Note: This review was written in May of 2013 and reflects the game's state up to that point.

Let’s face it, everyone knows most F2P MMOs require a lot of grinding and this is usually what keeps me away from them. Scarlet Blade seemed appealing because of the scantily clad women and the game just looked good and fun. I gave it a shot (which I rarely do for MMOs) and it was great for the first few weeks until I go to level 23 and the grinding had to start.

Scarlet Blade has a simple story about Free Knights and Royal Knights Arkana who are AI women. The Royal Guards want to destroy the creator of the Arkana in a rebellious war while the Free Knights worship her and stay loyal. The story is somewhat interesting, but it is stretched thin over 40 levels of missions that you end up forgetting half of it. The characters aren’t interesting at all and are basically all text that you read. The main attraction of the game is the busty women and the fact that you can buy a lingerie unsealed and have your character walk around nude. The combat seemed fast and satisfying, but after a while, the grind started kicking in.

The game’s main missions have you just killing different amounts of respawning enemies that roam the area. This gets tedious and boring after a while, but leveling up a character is always addictive, however, the rewards for doing so are poor. You only get one EXP point per level so it takes forever to properly acquire a good arsenal of attacks. I concentrated on 6 and even that took forever. Most missions rewards suck, they give you pet energy potions and mainly potions for yourself. You rarely get anything good like armor or a weapon, in fact, nearly every enemy drop was useless junk that could only be sold at a store. Very disappointing loot and even the large raid areas didn’t provide good loot. The game just disappoints on that level completely.

After about level 8 I had enough gold to buy all the best armor and weapons for my character, but there’s one set of certain levels. Once you buy it all that’s it until you reach the next level set. There were various other things that this MMO did that other didn’t like collecting cards to use for gambling that gave you boxes of items, you can complete puzzles every time you level up to unveil some sexy artwork and things like that. It isn’t anything that would get someone to play the game, honestly, I got bored after hitting level 23. One thing that I was concerned about was that the various item ranking systems are complicated and nearly useless, there’s also so many of them. You can sell your item to rank it up more but must unseal it to sell it, you have to use Stardust Crystals to level up your armor and weapons, but the stats are so small you won’t notice a difference. Honestly, the game offers a very little reward for all your effort.

There are some social poses your character can buy and learn that add to the sex appeal of the game. These do nothing more than offer you something to ogle at, however, some poses can make your character rest and heal up. There were other items that I found useless like megaphones that make your text in the chat gold so it stands out. Maybe items were useless and I just sold them, why an MMO would offer you so little for so much effort is beyond me. Two items I did require were actually useful. After a while, you get a mech you can use that uses CP points that do a lot of damage. Another item is a suit that is used in PvP only, these items were powerful and came in handy a lot.

There are various other systems like storing items, buying items, weapons, armor, synthesizing which even at level 23 I still didn’t have any materials to do this. The game is pretty bare bones and there isn’t much incentive to keep playing once the grind starts kicking in. I did get a bike at level 10 which looked cool, but there’s no customization features and upgrading your bike is nearly useless. All it does is increase the moving speed by one point with every crystal you use. You can take the look of other armors and apply them to your current armor, but honestly, these systems are all useless. I tried PvP battles and they seemed fun, but I couldn’t get any kills. The action was so hectic I kept losing track of my mouse cursor and not even know who I was attacking. The battles rotate every hour and it was fun at first, but it’s not worth it. You can collect dog tags to turn into medals for the show, but once again, what’s the point?

After killing thousands of creatures and grinding to level 23 I started running out of quests to keep my levels going. I had to do repeatable quests and just kill dozens of creatures to level up. After a while, I figured there are better games out there to play which there are. Scarlet Blade is a good concept but seriously needs more content to be considered worthy of your time. Despite all that there are a lot of areas to explore and the game is huge, I found some challenging bosses and overall had a good time, but the nagging feeling in my mind was that the paltry rewards just weren’t worth it.

Scarlet Blade may feature sexy busty women, but in the end, you are going to start really grinding at level 23 and the rewards just suck. The game has too many synthesizing and item leveling systems so it becomes confusing, and overall the game just isn’t worth your time.

One of the worst things I've ever played, and it wasn't even as sexy as the ads back then wanted you to believe because the in-game models looked abhorrently atrocious, like everything else modeled in the game for that matter. My horny high-school senior self could only stand about 2 hours of this wretched mess of a game before uninstalling. The only remotely good thing this game had going for it was some of the splash/loading screen pinup art and some of the scanty armor and neat weapon designs. I'm not gonna cry about this game having "lost potential" or something, because that would mean there was a remotely good gameplay mechanic just buried under the trash. This was NOT the case.