MapleStory is in my eyes one of the best MMORPG's ever. The key to it's succes are not the sick graphics (...which get outdated after a few years anyways) but it is it's simplicity. Every newb can learn to play it like any semi-pro within 30 mins. Don't get yourself fooled by the childish graphics, it's a very in-depth game, and since the game has been out for quiet a long time there are a lot of 18+ people. Also, even though the game is made in Korea, the global version of the game actually has decent grammar unlike A LOT of others free mmorpg's. The best thing about it in my opinion is that it was one the first MMORPG's to be released, the game was released in 2003 so it isn't influenced that much by other games, so t's not a run-of-the-mill game. It also gets updated every month or so with new classes, maps, quests and game systems.
Graphics 8/10
The game doesn't have super L33T graphics, it has no star-wars look-a-like skills and it is in 2D. Most of the people hate it, I love it. The graphics are simple and every area/city has his own style, you could compare the graphics to an advanced Super Mario.
Music 6/10
This is what I hate about the game: the repetitive music. At the start the music is alright, every town has his own music, but hearing it OVER AND OVER again every time you go trough a certain town can get boring. Also hearing your stars hitting the zombie mushrooms or the "tik tik" sound magic claw makes hitting a pig gets quiet boring too. It's still a positive though since if it wasn't for the repetitiveness the game would've had actually decent music (examples: 1 | 2 | 3). But come on, imagine yourself staying in 1 map doing the same skills over and over again -> god bless music players.
Controls 10/10
You can customize pretty much every button and function as you wish, ranging from F1 to F12, ` to /, insert to page down, so there is nothing to complain. This system is the best I've seen so far. The equipment window, the skills window, everything is customizable. Not only fuctions are bindable, it is also possible to hotkey potions and mounts the same way.
Tutorials 8/10
The tutorials are actually quiet good. Unlike other games it is not just 'CLICK HERE' or something similar, but it has whole islands divided to tutorials. The biggest problem about this is that they are BORING. Most of the people just skip it and figure out the gameplay on their own.
Questing 5/10
The game has a lot of quests which take hours to complete but give useless rewards. It's mainly lazy people who you should hunt items for or people who are scared for a certain monster so you should kill a certain amount of monsters to complete the quests to receive your useless reward.
Community 6/10
A small part of the community is just LOLZ. There are certain people who spent their day with scamming, hacking and kill-stealing. Besides that there are a lot of 13-year olds who think they're the king of the world because they have a lvl 583312 maplestory character. I recommend you to just ignore that part of the community since there are actually nice and mature people too.
Gameplay 10/10
The gameplay is awesome, when you're underwater you lose health(unless you have an air tank, which can be obtained by a quest), when you fall from height you receive damage, when you're in icy maps you lose health due coldness(unless you have a certain cape which can be obtained by a quest). Even though the graphics aren't realistic, the gameplay surely is. WARNING: the gameplay is highly addictive. When you finish a certain goal(i.e. getting a skill, finishing a quest) the next task is ready to be completed(next skill, next quest etc.) which makes the game very, very, VERY addictive once you get used to the system. It has no player vs player system, instead of that it has a party quest system. In party quests you go with your party in a certain area and try to clear it within an certain amount of time, some of the party quests are for your party only but in others you get in a similar area as another party and the first one to clear it wins. In some party quests you get in the same map as the other party and you get a X amount of points for every monster you kill, the team with the most points wins(kill-stealing ftw). It has potentially the best trading system, unlike most MMORPGs, there is a chat box in the trade and stores, so people can easily communicate. The class system is something even the skeptics are positive about. The main characters(adventurers aka explorers) have 6 main jobs(Warrior, Thief, Archer, Magician, Pirate), when you reach level 30(which takes a few days if you play it actively, it is possible within a day if you nolife) you get your second job advancement, warriors have 3 paths to choose, archers 2, thiefs 3, magicians 2 and pirates 2. Besides explorers there are also Cygnus Knights, Cygnus Knights are stronger than explorer but can only level up to 120. Cygnus Knights have the 6 basic jobs and have no path to choose, this class is recommended for beginners. The other class are Legends, in which you can choose to be an Aran(similar to warrior) or an evan(similar to a magician). The last and latest class is the Resistance which are basically tuned up 'normal' citizens. As citizen you can choose between 3 jobs: Battle Mage(uses a staff), Wild Hunter(uses a crossbow, has a panther as mount) or a Mechanic(uses a robot, and has his robot as mount too). The only bad thing about the gameplay is that you have to grind for days to go a level up at the higher levels, but this goes for every MMORPG I guess.
the ending of a party quest
Overall 8/10
+ free
+ original graphics
+ easy customizable controls
+ class system
+ merchanting system
+ party quests
+ gets updated regularly
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- repetitive music
- a lot of quests with useless rewards
- a lot of scammer and hackers
Examples of different cities/areas(these are just examples, I think there are around 50 different areas out at the moment):
Lith Harbor | Henesys | Kerning City | Perion | Ellinia | Orbis | Ludibrium
Link: www.maplestory.com
note: European players can only play on the Europe version, the global version is for North America and people who have no version of the game for their country/area. This can be bypassed easily though so if you're interested in playing with friends across the ocean, contact me.
other review:
Edited by ~#Se* turQua`, 05 March 2011 - 10:06 AM.
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