Maple Story is my favorite kinda game – FREE! And it’s addictive (as you may have surmised from the lack of updates).
Maple Story is an Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), which basically means you can be accosted by people from around the world. Luckily, there’s like 20 different channels, with most players residing on channel 1, so if anyone bothers you or you just want some me-time you can just change channel. Going solo in an MMORPG may sound like an oxymoron, but sometimes it’s necessary. Often other players will steal kills (KS) from lower level players taking with it the experience points & loot. If you want to avoid this altogether I suggest choosing either the Bowman, Wizard, or Thief class as Warrior class (me) frequently gets pwned by these long-range attackers. On the plus side (or negative) there’s no player vs. player so you won’t get killed, at least not by your peers.
Visually the game’s great. The cutesy monsters & rich environments like Aqua Road, which you swim through, work well with the 2-D style. However, other more linear areas are harder to navigate without either being forced to fight or simply getting in the way of your fellow players (lending itself to yet more KSing). And even loitering around town can get overwhelming when your character is obscured by an army AFKers.
What really stands out though is the customization of characters. Between hair styles/colors, faces, clothes, weapons, and even pets it’s rare that’ll you’ll stumble upon your identical twin. But if you really wanna stand out, it’s gonna cost ya! Special items can only be purchased at the Cash Shop with Nexon Cash that you by with real money; and many items such as clothes & pets, which start at about $5, only last 90 days. Luckily there’s a way around that! You can sell items in the Maple Trading System (MTS) for Nexon Cash. Of course, only rare items will fetch anything so it’s a choice of convenience or break-braking frugalness.
Then there’s all the little touches like special events. Currently Maple Story is celebrating its 3rd anniversary and they’ve added NPCs that will increase your stats for 1 hour every 90 minutes. You’ll also find anniversary cake monsters wandering about that are easy pickings as they don’t attack back, besides easy experience these guys drop tasty treats that’ll boost your stats even more! But you don’t have to wait 12 months to get a little TLC, events occur year-round such as on holidays or during new releases. In that spirit, I’m gonna run my own little event. The first person that finds me “DaiGazen” on the Mardia server and says the phrase that pays (Columbus was wrong!) gets to party with me. Happy Mapling!
