"Its a great game that I loved, keyword = loved."

Intro:
Ragnarok online is a great game, beautiful graphics and fun gameplay are key to making any great Massively Multiplayer Online Game. But the true drawback is the lack and quality of staff. A great game overall, but the way people handle it makes it bad.

Graphics - 9

The graphics are great, they kinda remind me of Paper Mario, or Graal 2002. Its like 2D characters on 3D background. As far as I remember, there were 7 different classes (including novice), and a differn't look for each one. Plus the alternate for the opposite sex. Making a total of 14 anime style characters. Another bonus is a hat system, it allows characters to find, buy, or trade hats. About all of them show up on your character when you equip them. Like you might see a Merchant with blue hair walk accross the screen, then another one only with a pink bow. It just helps you customize your character, for a small price. The landscape is quite amusing and pretty, a tree here, a bush there. They all have amazing texture. But sometimes you get annoyed by the occasional tree blocking your view (You have a birds eye view), you can easily move your camera around. Every item has a picture, none are reused, which really helps.

Gameplay - 4

The gameplay is simply great. Its incredibly simple and easy to pick up on, but still incredibly advanced at the same time. Basic RPG elements are all there, like equiping items and useing potions and all that. But acctual battle is like Secret of Mana, there are no battle screens, you just go up and wack the enemy on the head with your weapon, and it whaps you back. Mind you there are more elements to it. What I found rather annoying about the system though is that you have to either put a skill to a hotkey, or you will find yourself enduring a butt-load of damage while you go into your menu looking for it. I found playing the game quite fun, and I kept comeing back for more. But that was only for awhile. You see, there is this thing called server shut downs, when the whole server shuts down (duh), with little or no warning of when. At this time, you will wait maybe 4 hours to a day before it comes back up. Another thing they do is shut down certin areas without people warning you officaly. When you enter a shut down area you are disconnected for as long as that area is down. Alot of times someone will be outside warning people about it. But alot of people do it to pull jokes, or to keep people out of a area so they have it to themselves, which I find very annoying. Infact, there are still alot of bugs, but one of the worst things I experianced was a bug called character switch, and what happens is already stated in the name of the bug. Once in awhile (3 times in my experiance)it happens, and your character gets switched with an existing or complety new character. You have to email gravity bout your character to get him/her back afterwards, which usualy takes 3 days or so. But thats not the worst thing, infact, its far from the worst thing. There are two words that are simply evil in the world of ragnarok, these words are...

-ROLL BACK-

Roll backs occur when some idiot in gravity does something stupid with the system so it gets shut down, or ''temporarily'' out of service. Then if they can't fix it, they literaly ''roll back'' the server to a specific time and date, so your character does too. It might not sound bad, but let me explain... lets say they roll back the server a month, following me? Well, lets say that a month ago, your character was only level 2/1, well, guess what, your character gets rolled back and becomes as it was a month ago. See what I mean? One time I lost ALL my equipment, and even my character, because it didn't exist at the time the roll back rolled to. So I lost my character... but I will get back to you on this. Lets just leave the gameplay at this... its great when you start out... but when staff gets involved, it goes into a downward spiral.

Music/Sound - 4

If you've been in a doctors office, or a elevator, you already know how the music sounds like. The music is ok I guess, its sorta light jazz (excepts in places in dungeons, which is a little better), and after awhile, it gets really annoying, especialy when you have been leveling up in the same place, listening to the same music. I usualy turn off the music. The sound is ok, just regular bleeps and slashy noises. There really isn't alot to say about it, other than I've heard better, but its ok.

Story - 0

There is NO story, atleast to my knowledge, so I'll make up one:

One day, a little boy/girl wakes up and decideds to kill some bad things because thats all there is to do in their demension. So he/she does so.

Hows that?

Replayability - 10

There is no end, unless you decided to quit, or get banned, or make another character. Otherwise there is no replayability, its on going, it never stops. But can do some things over.

Two other things I should cover:

Staff - 0
People who play the game and keep the game in order are either invisible, non-existant, or never on. Once in awhile the webmaster will put a message accross the screen saying there shutting the server down temporarily, and thats about it. The staff that work on the game in the production area are also rather stupid, they obviously make many mistakes, because if they didn't, there wouldn't be many roll backs. If you ever complain about something, like how bad their working, you will get banned, now don't say I didn't warn you. But of course... you get what you pay for.

Lag - 7 (the higher the worse)

Otherwise known as slowdown, lag happens when a bunch of people on 56k modems gather around a place and make everyone else slow down. Making the game ultimatly unenjoyable. Whenever you go to another map (or switch levels), you have to load a whole other map, which may take a short or long time, depending on the amount of laggy people on the map your going too. Whenever your at the center of the town, you get hit by a giant lag wave. If you ever play RO, I suggest you stay away from the squares unless your looking for some items from merchants.

In conclusion, RO is a great game, if it wasn't for the dumb people, it would be a great happy place. I suggest you play it, it was a good experiance for me, and I won't forget it. Of course, I would never play it again, I will either like it so much, that I will get hooked and never do my school work, or I will hate it ultimately and delete it immediatly. Its really a love-hate relation. So please, whatever you do, be sure that you don't get angry because of some roll back, because you will get banned, like me. x.x

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/02, Updated 09/01/02