Tibia

"A vastly underrated and entertaining game."

First, let me say that this is a freely downloadable Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

When you create your Tibia account and character, you start off in a place called Rookgaard, AKA Newbie Island. You have weak equipment and low skills. Your objective is to train your character by killing monsters, so that you may eventually advance your character so that you may go to the mainland of the Tibia world as well as choose a vocation, knight, paladin, druid, or sorcerer.

Gameplay-9/10.

Tibia is a 2D semi overhead game, such as Zelda: Link to The Past, or 2D Bombermans, except the ''camera'' is not directly overhead you. You control 1 character, and move him with the keyboard, left, right, up, down. At level 1, your character moves slowly, but as you level up your character very gradually speeds up. You can attack monsters (and eventually other players) with a melee attack by right clicking on them. The more monsters you kill, the more experience points you get, and when you get enough you can level to the next level. As you level up, you gain more Health, Capacity (able to carry more items on your person), and Mana. Also, to increase your ability in sword fighting (or any weapon skill), shielding, fishing, or what not, you merely do the action. If you fish a lot, your fishing skill will eventually increase by 1. Practice does make perfect.

Another objective is to gain equipment for your character, a weapon, a shield, an armor, and so on. Monsters drop these, as well as gold, and gold may be traded for items to other players, and obviously vice versa.

The ''talking'' system in Tibia is quite good. You merely have to type in your message and press enter, unlike other online games where you must press enter to open a chat window or some such, type your message, press enter, and press enter again to make a new chat window. There is also a handy buddy list, where you can see if your friends are online or not.

The battle system is also nice. In addition to melee attacks, you can use distance attacks such as bows or spears, and also depending on your class, you may use a variety of magical attacks. The magic system is intriguing as well. To use a spell, you must type the incantation out. For example, ''utevo lux'' (Light) or ''exana pox'' (Antidote).
However, some spells can be cast at anytime onto a rune. For example, if you are holding a blank rune(s) in your hand, and cast ''adura vita'' (Ultimate Healing) or ''adori vita vis'' (Sudden Death), the spell will be stored on the rune for later use, usually when in battle. Of course, both methods require the usage of Magic Points.

It should be noted that you cannot logout of Tibia during or shortly after a fight with anyone. You can close the program, but your character will stay in the game, and most likely die. Upon death, you will lose 10% of your total exp (You can go DOWN levels), some of your skills, and there is a 10% chance to lose each item. 10% chance to lose your weapon, 10% to lose shield, etc.

You have the option to buy a premium account (you must pay Cipsoft, the creators of Tibia, real life money). Doing so will give you more items, spells, new lands to explore and other features not enabled for ''Free accounters''. You should become reasonably experienced in Tibia before making this decision, though I do recommend it. It's well worth the money.

As for trading, you have a few options. You can either drop items on the ground (obviously risky), ''safetrade'', or parcel trade. Safetrading is the best method since if either party attempts to misrepresent the goods or tries any sort of chicanery, it can be detected and the trade refused. Parcel trading is how to trade with people in another town. You mail the parcel that contains the item(s) to the person. However, this is risky as dropping items, as you have no guarantee that you will get your item in return.

It should be noted that Tibia somewhat simulates a world. There are several towns in the Tibia world, and it is a long and arduous journey from town to town, yet it can be done. In town, there are NPC's that buy and sell various goods, a healer in the temple, and the depot, a place where you can store your gold and other loot as well as mail parcels.

Lastly in the gameplay section, there is the issue of PK's. (Player Killers) How does one PK in Tibia? The answer is: the same as monsters. That's right. Right clicking on a fellow player is all it takes to start attacking a person. PKing with magic is the same as with monsters as well. This is why it is so hard to avoid PK's. Also, only the depot and the temple are ''protection zone'' where one cannot PK. If you are in a dungeon or hunting grounds far from town, your only option is to fight back or run, with little hope of making it. Note that you cannot logout if attacked.

Story-8/10

Tibia has a semi-detailed story at the official website. Also it has some backgrounds on monsters, magical spells, and so on. It’s not as developed as some console RPG’s, but it is quite adequate for a real time MMORPG game like Tibia.

Graphics-7/10

As said, the graphics are 2D and not all that great. I’d say it is slightly worse than Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG graphics. However, even so, Tibia still conveys the impression of an engaging and addictive world.

Sound-N/A.

There is no sound. But take my word for it, Tibia doesn’t need it.

Fun Factor/Replayability-10/10.

Tibia, like other online games, will keep you coming back for more due to reasons that not even you can comprehend. It’s possible that you will be playing years from now. Also, the quality and rules of the game are enforced, because if they are not, then people will stop paying for Premium Accounts. Yet, some people are just turned off Tibia for a variety of reasons. It may be a superficial reason like the lack of sound or disliking the graphics, or a more substantial reason such as disliking the general gameplay. I would say that Tibia is a like it or hate it game, but keep an open mind and give it a fair chance.

Buy or Rent?

Well, it’s free. However, you might want to get a Premium Account for the added benefits, not the least of which that you can always login no matter how full the server is. Premium Accounts last for a fixed duration after which you may decide to renew it by paying more money, or giving up the premium benefits and playing for free. See you in Tibia.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/03, Updated 02/15/04