MMO News

Alfheim Tales Online Review
Nexon Shutting Down Sudden Attack In January
War of Ninja Review
The Repopulation Kickstarter Trailer
The Repopulation Returns To Kickstarter
Naruto Spirit

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 03:03 PM PST

By Jordan Hall (ApocaRUFF), OnRPG Journalist

Alfheim Tales is a client-based 3D MMORPG brought to us by Gamedp. Boasting "anime-style" graphics, the developers promise an outstanding world to travel and intense battles to participate in. The game is low-spec and is integrated with websites such as G+, Facebook, and Twitter. Gameplay is very traditional, with quest-based progression and a point-and-click combat style. There is also an interesting pet and sprite system, with over one-hundred pets available. Let’s see if Alfheim Tales can deliver on its promises.

Customization

You aren’t given much to work with. A few hair styles, some face types, your gender, and that’s about it. You don’t even get to choose the color of your hair – the style you choose already has a color that you can’t change. There are four classes to choose: Knight, Mage, Priest and Assassin. Nothing new or exciting, to be honest. The only place you’ll find some decent customization is the neat pet system. Can’t say I’m happy with that.

Graphics

What originally caught my eye with this game was the art style, which is marketed as "3D anime," and that basically means it’s chibi or very cutesy. The graphics are very dated, especially for a client-based game in 2013. You won’t be mind blown when you play, but unless you’re not a fan of the art style, you’ll find some joy in the bright and cheerful world that is portrayed. I was very disappointed with the limited perspective, as you’re not given much control over your camera past being able to orbit around your character. This means you can’t really look forward, or up, and your view is extremely limited by this, which can feel cramped.

Controls

I already mentioned a bit about the controls at the end of the "Graphics" section, but I’ll say it again – the camera controls suck. Other than that, most things seem to be OK. The UI (though very generic and out-dated) is functional and I liked that both point-and-click and WASD movement was available. You can press V key to initiate auto-fighting (which I’ll get into later in the gameplay section), which makes this a great game to play if you need something to pass the time but don’t want to invest much effort.

Community

The community is mostly foreign (which is understandable, as I played on an SEA server, the only one available at the time). However, I noticed a lot of English speakers on the global chat. To my surprise, I even found a couple of guilds from my time in Age of Wushu, so there are at least a few decent guilds playing the game. Despite that, it seems like a majority of players are younger (probably around the 12-15 year old range), which is understandable considering the simplicity of the game and the anime-style graphics. Along with young teens comes a lot of trolling, so that was a bit of a negative. Other than that, my time participating with the Alfheim community was alright.

Gameplay

Right off the bat I noticed that I would not enjoy the gameplay in Alfheim Tales. This disappointed me a bit because I truly did find the graphic style appealing and I was hoping for something decent. Unfortunately I found an out-dated game (in terms of gameplay mechanics), and a game that offers a complete hand-holding experience with a lot of automated systems. I can understand the use of an auto-pathing features – most MMOs require a lot of meaningless running around that can be annoying. What really got me, though, was the auto-fighting feature that completely eliminates your input as a player while questing.

I do realize that while this does not appeal to me, there are probably a lot of people that will enjoy that they can play an MMO without having to invest a lot of time and effort. If you’re doing work, or even playing another game, this can be a decent game to play on the side. Only if you don’t mind a slightly pay-to-win cash shop, that is. Progress Quest is still the best game to play if you don’t want to have to actually play the game. Alfheim is decent if you don’t mind downloading a client and having to click every once in a while, though.

Combat is OK, but is kind of ruined with the Auto-fighting feature. Why bother if you can let the AI do all the work, right? The few times I did take over manual control of fighting were for some of the harder mobs, and those fights weren’t really intense. I do have to praise the animations and neat effects while fighting, though. As I type this, my character is killing some mobs for a quest and it’s quite the light show.

Quests are extremely simplistic and follow the traditional formula – collect/kill X amount of Y and in return I’ll give you Z. The most input you’ll be required to do in the game while be accepting quest, as afterwards the game will take over and bring you to the quest objective and start killing/collecting. After experiencing the repetitive questing, which is the primary mode of experience game (at least in the beginning), I found myself thankful for the automated gameplay. Repetitive questing is never a good thing in a game, especially when it requires that a near completely automated gameplay is required to make the game something that people will want to play. I’m more than a bit disappointed.

Something neat that I enjoyed was the Sprite and pet system. You can have one pet and one sprite out at any time to help you in fighting. Both the sprites and the pets can upgraded, enhanced, and evolved so that they can become more powerful. Sprites can also be used for things such as entering the Sprite Realm to fight epic bosses, treasure hunting, and they even have their own talent trees. There are a ton of pets to be made, and a lot of them actually look great. Looking at the Pet book, there seems to be a total of 108 possible pets right now and they span several different elements such as air, fire, water, and toxin. This is definitely one of the better features in the game, and the one that gets me most excited to play.

Conclusion: Good

I came into Alfheim Tales with a lot of optimism, but was a bit disappointed with what I found. Despite having some great anime-style chibi graphics, the gameplay was repetitive and boring, especially due to the questing and automated gameplay. The pet and sprite systems helped redeem the game a great deal, and I found myself playing longer than I thought I would have just because of them. This game would be great for you if you’re looking for something that is low-spec, or if you just don’t have as much time as you would like to play games. If you do have a lot of free time and a decent computer, I would have to suggest you look for something else as this game will more than likely not appeal to you.

Features: 3/5 –
Repetitive questing but the pet/sprite system saved the day.

Customization: 2/5 –
Very little customization.

Graphics: 3/5 –
I liked the graphic style, but the overall quality was low.

Controls: 4/5 –
Smooth and responsive.

Community: 3/5 –
A lot of young people means a lot of trolling, but it’s not all bad.

Overall: 3/5 –
It’s an alright game, but will only appeal to you if you’re looking for a low-spec game or something that doesn’t require much input.

Nexon Shutting Down Sudden Attack In January

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 02:27 PM PST

Nexon America announced earlier this month that it will be terminating its services for Sudden Attack on January 29, 2014. The game’s cash shop has already closed as of December 5.

A community letter from CEO Min Kim stated that Sudden Attack was “unsuccessful in growing the community to a level necessary to maintain its development support and service quality.” Nexon is offering its North American Sudden Attack community a compensation package for those willing to transition to Combat Arms. Players from Europe, the Middle East, and North African can instead transfer their accounts to the European Combat Arms community.

War of Ninja Review

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 12:28 PM PST

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

Browser-Based Ninja "Action"

Browser-based RPGs are becoming more mainstream than ever these days. War of Ninja is an RPG that fits this mold, where you do not have to download a client, and can log in from just about any browser at any time to get some quick gameplay in. There are a variety of game modes, and sliding difficulty for battles. As a gamer, I do not have a lot of experience in browser games, except ones that wish to get you to pay for progress (The Microtransaction model popular on Facebook). Luckily, this one does not appear to have any pay-to-win function that I have seen. Your currency is gold, which is acquired through various in-game means, and I played for several hours at a time without having to stop, save defeats becoming so crushing that I absolutely had to take a breather. This is easily one of the most positive things I have to say about the game.

The community is fairly active, and at most times of the day you can find players chatting in the small chat applet provided at the top left of the screen. It manages like many browser or forum based games do, with options visible to click that do a variety of things, such as change your personal settings, send and receive private messages, and check what gold you have spent in-game, in case you happen to be curious where your in-game money is going.

For fans of this type of turn-based game, there are lots of options for you to enjoy. Whether it is the story mode, quick battles to unlock characters and gold, or tournaments and ranked battles, there is something for every playstyle. The story itself is very reminiscient of traditional Japanese Ninja Anime, such as Naruto. You play using teams of three, and use a variety of ninja tools and skills to defeat other teams, regardless of what mode you are in.

Mode, Mean, Median

There are several modes of gameplay for War of Ninja. At this point in the game, I was not a high enough level for the Ranked Matches, which are in their current preseason. The requirement for that is level 25; however, there are tournaments that players of any level can enter provided they have the gold required for the entrance fee. Players can mail each other gold with a slight tax on the transaction, meaning if you have a more experienced friend they can be a serious help in getting started. My in-game time was spent in Story Mode, Quick Battle, and the Prologue, since I had no backer to fund the hefty tournament entry fees. My team is nowhere near powerful enough to compete even if I did.

Prologue: The prologue teaches you the how-tos of the game proper. You start with just one ninja, but as it progresses, you unlock two others that assist you through the trials that you will face later in this mode. It is not terribly long, but it does succicintly explain how to handle combat. In this you learn that for each person on your team that is alive at the end of a turn, you gain one energy. However, it is not always energy that actually helps you. Each turn, if you meet the requirements, you can convert two points of one element of energy into one point of another. The energy pool is shared across all three characters, so a fair amount of thought has to go into what you use.

Story Mode: In order to access the story mode after the prologue, you must use "Quick Battle" to unlock characters. Each chapter of the story is based on a particular ninja, and you must unlock them to gain access. Unlocking characters is not a given, and there is a chance with every Quick Battle to acquire someone, given you have the gold to hire them to your side. The story is less immersive than what I hoped for. In the last iteration of War of Ninja your character led a team who helped the Ninja clans who were in peril. In War of Ninja: Reborn, it feels less immersive, like watching an anime or reading a manga about ninjas, rather than being immersed in the storyline. Having to constantly play Quick Battles just to access the story was very off-putting for me. I would rather be able to unlock characters through the story rather than this side venture that is totally based on chance. As you complete chapters, you get gold stars on the list of said chapters. These increase the difficulty and show that you have completed the chapter at least once. You do not need to acquire all three gold stars to proceed with the tale however.

Quick Battle: Quick Battle provides immediate access to combat against random foes. You can choose a preference for the AI, or human opponents, and if you have human opponents selected it will put priority on finding a suitable thinking opponent before matching you against an AI substitute. There are differences in difficulty besides level. Energy gains vary by level as well. The harder the difficulty, the more energy your enemies attain. In AI matches, you can contract ninja after the victory is gained, but not in a human battle. You can pick from any ninja you have already contracted, which you can set up in premade teams for fast access. This is where I first learned one of the most frustrating things about the game. As listed above, your energy gains are random. It does not always give you something that will help. More often than not, I would be defeated because I did not have the energy that I needed to perform skills. One or two of my team would be able to attack, but very rarely did all three get to use one of their ninja abilities, or even one of the tools I purchased in the shop.

Private Battle: Private matches are battles against specific people. You can invite one of your friends to do battle with you in a pair of modes. One allows you to establish your team in advance while the other tests your ability to react on the fly by utilizing a drafted team. This can go very well or very poorly, depending on who gets drafted to your team. The same game rules apply here, but you do not get to contract ninja at the end of battle, since these are only human opponents.

Ranked Game: As of this writing, I do not have the level to attempt ranked matches, but there are a variety of rewards for doing well. The Ladder is presently unavailable, as the game is currently in preseason.

Tournament: There are tournaments up pretty much anytime during the day. These generally require a gold fee to avoid people abusing systems to get free tournament points; this way they can't climb the soon to be implemented ladder with no work. To join, you simply go to "Battle," and click "Tournament." If there are slots available, you will be able to enter. The amount of rounds that you will play vary from tournament to tournament. There are varieties of tournament styles as well, such as constructed (where your team is picked by you), Tsuyu (where ninja are offered as a grand prize), and the draft.

The Balance of Imbalance

One of the major issues of War of Ninja is balance. Not all ninja are created equal. This in and of itself is all well and good. In most games, there are characters that stand above others. Whether it is the God-tier characters/flavors of the week in League of Legends, to the S-tier fighters in BlazBlue or Street Fighter, somebody is almost always better than whomever you have unlocked or picked. But when certain team comps can crush any competition, this can lead to frustration, or boredom. There are also problems with the game, whether intended or not, that can lead to easy victories. One fine example of this I noticed without browsing the forums or internet. At level 3, you can unlock the Ninja Shop, where you can buy other tools for your characters. One of these is the Poison Dart. It's an active between levels 1-3 of a character, and it provides a poison damage over time for five damage a turn for a set amount of turns. This is a fine way to deal damage. But, if a ninja has a damage-soaking shield, this poison damage will hit them anyway, and not lower the shield. This is made more powerful by Poison Dart stacking. At one point, I was fighting a level 10 boss at level 5, and stacked the ability 5 times. Now, only one person appears to be able to equip it at a time, but you can easily build your team to make this an all encompassing strategy. Simply have a damage shield on your team, and a pair of stuns, and slowly nick away at your opponent. There are several ways to cheese your way to victory in War of Ninja. If I could come up with one just by playing casually, just imagine what the veteran players can do!

Final Judgement: Good

Graphics: 3/5

The graphics for this game are very simple. The ninja portraits are detailed enough, and each character does look different. But this is a browser game, so I do not have high expectations of it having cell-shaded, 1080p worthy art. It is simple, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. The character art is exceptional, though. There is very little actual animation, but it is a decently drawn flash game.

Controls: 4/5

The controls are simple, easy to use, and explained in the tutorial. I had very few problems in the game, and those I did experience were mostly related to mouse drag rather than browser lag. As a flash game, the left click is the only button you truly need. Despite some not so obvious commands like cancelling an attack declaration, the game is straight forward enough to be able to play without bothering with the tutorial.

Features and Gameplay: 3/5

While this game has a wide variety of features to choose from, in order to truly see them all, it requires a great deal of time commitment. It is a very long haul to see all of what this game has to offer. Some of this can be marred by the balance issues it has. There are exploits that crop up from time to time, and balance issues as stated earlier in the article that can seriously injure one's enjoyment of the game. However, the staff does seem to be pretty quick to react when they find a major exploit that can ruin gameplay.

Music and Sound: 3/5

There is music, and there are sound effects, but I personally found them to become monotonous and tedious to listen to after awhile. Thankfully, there is a gauge at the top of the screen to lower these volumes. The music is not bad; it is soothing, and the theme of Japanese sounds are very appropriate. I just did not see enough variety in it to keep it active after a couple of hours of gameplay.

The Repopulation Kickstarter Trailer

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 10:37 AM PST

The Repopulation returns to Kickstarter with loftier goals to gain funding for the final stretch of development before launch. Learn more!

The Repopulation Returns To Kickstarter

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 10:05 AM PST

With a new year in sight, Above and Beyond has launched a new Kickstarter for its ambitious title The Repopulation, in addition to its Steam Greenlight campaign.

The new Kickstarter campaign is focused on stretch goals that are designed to help add additional features to the game without slowing down the game’s main development and allowing for further polish to the game as it prepares to head into beta. For previous backers, a “bump-up” package is available. Launched just after Christmas, the Kickstarter is already over $33,000 of its $50,000 goal. You can find out more at the new Kickstarter page.

Meanwhile, Steam players can support the game with a vote and comments on The Repopulation’s Greenlight Campaign, helping boost the game’s coverage and adding a new market option for the game come its launch.

Naruto Spirit

Posted: 30 Dec 2013 08:05 AM PST

Join Naruto, his friends and his enemies on a new browser-based adventure filled with ninjustu action!

Publisher: Young World Technology
Playerbase: Medium
Graphics: Low
Type: Browser-based MMORPG
EXP Rate: Medium
PvP: No
Filesize: N/A

Pros: +Limited information available

Cons: -Limited information available

Overview

Naruto Spirit Overview

Naruto Spirit is a ninja-themed MMORPG based on the popular Naruto anime series. Featuring three ninja genres, instinctive gameplay and fantastic ninjutsu powers which give you unique breathtaking game experience. Among its features includes battle skills where players can transform and gain access to buffs and other special traits, a dungeon system where players can participate in various battles straight from the Naruto anime/manga, and several other features including a battle arena, farming system and more.