Talisman Online is a free to play, eastern themed MMORPG from Miracle Castle. The evil Master Blood has laid dormant in the shadows for thousands of years, accumulating power and influence across the world of Talisman Online. Once he had harnessed enough power Master Blood returned to the world of the living to wreak havoc across the entire globe. The battle was furious for 100 days and 100 nights until Grand Master Tian Meng and his group of brave warriors were able to defeat Master Blood and seal him away in a block of ice at the bottom of the deepest lake. The victory was followed by 500 years of peace and harmony throughout the world of Talisman Online, until one fateful day when untold evils began emerging from the lakes, prompting heroes everywhere to pick up their weapons and fight for the world of Talisman Online once again. Here at XMMORPG, all of our initial free RPG game reviews focus on the new player experience, character creation, combat and questing, so lets see how we go with our Talisman Online review.

Character creation isn’t one of the strong points in Talisman Online as each class choices on features options to change the hair and face styles, although there are 8 options available for each. The available classes are Wizard, Monk, Assassin, Fairy and Tamer, all of which are displayed in high resolution models with each wearing high-level gear and equipment, giving you a taste of what’s to come if you decide on that particular class. Some of the classes are gender restricted, which is something I’ve never understood as it seems pointless to place restrictions on something before players have even started. Once you enter the game world you’re greeted by some pretty exotic NPC’s in the form of a floating girl and a giant eagle. Each gives you a basic tutorial quest, which seems to skip the typically mundane tutorial introductions and launches you straight into combat. The questing is very simple and basic, speaking to a NPC adds the quest to your tracker complete with objective and hand-in location. By clicking either the objective or destination, your character automatically travels to that location, removing the dull travel times between quests.

The first couple of quests are actually entertaining for tutorial missions. You’re tasked with slaying a few boars, you’d think the fantasy population of boars would be extinct by now, but they’re still going strong. I was a little surprised at the combat as I chose a Warrior but all of my skills and abilities, including my auto-attack, featured a cast time bar. The animations were rather splendid, offering highly detailed swings of my sword supported by large flashes of fire and intense sound effects upon contact. Graphically the game does quite well considering its age and the environments are especially impressive. The character models themselves seem to lack a little detail but all in all, the graphics do well for a free MMO.

Overall, Talisman Online feels very similar to a large variety of other free to play RPG Games but the highly animated combat and easy questing system make it a worthwhile investment if you’re looking to play a free RPG online.

Rating: 7.0

by Blaine Smith