its own when combined with the other Guild Wars games. Not only does the Title system work across all the continents (thus needing all the campaigns to achieve the most titles) but the PvP element requires all the skills you can muster. Teams often requiring skills from some or even all of the campaigns.

I give this a "Good" for its interleaving with the other Guild Wars games and it is required for PvP. But as it is the worst of the available campaigns, definitely not for beginners! So it ends up as "Average" when played by itself, I am afraid.

Learn more about this author, Alex Haworth.
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