MapleStory – Review
MapleStory is one of the most famous Korean MMORPG Games of all time. MapleStory was originally released in April 2003 and took a little over 4 years to be released in both America and Europe. The game has spawned a number of spinoffs for the franchise including a short-lived anime series, a popular Nintendo DS game and even a trading card game. Developed by Wizet, the game is now available across the globe, hosted on over 10 different language specific gaming portals. MapleStory is a free to play, side-scrolling, 2D MMORPG set in the magical world of Maple World. Players can expect similar features to that of modern day MMORPG Games such as character progression, social interaction and a number of other exciting features. The game is quite a substantial size to download, but as it’s hosted on so many different portal sites, you shouldn’t have a problem achieving your maximum download speeds.
When your begin your journey in Maple World you start out as a character without a class on Maple Island, the newbie area in Maplestory. Maple Island is basically an extended tutorial, players can complete quests and battle monsters to help them get to grips with the game. You get your first class choice once you reach level 10, from either Bowman, Warrior, Pirate or Thief, each class has different benefits and works better with certain play-styles, but they’re all quite durable and balanced. As you level up, even during the tutorial, you’re rewarded with skill points. You can assign these skill points to various aspects of your character, creating quite an in-depth approach to character progression.
I’m not a huge fan of cartoon based graphics, or hack and slash game-play or side scrolling MMO Games, yet MapleStory has me hooked like no other MMORPG I’ve played. I’ve written hundreds of MMO reviews in my time, and 90% of them I’ve played for the duration of the review and then moved on. MapleStory is going to be one of the few I’ll keep playing. The combat is fast paced, with multiple enemies on screen at once. There’s just something really satisfying about huge numbers flying around the sky as you destroy things with your new sword. As the numbers, and the sword, get bigger and better as you level, this feeling just multiplies the more you play.
As is traditional in today’s MMORPG market, MapleStory is filled with hundreds of quests. You have the typical kill X amount of monsters and collect X item quests but they’ve also thrown a few unique ones into the mix. One of my personal favorites is the platform style quests. As the game is 2D, it’s a perfect way to utilize quests based around difficult maneuvers and jumping. These quests usually require you to reach a certain location or item, with many pitfalls and obstacles along the way. To my knowledge, this is a first in an MMO game and is a brilliant design idea to combat regular quest and monster grinding.
MapleStory includes a variety of other interesting features such as the extensive Job system. Players are able to select their first job at level 10, and then get to choose 3 more advancements as they progress through the game. Each job advancement has a huge array of unique skills and abilities and always gives you something to aim for. There’s also been a great amount of effort to balance the classes, this is easily obvious as the PvP battles are always close between similar leveled players.
Overall, MapleStory is easily one of the greatest free to play MMORPG Games I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. There’s hundreds of hours of content I didn’t get to review in this new player review, and the game is updated more often than most other MMORPG titles. If you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the past few years, or just being introduced into the MMORPG scene, MapleStory is a great title to sink your time into.
Pros
– Unique graphical style
– Fast-pace hack n slash action
– Cute character and monster designs
– A large variety of highly detailed animations
– Great social features
Cons
– High leveling curve
Rating: 8.0
by Smith
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