"A good MMORPG but missing certain elements."

Introduction
There are many online games out there, MMORPG(Massive Multiplayer Online) in paticular, all boasting their very own dazzling features or wide player bases, Ragnarok Online has many subdivisions, these include "euRO" for European players, kRO for Korean players and the most popular, "iRO" for an international audience. I have very limited experience in online games playing only two or three. But I shall try to make this review as unbiased as a current player of the game as I can.

Story 2/10 - Unfortunately, Ragnarok Online seriously lacks any good or in-depth story and you have no say what so ever in the matter. The history is that the world of Rune Midgard is filled with both Humans and Monsters, the two species have battled in a huge war for many years and as the player, it is your job to help the humans. There are NPC's to talk to, but they rarely say anything that has much to do with the overall story. Perhaps something small about the town they occupy.

Sound/Graphics 7/10 - The sound effects are your mediocre sort, considerable variation and well suited to the effects but the music has much room for improvement, when spending prolonged periods of time on the same map it can get very annoying due to a one track repetition system. The graphics cant compare to the newer games like Star Wars Galaxies but hold a more anime-like style to them with some cartoon elements that some players may enjoy staring at more.

Gameplay 8/10 - The game is very user friendly and easy to get into but being originally from Korea, there are sometimes translation mistakes. It's your basic hack'n'slash style game, where the basic idea is to find a monster and click it so your sprite can walk up and hurt it. So..where's the fun in that? Well, There are many elements that help change this:
Classes(Jobs) System:
Every player starts as a novice but can change at a required level and then again at another level requirement. The jobs include: Swordsman who can become a Knight or Crusader, Merchants who can become Alchemists or Blacksmiths and even Archers who can become Bards, Dancers and Hunters. Each class is balanced with thier own advantages and disadvantages.
Skills
Each class has it's own set of skills, and varying quests to obtain special skills, these are the usual generic sorts for example: Heal, Cure and "White Magic" for the Acolyte class and Double Hit, Envenom for the "Thief" class.
Equipment
At an estimation, I'd guess the different pieces of equipment are in the late hundreds or early one thousands somewhere. What you wear will show on your sprite as well as what weapon you use(Spears, Bows, Rods and Swords etc) though this is only applicable for Weaponary and "Head Gear" it's still very nice.
There's a whole world out there...The game has many towns, some large and filled with players and others quiet and small. Around each town are fields, dungeons and lots of monsters for you to slay.
The dreaded player killing..
Thankfully for some and unfortunately for others, there is no "PK"(Player kill) system in RO, one can only fight others players in a dedicated "PVP"(Player vs Player) arena.

Community 9/10 - For any good MMORPG..or any online game, to succeed, there must be an active and friendly community. Ragnarok Online doesn't lack this, many players will be happy to help you get started and where-ever you go, there's always a friendly face up for chatting or "leveling" with you. Of course, every game has it's unavoidable, jerks. The community is enhanced by the formation of "Guilds" which may be a group of players all after the same thing who don't know each other, or just a group of friends.

Playtime/Replayability 8/10 - Some players miss nights of sleep and become an insomniac purely for the sole purpose of advancing their characters where with an "Pay by the hour" scheme that Gravity Corp. offers allows the busier people(working class/students) to play at thier own leisure for an hour or two whenever they can. If you get bored easy, you wont wanna play for long but if you love competition and the thought of getting better than rival players..you could end up becoming an addict and never stopping. Some days, I've woken up and thought, "I cant be bothered to play RO today.." but others I've felt very nostalgic toward it..it has a varying replayability from person to person. It's my opinion that the main addiction comes from its repetition, it seems to drive me further into wanting to increase my strength.

Conclusion - It could do with a more active GM's(Game masters), perhaps swifter implementation and the obvious expansion of its world and classes. You don't have to play it for more than an hour or a month, but it's definitely worth a try and a second thought. If you get pocket money, save up and try it, if you have a lot of money to spare..give it a real good go!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/04