"A great MMORPG, with great potential."

Introduction: Well, i would say this is one of the more fun MMORPG's on the market today. RagnarokOnline, made by Gravity Corp ( a Korean company ), is by far EXTREMELY addictive. At first glance, you can see all of the work that has been put into the game, with its full, 360 degree, 3-D landscapes, and the numerous monsters, items and jobs. Although, with all the good parts of the game, there are some downsides. The ''North American'' version, iRO ( International RagnarokOnline ) is one of several versions of RO ( along with the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc, versions of the game ). iRO is severely behind the other games, as its the newest version. With the implement of several more ''Major'' updates on the way ( slowly ), it will eventually catch up to its Asian counterparts, although it is normally treated as the ''middle child'' of the RO universe by its creators, being forced to wait for its ''big brother'''s hand-me-down updates.

Gameplay: This is an amazingly fun game to play. The controls are 90 % point and click, except for the few times you may need your keyboard ( I.E. For quickkeys and typing to talk ). Its not too hard of a game to play, at the maximum, it took myself about 15 minutes to figure out the majority of the gameplay, and i have rarely been bored with it since. The only downside to the gameplay is when there is some lag on the servers ( although, that’s fairly rare nowadays, unless a major problem has happened. ).

Story: There is no real story to the game, unless you have read the original Ragnarok manga series from Korea. Gravity has just created RO, attempting to base it on the manga. There are some hints of the story strewn along throughout the game though.

Graphics/Sound: As i mentioned above, the graphics are awesome. The characters and monsters are essentially 2D images, in an enormous, fully 3D environment. Graphics are usually one of the main features which draw me to a game, and it has with RO. They are not to intensive that they will lag your PC's actions, but you do need to have 3D capabilities to play the game, which the majority of you should have already. The sound can be annoying at times ( mostly due to some annoying monsters in the game ), but in certain places, I.E. inside the cities, the background music is just awesome, you'll find yourself sitting down for no reason other then to listen to it.

Play Time/Replayability: Well, RagnarokOnline is a fairly open-ended game. There is no specific beginning or ending to the game. You can continue to play for years and years and still have new and intriguing things to do, thanks to the slowly updates, that will take years to have implemented. As for replayability, this game has MUCH replayability. One of the main goals of the game is to level your character up to the highest it can go ( Level 99/50 ), which will take you some good time to accomplish. After you have reached your goal, you must remember, you have only played 1 character ( 2 counting its 2nd job ), and there are several more jobs you can become, and enjoy heavily.

Price: 3 months ago, iRO went commercial. In order to play the game, you must pay. It costs $12 USD for 1 month, $32 USD for 3 months, and $57 USD for 6 months. If you were to play the game, unless your strapped for cash, or have an abundance of it, I would recommend a 3 month subscription. It allows you to have enough time to have a decently high level character, and to enjoy the game. As for the price itself, i find it is a reasonable price to pay, depending how much you actually play the game. If your intent is only to play once a week, don’t spend your money on a 6 month account, you'll only be throwing it away. This is the kind of game you'll just NEED to play everyday, ^_^. Also, if you just cant afford the game, Gravity offers a 3 day free trial, after which the account is deleted. Just enough time to enjoy the game.

Final Recommendation: In the end, even though the game has taken a backseat to the original versions, Gravity is speeding up with its updates, thus improving the gameplay for everyone. The price is reasonable, and the gameplay itself is just great for this game. I would recommend that EVERYONE play it at least once. All it requires is the time to download the 500 MB client and a trial account to appreciate the game. I give iRO a 9/10. It is an amazing game, that will surely entertain any gamer alive.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/13/03