"Good but tedious . . ."

Account
6/10

Starting your account is a little bit of a pain in the neck at first. First off it takes nearly 15 minutes to sign up - and don't bother putting in bogus information. You just about have to put in your life story just to change your password. But luckily it's all worth it - most peoplenever have gotten hacked. Though a lot of people say they were, most of them were just being stupid and gave out information.

But, here's the great part of it all - MapleStory is free. A great game can cost $50, but this is free. If I ever see a bogus game, you can always say screw that, MapleStory is better and for free! The only exception is the Cash Shop, which is completely optional. (ie, it makes your character look cooler. The only beneficial things are things like double EXP, etc.)

The download though is a pain in the neck. On my fast computer, it takes about an hour and a half to download. Now I have to feel real sorry for those of you on those old, slow computers. About every couple of months, there's a patch, AKA, an update, but it only takes about 5-10 minutes to download, usually it's worth the wait.

Starting Out
9.5/10

Starting out is real easy once you get the painful account and downloading part down. It's so easy a caveman can do it. (and unfortunatley like to say there are quite a lot of those on MapleStory ...)

There are currently 8 servers, which are like worlds. The only thing is that you can't switch servers. Well, you can, but it costs $20 from the Cash Shop. Ouch. So you better choose wisely. But all the servers are exactly the same except for the community - people, lag and crowding amount, and prices.

There are luckily 19 channels, which are different from servers, so if you choose a popular server, you can choose a not so popular channel, and if you're in a not popular server, you can go to the first channel for a lot of people.

Now, the Tutorial is very nice. It doesn't rush, does it slowly where you can't die (or when you do die, it makes no difference) stuff like that. Quests are simple, and gradually build up where you are or below your abilities, making it simple. Levels 1-10 are simple, fun, and addicting. You'll love the way to game starts out, simple, easy, and fun. But wait until you get to higher levels ...


Gameplay
7/10

Gameplay in MapleStory is fun at the beginning, but at higher levels it becomes grinding - just boring, button pressing for days straight. The only thing to look forward to at extremely high levels is the satisfaction of reaching Level 200, the max level. Too bad only about 30 people out of millions of players reached that level ...

Early gameplay is the fun and addicting stage that gets most people hooked. Levels 1-40 are fun to a lot of players, and is why MapleStory has so many players - they get hooked early on.

You choose from 4 different jobs, each with different skills. The skills are what make the different jobs unique. For example, Warriors have strong melee skills, Thieves have skills that improve their accuracy, and speed, etc.

Money is hard to come by early on. The essential things, (potions, clothes, etc.) though, are cheap and easy to get. Though if you want the good life things, you'll need to be funded because there's almost no way to get money until Level 30 or so. And you won't really be swimming in big bucks at that stage, either.

The community in MapleStory is sort of a pain. 50% of them mind their own business, neutral, not mean not good. 45% of the people are just plain mean - I don't know why. I guess most of the teenagers on MapleStory use it as their stomping ground. The other 5% are nice people though.

Mid Level Gameplay is a little different. You start to lose the fresh, golden, inoccent feeling from the beginner levels, and you're accepted as a somewhat more respected member of society ... not. I wish.

Levels around 40 begin the grind stage. By this level you have about two choices of leveling. Party Quests, group quests that test you through various stages for EXP, or grinding. Simple training. Grinding is faster, but it's hard and tedious. A tough choice.

One thing you that will push you through the mid level levels are the feeling of satisfaction. There's new clothes and weapons every ten levels, new PQs during different stages, usually every 20 levels, and then, of course, Third Job. The job where only about one fifth of those players make it too - where you get to do those godly looking skills.

At late levels, things become real tedious. Once you reach Level 120, currently the last set of equips (if you can afford these multi billionaire only items) and 4th Job, there's not much too look forward too. Every Level all you have look forward to is a very slightly upgraded skill, and golden Level 200. And sorry to break it too you, you probably won't make it that far.

The great thing is that you can create up to three characters in each of the 8 servers. So that's currently 24 characters. Nice. In fact most people have five or so Level 40 characters than one Level 70 character.


Graphics
9/10

At first glance the graphics look poor. The characters heads are the same size as their body, it's in 2-D, but actually you'll get used to it. This is a creative twist to the games now a days trying to out do everybody with these awesome 3-D graphics.

In 2-D, you have no camera to worry about, it's simply side-scrolling like Super Mario. There's also no worry about buying that uber awesome (and uber expensive) graphics card - there's low requirements.


Music
7.5/10

The music is nice. They fit the area, and a lot of tunes are catchy. Though the only bad thing is that it loops over and over and over again.


Overall
6.5/10

It is a nice, pleasing game. Good graphics, decent music. The main problem is that it gets slow and tedious after a long while though, but you can start over with over 21 characters to create. It's a nice game, it's really a try it for a day or two, and choose to quit or keep playing kinda game. It all depends on your tastes if you like it.

If you like MMORPG that you just have to be fast-paced, and you can't just leave the computer while playing. Also requires some knowledge, for things like merchanting, skill logic, and simple puzzle logic. It's a great action real time strategy hybrid.

Summary of MapleStory
+ addicting gameplay
+ fun clothes to look forward to every level
+ easy to learn, hard to master kind of gameplay
+ great envirormentaly themed music
+ simple but satisfying graphics
- grind city at high levels
- big download
- generally a rude community

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/20/07, Updated 07/29/08

Game Release: MapleStory (US, 11/28/06)