"Even without a storyline, one of the most fun mmorpgs out there."

No matter what you may think, Ragnarok Online truly entertains you the first times you play it. Its 3D locations along with cute 2D anime-style character sprites, great tunes (even if repetitive at times), nice effects and a great gameplay with an incredibly huge variety of monsters, equipments and items... have I to say something else?

Ragnarok Online is a huge MMORPG (Massive Multimedia Online Role Playing Game), or to say it simplified, it's an online-rpg, where you fight ferocious (or not) monsters and challenge, if you want, other players. Definitely the locations don't look modern-style, more a post-medieval one, with castles but also nice cities like Alberta and Aldebaran. On official servers, you've to pay a monthly fee in order to keep playing. However, trust me, the game deserves it, because it's truly great (except for the storyline and some unbalancements which may bother a bit). Let me explain: you register an account (which will be not your character's name), and with that account you can create 3 to 5 characters with unique (or not so) hair styles and colours, and you can adjust stats. Since there are jobs in the game, and as you should know, a Priest will really differ in stats with a Knight, you'll have to well adjust your stats from the beginning, and it means you'll have to choose your path as soon as you start playing. So you end up in a city named Prontera (it depends however, at least in official servers), the capital of Rune-Midgard Kingdom. The first thing that will capture your eye will be the incredible amount of merchants in the streets. REALLY annoying, but nothing can help, since they've to sell. Oh well. You're also equipped with a knife and some crappy armor. Then you can go slashing monsters, which may seem kinda boring ("click until they die, or better, type /noctrl so you can click once and chara will keep attacking until he dies or monster dies") but it's very amusing and entertaining.

There is a huge variety of monsters: from pink jellies to big knights and golems. Useless saying that you'll only be able to afford weak monsters at the beginning. But just like evry RpG you can level up. You've 2 level ups: base level up and job level up. When you b-level up, you can raise your stats, and on the other side, when you j-level you can raise skills (abilities, spells, call them as you want). At the beginning, being a base-job character (Novice), you'll only have one skill to raise. But as you change job you'll have many powerful skills (along with useless ones). The maps also are very well-designed and the whole effects are very well made. All the game is based on a sort of 'grid' in which all the maps are divided into.

In every city there is a teleporter which can warp you for most town to free (it varies from server to server) and also into dungeons. That's very comfortable since you might not want to walk to a very far dungeon, even if you ride a PecoPeco (which you may only do as a Knight, maybe even as a Crusader, I don't remember well), also a monster. There are many events, the big part of them created by the GM (Game Master) which adds them in the game. Being the GM you can create new NPCs, you can summon monsters, you can.. cheat, that is, lol. Let's say that overall the english translation is average (RO comes from a korean company, Gravity), even if there are some funny errors here and there. Thing that is easily forgotten for the great amount of fun in the game. RO is also a much-played game, and that means that you'll not end up being alone, ever. No matter what server you choose, if private or official (unless you create your own server), there will be at least 200 players, even if most of them are -sigh- merchants, and you may not notice the others, since they group on some precise places (and that ends up having empty maps along with overcrowded ones).

RO is hugely unbalanced, speaking of monsters. There are some which die in one-two hits, and there are ones that need 20 players at once to whack them, or that will die in 2 hours or so of battle. It means that if the weakest monsters have 50 hp, the most powerful ones have more than 400.000. And you'll not be able to do 2000+ hp per attack. So, guess what? You'll need a party, no matter what job you are. Unless you bring with you tons (and I mean TONS) of potions and healing items, you'll need a huge supportive party. For example, if you even think to challenge the final boss (well there is not a real final boss, let's say... the most powerful one), you'll need at least 2 priests who heal you, some assassins for quick attacks, some mages for huge tons of magic damage, and some tankers (the charas that suffer hits)... and it's saying thins. Anyhow, sometimes RO will appear to be a very-boring game, since, if you're alone, it's really hard to level up (for example, you level up at 100% of experience needed, of course... yes, the strongest monsters you can fight give you...something like 0,2% of experience... sounds like a long way? It is.). It is also unbelievable that in a 25 level characters dungeon, there is a boss which can slay the 80+ characters in 3 or 4 hits. Well...

The earlier paragraph led us to 'party': you should know that in Console-style RpGs you likely start alone and soon find some fellows. Here in RO it's the same, with the only exception that your 'fellows' are real people, and may not want to go with you (especially if you're a newcomer... and there really are some nasty people who always pick at newcomers, and not only in RO. Luckily there also are nice people who like to help them). Needless to say, and also quite a bad thing, when you start as a Novice, the server (no matter which server is) will be packed up with two things: merchants, as I said before, and level-99-or-so characters, which the only thing to do in life is collecting rare items and transfering them to their merchants-egoes and selling them, just to be rich. Effectively, zeny (the currency in RO) are very important, since it's the only way to buy and make items and things (well there are some other ways, but not so many), but not so important just to gain them. Once you became the richest, what will you do? Heh. But we was talking about party: you can both create a party or enter an already-created one, and you should already have known that. But as soon as you join the game, you'll not be able to create a party (you'll have to raise your only available skill, Basic Skill, a bit). Parties are very useful, because, if you care and if the characters' levels have no more of 10 in terms of difference, you'll be able to choose 'Even Share' option, and that means that you'll be able to share the experience you get with the other members. Even if you stand still (but you've to be in the same dungeon your fellow is in), your fellow kills a monster, gets half experience and the other half goes to you. Nice, uh? To MVP (Monster VS Player, it means, killing huge bosses) you'll have to level up much (at least until level 75-80) and find a party with near levels, with at least a Priest (which can heal) and a tanker (which we discussed of before). However, parties are, along with useful, very funny, since you'll get the chance to know new people, nice and not.

Unfortunately, as all online games, RO has people that cheat and do nasty things. Well, the basic rules are "do not insult anyone, respect everyone and you'll be fine", but the 2 biggest nasty things that players can do are Kill-Stealing and Botting. Kill Stealing is basically attacking a monster that another player is already attacking. So you'll steal some experience, and you may get banned, even for a weak monster, because you've no rights to so. Even worse if you pick up the drops of the monster you kill-stolen. You can only attack an already-attacked monster if the character asks for help. Oh, but if you see some loots (monster drops, items) on the ground, without anyone in sight, you're freely allowed to pick them up, even rare ones (probably the killer-character didn't care about them). And that's it for kill-stealing. Botting is also a nasty thing to do, and if you're a botter...well, rule 1 is 'respect anyone' so I can't continue, unluckily. Botting is a malefic thing: basically you download a program which plays the game for you. It means your character will be a bot, which automatically moves and kills monsters. In both private and official servers there are a lot of bots, and even if the GMs incourage to write e-mails and create topics in forums when you see a bot or when you see someone kill-stealing, it's VERY difficult to get those banned (at least, on the server I am on, even if you prove everything, there are always people who say the opposite thing, probably friends of the botter/kill-stealer which try to help him. And they ever ask themselves why the world is going badly, heh). Even more difficult with high level characters, since they are sooo often friends of the GM or are part of a soooo important Guild (yes, we'll discuss that later). Corruption, that's it.

I said 'Guild'. Yes, in RO there are guilds, which are like huge parties with a commander and the members. The commander may set the Tax amount (let's say it sets member "A" a tax amount of 30%. 30% of the experience he gets will go to the Guild), upload a Guild emblem, set the subtitles... you'll discover that. To create a Guild, you need a rare jewel called Emperium (or Empelium in badly-translated servers)... and if you want to join one, the Guild Master or the members he allowed to do so, must add you in the Guild. Being part of a Guild is NOT just a title. You must work hard to enhance it and to get experience, otherwise it'll be useless. There are many guilds, some more powerful than others, and they fight themselves in Guild Wars, which are something great. At least, judging by what friends tell me, since I haven't yet had the luck to play one. So you'll have to discover for yourself!

Speaking of the large variety of monster, I must say something about the even larger variety of items and equipments (headgears, garments [like mants], armors, weapons, boots and accessories). There are tons of healing items, even almost-useless ones. There are fruits, normal potions, cakes, fruit juices, healing leaves... and such. Weapons vary from normal daggers, to axes, chains, knuckles, spears, katars (special assassin two-hand daggers), staves, rods... and such. Armors from priest clothes to full plate armors... and I could continue for ages. Not to say that the rarest items and equipments may only be found (left on the ground by strong monsters, with a very little chance, often 0,01%) or bought from merchants for a very high price (millions of zeny). Speaking about items and equips, I've to make a little note about cards. Often you'll find 'slotted' equips, it means they've slots to put cards in. Cards are found from the same monster (with some exceptions), for example, the Poring Card is left by Porings. Cards may enhance stats or give you new skills, but are also very rare to find. The chance to get them from a monster vary to 0,01% to 0,05%... a bit low, uh?

And I think it's all for this review. Hope it helped you making a general idea about the game, and think I didn't even say much! RO is a much deeper game that you may think, there are many other feature that I didn't included there since I didn't have the time to write all. But however, I'm sure you'll have tons of fun playing this game, even seeing your mage friend running in circle from an aggressive monster while you follow him trying to hit the monster... RO is here, it's constantly updated with new areas, towns and dungeons, and in my opinion, will continue to rise.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/04