Game Review: Maple Story
MapleStory is a fantasy, side-scrolling, 2D MMORPG that was originally developed by the South Korean company Wizet. In this game you travel around the World of Maple fighting monsters and completing quests. While traveling you meet other players’ characters and interact with them whether it be partying up to train or complete quest, trading items, or just have a casual conversation. MapleStory doesn’t have a defined goal to complete and allows the player to progress at their own pace. Toss in guilds, alliances, party quests, and holiday events and you have the makings of a good time.
MapleStory doesn’t have a set storyline, the player completes quests that are given by the various NPCs located throughout the World of Maple. The quests mainly involve collecting items that are dropped by the monsters you encounter on your travels or defeating a number of monsters until you reach a goal. Some quests will give the player insight into the history of MapleStory and explain the orgins of some NPCs.
All characters start off as Beginners. As you progress and level up you can choose a job. The jobs are Warrior, Magician, Bowman, Thief, and Priate. After you progress further in the game you can choose to specialize in a class that falls under the job you chose. You can also join guilds. Guilds give you the advantage of having other people you can get to help you complete quests or give you valuable information pertaining to the game. The downside is whether or not your guild is active and people are online. There are also party quests in different cities around the world. Party quests allow players to team up to complete a quest which is normally divided into different stages and have a time limit. Party quests are grouped based on levels. The meso is the currency in the game. Mesos allow the player to buy in game items such as potions and armor. There is also a Cash Shop available, but players have to buy the points using real currency. With these points you can buy items to customize your character, 2x cards for experience and drops, and stores to set up in the Free Market just to name a few. The Free Market is a gathering place that allows players to meet up to trade items. Trades are usually done by trading mesos or other items the other player may want. Players are allowed to marry in this game between male and female characters. This gives you access to new quests and a new party quest. Game Masters also hold events that players can participate in ,if they so choose, to win trophies that can be sold for mesos.
Whenever you start a new character you have a choice to go through the beginners training course. This course will teach you the basics of playing this game. You can create characters in the different worlds (servers) available and within each world there are 19 channels you can play on. During play you can change channels as long as you are not doing any actions. The type of connection you have greatly affects your gameplay. The slower the connections the more lag you will have. Sometimes when there are a lot of other players within the same channel you will notice some lag. If you die will you lose some percentage of experience, but this only affects players who have chosen a job. Beginners don’t lose experience if they die. Interacting with other characters is fairly easy. There are different categories of chatting: All, Buddy, Party, Spouse, Guild, Alliance, and Whisper.
The graphics are good considering it is a 2D game. It has vivid colors and depending on the type of area you are in the background and music change to fit the theme of the area. The animations for using skills are fluid and precise. When monsters are hit with an attack they have hit animations to show that they have been hit with enough damage to stagger them.
It doesn’t take long to learn how to play and is relatively easy to play. The controls are keyboard based and you can change the configuration at anytime during play. Most of the keys on the keyboard can be assigned a function. The Function keys are used to do facial expression for your character.
Each map has music that goes along with it. The music in this game flows with the setting of the map. Actions like jumping, attacking, and using skills each have unique sounds. Even the monsters have unique hit sounds and death sounds. If you stay in a location for too long the music can become annoying but you have the option to turn it down or off. This option also applies to the SFX too.
