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Review: Mabinogi - Live your own Fantasy Life!

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Serieneity

PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:30 am


So I've been playing this game for the better part of a week. The very first day I knew I was hooked.

There's was only one problem with the game and that was that the camera kept forcing me to look north. Fortunately there was an easy fix for this problem which was simply pressing the Z key. heart heart

I was really hesitant on posting about this game until I was completely sure about it. Now that I have been able to play the game for a while I'm sure It needs a post here.

The game starts with a Character generation like most MMO games. One of the first things I noticed was that you could choose your age. The scale here was that the younger you picked the more difficult the game is to play. So I automatically picked the youngest age I could. Call me daring but I like living on the edge sometimes.

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This is what you are greeted with when all is said and done and you finish character creation. A beautiful white background and after a few seconds an amazingly pretty woman comes floating down and starts to talk to you.

She transports you to the beautiful world of Erinn.

Starting out you are asked to help out the villagers around you. They then throw a few quests at you. One of the most unique things about this game is they sometimes just throw random quest's at you. From what I can tell as you do Part time work for the people in the town your status in the town increases and they give you new quest's to meet everyone in the town.

The first quest that you get from an NPC is to kill some foxes.

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This is fun and easy but the best part is holding the control button to target the fox nearest to you. After you are taught a skill the NPC gives you a card for a beginner dungeon.

The beginning combat system is like a big game of Roshambo Or more commonly known as Rock, Paper, Scissors. You have 3-4 skills that you can use that you need to anticipate the monsters move. You do have a skill which tells you what move your opponent is making so its not tough to figure out.

There's the Smash skill which is good Against the Defense skill. The defense skill is good against a normal attack. Then there's the counter attack skill which is good against a normal attack and the smash skill. Fortunately you can see which skill the monster is prepping.

There's also magic but this early into the game its not a main function. From what I've seen it can be really powerful though.
Every dungeon you go into is completely unique. The best part is you drop an item and that takes you and your party into the dungeon. Now random people who drop the same item can also join your dungeon as well. This adds a really nice dynamic to the game.

The beginner dungeon is pretty much a solo thing this time around though. The dungeons reminded me of an easier version of Zelda dungeons. You fight some monsters and they drop a key so that you can advance to the next part of the dungeon. This dungeon was pretty small but I imagine that as you advance they get more complex. I did notice as you enter it said I was on level 1 of the dungeon. Which means they can be multi level. heart

At the end of each dungeon you have a boss. In this dungeon it had a Giant Spider.

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After Defeating the spider you are allowed to go to the treasure room grab the loot and teleport back out to the dungeons entrance. Altogether it was a great dungeon experience. What was very nice were the little traps and such throughout its interior.

After the dungeon I noticed my stamina started getting a little bit black and the max stamina was going down. What I didn't realize was that you need to eat to keep your stamina up! What was actually even more amazing than that was that the food that you eat makes you fatter or skinnier in the game! This is a concept that most games don't go into. Your character actually changing by something that you do in game. (Besides armor and equipment which by the way changes as well when you put it on in this game)

Another nifty little thing I learned is that your character ages. So I don't have to be a little shrimp forever hehe. Also learned that as you age you get more AP or ability points to get new skills.

I also noticed that my health was starting to get that same black area to it. As I adventured a bit more they taught you the rest skill. Turns out that you can't adventure forever. You need to sit down take a rest and let that puppy restore so you have full health again. sweatdrop

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The best part about resting It gives you time to setup a campfire and interact with people. One of the more unique things about the game is that people can compose their own music on the games website and bring it to the game and play it for people. Its really cool to hear some Linkin Park played on a Lute lol. It really sets an atmosphere for the game. It also lets you notice the little graphic easter egg's in the game like when people laugh their mouth changes.

Building a campfire also lets everyone resting share food. It's only about half as filling as normal but everyone can share and everyone benefits. Plus while resting near a fire your health restores faster.

Now that I had a dungeon, met a few people and learned to setup a campfire under my belt I decided to try out a few part time jobs.

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When you go to a part time job you need to be prepared to do what the task entails. Any prep work you can do is a bonus. Some jobs are simple delivery's. Some of the other jobs require you harvest crops and make some flower which is a bit more complicated though. You can on the other hand take a look at what they want you to do before you accept the job. It helps that you can do some quick prep work before you accept it. You have to be careful though because they only hand out so many jobs to people per day. Plus there's a time limit which you have to get the job done.

Day's go by pretty fast in the game so don't worry too much if you mess up.

My first attempt at a part time job was helping out by sheering some wool from sheep. You equip a fancy gathering knife which was really inexpensive at the blacksmith's shop and go to town on a few sheep. When you return with the wool requested you are rewarded with a couple choices. They mostly consist of Experience and money but some choices have more money than experience and vice versa. Sometimes they also offer items and experience.

Another unique thing is that the more you talk to the NPC's and do work for them the more they like you. If you constantly go to NPC's and fail to complete your part time jobs their opinion of you changes more to the negative side.

For your work you are rewarded ultimately with a title. Though you have to do a lot of work for them before getting the title. The titles actually give you bonuses to some attributes as well as to health stamina and mana.

There are skills for just about anything you want to do in the game from Fishing to making clothes and even cooking your own meals. There's also modifying weapons and armor which I haven't even gotten into yet.

My experience in Mabinogi I must say has been an amazing experience.

I'm currently playing on the Mari Server is where you can find me I'm Seriene and Sliph.

Seriene  
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:42 am


Although the game isn't something I personally like, I won't say its a bad game. The creators definitely are on the right track for their target audience. You gotta love the art style of the game 3nodding

Valas Hume
Vice Captain


dotKaZE
Captain

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:18 am


Ugh, I hear so much hype about the game, but I played pre-open beta, I did NOT like it.

The way you have to fight, especially when I hear about bow and arrows and the defend, slash, smash, whatever thing for swords, I prefer just hack-and-slash, not some tactical paper-scissors-rock thing.

Then there's the age thing, and rebirth.
I do like the age thing, it adds reality. The thing I DON'T like, is the rebirth. I know we all have to rebirth from our... 200-something year-old character at one point, or it will be slow. However, from what I hear, rebirth is a cash shop only thing, and seeing how I'm underaged and have no source of finances, how would I be able to rebirth?

Finally, I heard it was VERY cash shop dependent. Refer to last sentence of Age/Rebirth thing.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:10 pm


Like music when I download it free and like it. I'm completely willing to pay for a service I like. AKA Donating to the band.

Free is good. Not getting any compensation for the work is just wrong.

In this case they get paid to give you extra things. So your paying for a more enjoyable experience. I see nothing wrong with that. Maybe because you don't have a job right now and are not paying for anything is the reason you don't appreciate the money and time spent actually going into free games.

Don't get me wrong I like free games. A part of me feels bad when I play the free games and don't contribute to them. This is only because of the way our society is made up right now.

Honestly I think the world would be a much better place without money. If people could work for the good of the human race this world would be a much better place. Imagine a world where the limits of our resources are based on peoples ability to collaborate.

Sorry for the rant.

Seriene

Serieneity


dotKaZE
Captain

PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:25 pm


Yeah, I understand that, having to contribute so service is still up and running, but the fact that a MAJOR part of the game, Rebirthing, is left into Cash Shop, then it kind of ruins the balance of cash users and free-users.

I know that those that donate should get the nice advantage, but the fact they get THAT MUCH advantage over free-users is a bit much.
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 3:26 pm


dotKaZE
Yeah, I understand that, having to contribute so service is still up and running, but the fact that a MAJOR part of the game, Rebirthing, is left into Cash Shop, then it kind of ruins the balance of cash users and free-users.

I know that those that donate should get the nice advantage, but the fact they get THAT MUCH advantage over free-users is a bit much.


Honestly I don't think that pricing is released yet for the us version. So I'm not sure what the pricing will be for the cards yet. When its out of beta I'm sure pricing will be released. We'll just have to wait and see.

Seriene

Serieneity


super tonia

PostPosted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 10:32 am


it's sound quite nice i might try it!!!
PostPosted: Sat Sep 06, 2008 11:19 am


Serieneity
dotKaZE
Yeah, I understand that, having to contribute so service is still up and running, but the fact that a MAJOR part of the game, Rebirthing, is left into Cash Shop, then it kind of ruins the balance of cash users and free-users.

I know that those that donate should get the nice advantage, but the fact they get THAT MUCH advantage over free-users is a bit much.


Honestly I don't think that pricing is released yet for the us version. So I'm not sure what the pricing will be for the cards yet. When its out of beta I'm sure pricing will be released. We'll just have to wait and see.

Seriene


Actually, if you want a permium card, which gives you more options for eyes, hair and mouth, it's roughly $10.

Also, while it's true that you get 2AP every time you age up, once you hit age 25, you stop getting AP, and they start displaying your age in the character screan as # years past 25. Eg: My character is 23 years past 25 right now. However, there are certain titles ("the All Knowing" and "the Old") that you can only get with age. Also, it's not like your age affects your stats past 25, so you really don't have to be reborne. You can just keep playing the game and earn your AP by leveling up.

The only other problem that i have with the game is that the inventory is pretty small, and certain items take up, like, 4-5 slots. My advice would be to empty your inventory as much as possible before entering a dungeon (Albey not so much, because it's small), because between the monster loot and the treasure chest at the end, you're gonna end up with a lot of loot.

Other than that, the game's great. Like Seriene said, you're able to compose musice, and sit by the fire and share food. She left out a lot, though. Theres, like, 6 different instruments that you can play. Also, there's a cooking skill, so you don't necessarily have to buy food or hope that it'll be dropped by an animal. Just be careful about what you eat, your character actually does get fat and thin and stuff. 3nodding Plus, if you don't want an item anymore, you don't have to sell it; you can also burn it and get exp from it. 3nodding

Also, since Seriene made her review, the game's been updated twice. It's now on it's 3rd Gen. A new town was released back in May, and a few days ago they introduced the Wedding feature.

What's also really nice about this game is the fact that you aren't limited by any sort of class or anything. There are no classes and the like, which means you're free to learn whateve skills you want. Also, not only are clothes not class specific, they're not level specific, either, which means you can wear whatever you want. One NPC, Fleta, does sell some clothing that's age specific, but she's also really hard to find because she only appears at certain times, and she wanders around a lot, so you need to be patient. What's really cool is that not all of Erinn has been opened up to the public yet, so there's something new every time they do a major update. 3nodding

If you want more information, click here to go to the wiki page. 3nodding

Kaay-chan

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