The freedom of movement

Kings Row is the Gotham City to Atlas Park's Metropolis, and the environment lends itself to the style of street level superheroes like Batman and Daredevil, with buildings so close together you can leap from roofttop to rooftop as you chase down the bad guys.

That's without travel powers.

Travel Powers used to be accessible at level 14. Toward the end of the game's run on live that came down to level 6, and on the Homecoming servers they are now available, without pre-requisites, as early as level 4.

I don't think I've ever taken a travel power that early, and sometimes I don't take them at all, but they're there if I want them, and there's also plenty of temp and free travel powers available.

Not that you actually need them, seeing as the default run speed and jump height/distance in this game from level 2 onward is so high it would be a travel power in many other MMOs.

That travel powers are so readily available in City of Heroes appears to have liberated the zone designers. The zones are interesting environments to move around in and to explore, and while there's little to no attempt made to control and direct that movement there are also few concessions made to those who don't have a travel power – or who have one that isn't well suited to a particular zone.

City of Heroes makes more use of the vertical in its open world zones than most any other MMO I can think of. In some zones the rooftops are as active as the streets. Multi-layered areas are common, with bridges, overpasses and catwalks stacking on top of the streets below. If you have certain travel powers – like flight – all of this is easy to navigate. If you don't it may not be, but it will be fun.

You take fall damage in CoH, but it's not excessive and you will literally never die from it. Jump from the top of the highest building in Paragon City and you will land on your feet with 1 HP remaining. You're fine – unless there's a hostile mob standing next to where you land, of course.

This, and the formidable base run speed and jump range, and the travel powers, and the zone design, makes City of Heroes a tremendously fun game to move around in. If I skip travel powers I'll do so because none of them fit the concept of that particular character. If I am actually in a hurry there's always temp travel powers available, but just parkouring around the zones – finding the best routes and navigating each different environment – is fun in and of itself.

 

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