Unless you've been under one of those proverbial rocks for the past year, you've probably heard of the 2-D MMORPG that's been capturing people's hearts and wasting their lives as they hit things with frying pans.  Yes, I'm talking about MapleStory, but this review isn't about Maple Story at all.  No, it's about Nexon bringing a new game to America that's more tolerable than MapleStory, and certainly more innovative.  Enter Fantasy Life: Mabinogi.

Gameplay
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At first, Mabinogi seemed like your everyday MMORPG.  Quest, grind, kill, level up, repeat.  But once getting into the game beyond the tutorial and seeing the first town, my perceptions of the game changed entirely.  Mabinogi includes so many more options past combat to gain levels and experience, and a very inventive way of developing character progression.

Unlike other games where level is everything, what you do in Mabinogi determines what you become.  Interested in chopping down trees for firewood and brawling against enemies?  Your strength and stamina are certainly going to rise up.  Interested in reading books and learning magic?  Then enjoy a buff to your intelligence and mana scores. Mabinogi uses a skill system to monitor character advancement, and those skills not only give you special moves and abilities, but they also increase your stats as you become better at them.

But finding and improving skills can be even more interesting than your standard quest and level system.  All the NPCs have a "start conversation" option that lets you talk to them using keywords you hear throughout the land.  When you hear about a new rumor or someone mentions a skill, the game plays a sound effect and makes note of it in your travel log.  When you go to other NPCs, you can mention that skill name or rumor in conversation and see how they react - sometimes letting you in on new secrets or telling you how to progress your skills.  Maybe you want to learn the windmill skill, and you hear from some of the townsfolk that the general store owner, Malcolm, has a copy of the skill book.  Visiting Malcolm and talking about the skill triggers a quest, and you're off to help him out and get paid with the book in return!

 If you're not combat inclined, you can do things like pick up part time jobs (as seen above) for experience and money, and Mabinogi also gives you the option of receiving either more money and less experience or more experience and less money depending on your needs.  But part-time jobs are limited, and based on what time of day it is, so talking with the townsfolk will let you in on when they need people and when you should hang around them, clicking madly and hoping you get their part-time job before someone else does!

Yet for a game so centered around non-combat, the combat system is very innovative.  Breaking from the traditional "point, click, kill" system, Mabinogi forces you to think in combat.  You have four types of attack maneuvers to perform - attack, smash, block, and counter-attack.  Attacks are normal attacks and can interrupt smash attacks.  Smashes take up time to charge, leaving you open for a normal attack, but can break through blocks.  Blocking doesn't let you attack, but it does let you stop the next attack against you and force your opponent off-balance so you can get a skill in.  Counter-attack doesn't stop a smash, but it does let you respond to a normal attack by receiving reduced damage and striking back with your own weapon.  This system leads to variety in combat and choosing what you want to do wisely.  Plus you can even combo normal attacks, sending your opponent flying backwards or off-balance from your blows.

The only downside of this system is sometimes waiting for the part-time jobs or classes.  Having a class over three days means you have to stick around close to the town for three days, so you can go to the school each day and take the next part of your class.  While I appreciate having the concept of a time schedule, I don't like being forced into one locale just because I have to take a class on combat, or because I want to take this part-time job from X townsperson.  But... that's only really a minor flaw... 

Gameplay - 9/10 points

Graphics
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Mabinogi boasts a clever cell-shading approach to MMO gameplay.  The graphics are cute, but not too cute to make you want to vomit (ala MapleStory). Shadows and such are dead on, and the world can feel very lively and upbeat as you look around and do what you want to do.  Combat animations are smooth, and the skill usage animations are well done as well.  Nothing seems to really detract from the setting, and that's a very good thing.

However, everything feels very wide open in the game and a little sparse.  While what is there is well detailed, sometimes you wish there was more detail in the characters and setting itself.  This detriment is hampered by the low max rendering set by the program, so very frequently you'll look out and see the line where it's rendering the game, giving you fog and blocked vision.  With the increased computers of the time, you would think that they would let this feature be set higher, but alas, it only has two settings - low and far.

Graphics -  6/10 points

Sound
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The sound of Mabinogi is a little sparse as well, giving you a non-intrusive set of background music and environment effects, but once again not really detailing the world.  This problem is off-set by the fact that anyone with a musical instrument and the song composition skill can make their own songs to play to the world (you actually rank up in being able to play and write music).  While this is a very creative idea, it also leads to abuse from surrounding players.  Trust me, I thought the guy playing the theme to Mortal Kombat on the lute was funny the first time, but after the 1032nd time of hearing it, it has ceased to be amusing.

Sound - 7/10 points

Story
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While the overall story of Mabinogi hasn't really been revealed yet, what I have been able to gleam from the characters and first city is a rich setting.  Each of the characters do have their own unique personalities, and they adapt and change over time as you interact with them.  Randald the school teacher may give you a hard time at first, but he begins to warm up to you as you take his classes and show him that you're not a complete nitwit.  That ability of the characters is a very unique one, and one that really makes the game stand out from other MMOs, where the characters are static towards you for the entire game.  I'm not sure about you, but I'd like some recognition from the old woman after I just saved her son from a pack of raiding orcs.  Maybe a discount at her store?

The lore seems to be pretty interesting as well.  With game mechanics like only being able to regenerate mana at night and "moon gates" that only open up during the evening hours and transport you to different places on different days, yeah, I'd say the story is pretty well done.

Story - 8/10 points

Fun Factor
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At the end of the day, it all comes down to how fun the game is.  Even with the detriments in sound and graphics, Mabinogi's gameplay and rich characters really make it stand out from the pack.  It makes playing an MMO easy and fun again, as well as being challenging and an adventure.

Going about to find your quests, as well as having some quests quickly handed to you as you explore the world is a massive benefit to the game.  If you want a quick quest, go out and explore and an owl will soon come to you with a mission from one of the nearby townsfolk for you to accomplish.  But if you want to delve into the personalities of the characters, then you can use the keyword system to your advantage and find quests and skills that way.

 It's different, it's unique, and it stands out from the sea of MMOs on the market today.  And best of all, it's free to play, even when it goes out of the current open stage of beta.  The world also presents alot of expandability, especially through the use of the keyword system, so townsfolk can drop hints as to where to find new content - even if that new content is in a town you thought you were done with.  All in all, great job with this game.

Fun Factor - 8/10 points

Final Score - 7/10 points

By the standards set by Epic Loot For All!, this game is Uncommon Loot

For more information about the loot scoring system and more in-depth game reviews and electronic news, check out the blog Epic Loot For All!.

Very good review there Octal, I read the whole thing and you have gotten alot of information from a new MMORPG. This review changed my mind about Nexon, maybe not all Nexon games are bad. Also Mabinogi reminds me of Warrior epic, since it stands out from the many MMOs, what made me belive that is the player-to-npc conversations. If I have to play a game where I have to actually read the whole long message, rather than looking for highlighted names, I'd do it or I would probably get stuck, so I'd have to go read it again. But the only problem I have is the story, maybe you can quote from the website of what Mabinogi is about. It's because I don't understand it...

 Mmm, that's the thing.  There really IS no set story on the website.  Most of it is just, "Go out and live your life where you can do anything and the NPCs actually care about you."

From being in-game, the "story" is basically centered around the various lives of these NPCs, and you actually begin to care about them after a while. XD  It's kinda weird.

If you want more information about the NPCs of the game, at least in the beginning town, check out the Mabinogi Website's Character Rundown.  It actually gives a good list of the characters and their basic motivations, and as you can see they've all been given their own anime renditions.  The fun part is that those renditions show up in the game above their dialogue, and you can watch them "react" as you talk with them.  It's pretty well done. 

Well even I was "qualified" for their beta as a nexon account holder before it (I tested a other game of them previously), I wasn't able to login into that game due to a "message" error that popped up.

After I did some research to that matter It came out that it is only for the north american folks. That kept me guessing, why not place a message there that says something like "this version of the game its for North Americans only" or similar instead of message (place number here) or something?

Another bug is that in the beginning before you come to the login screen it says that the ID has to be changed to korean. O_o

I thought its made for north america?? What has korean to do with it?

So that is all I can say about it so far.

Other than that a good review.

It seems to be a fun and innovative game with a few well thought and unique features. :)

 the game looks alright ^^ but the graphics dont i mean on the pictures <.<

Cell shading is not crappy graphics, it's just a different art style that takes a different level of appreciation.  Sorry, I hate it when people say that cell shading is crappy just because it's cell shading. >.<  One of my pet peeves.  When you look at games like Jet Grind Radio Future with amazingly done cell shading, you can see where I get my opinion. 

I'm playing the game now. My username is zagreus if you look for me. It is actually kind of fun I hate runing around. hopefully I'll go to G2 and get a free elf card to make a elf character. lol

For some odd reason I could never get this game to work for me, always got some stupid error.

This game looks actually pretty good.

And very, very, good review. Really enjoyed reading it.

 Will there be a global release for this game?...

skonk:

 Will there be a global release for this game?...

This is unfortunately unknown so far but there is hope since kart rider is also a global game in the meantime.

Very well done review. I personally tribe out the game for a few hours and agree with many of the points you made. The one thing I disliked was the style of your character. It's looks and movement didn't really flow/match wit hthe overall scenerary. I wish they put a little more effort into character design/details, but maybe they'll do something about that in the future. Thanks for writing this!

can some one please answer this question PLEASE dont ignore it :[

okay here is my question you know how in mabinogi you grow old then you die. then you have to pay for rebirth cards O_O how long would it take you to die and how much would they cost. im even scared to start the game... 

 Paquitin:  You may be able to grow old, but you never die from old age.  You'll just, at a certain point, stop aging.

The aging system is so you can keep getting ability points from something other than levelling.  So, obviously, if you start the game at a younger age then it will be harder as you'll do less damage and your stats will be lower, but you'll eventually get more ability points than those who start out at age 17.

The rebirth character cards are for when you want to renew your character back down to level 1 and age X (17 or below) and then replay the game to get more skill points.  The trick is you don't lose your skills during the rebirth, so you start off more powerful and you get to gain more ability points to keep improving your skills (as skills are more important than equipment or anything else in this game).

As to the price of the cards, I'm not entire sure... *looks it up*  All right, looks like it's 1 US dollar per 1,000 nexon cash.

This means basic character cards are 7.90 US dollars and the premium character cards (more hair and face options) are 9.50 US dollars.  So, quite competitive, if you ask me.

All starting characters get a free character card, so starting the game and playing is free. :) 

I have to admit, when I first started playing I liked it but then gradually started hating how everything in the game is a grind. I hate how hard it is to craft items at the beginning, with only a 30 to 40% success rate for everything you make. It makes it hard because once you actually make the materials to make the item you want when you try to make it it all just ends up falling apart usually. It's an ok game though, something to play every once in a while. I just wish that crafting was a little bit more user friendly.