Maple Story

Written by: Cyanna

June has really been a dull months for me. School has been out for a while. A number of my closest friends, including my boyfriend, are out of state doing internships while I’m scrambling for a second job since the first doesn’t give me enough hours.

Yeah...June has been very dull. Hooray for family vacation in July!

Towards the end of May I knew I was going to be in for a rough month of cabin fever. I needed something new...and preferably free given my current financial state.

Then one day when I was looking through the various forums I visit, I stumbled across a topic about Maple Story. It sounded interesting so I went to www.mapleglobal.com to check it out.

Maple Story is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) created by the Wizet Corperation, which is based in Korea. Basic game play is very easy to grasp. Essentially the game involves battling monsters and completing quests to level up and make your character stronger. It’s a type of game I fondly refer to as a "Hack 'n Slash."

Back in my high school days I was addicted to a text based H&S game called Ethereal II: The Return (www.ethereal2.org). But unlike E2, you do not play this game by typing things like "kill troll" or "get gold" or "throw baby." Maple Story is visual 2D game in which you actually control your character. With the push of a button, your character can jump, walk, pick up stuff, fight and even have facial expressions.

The world is pretty darn big. You start off on Maple Island where you will learn the basics in a tutorial. It also has some of the easier monsters to train with. Once you are ready, you will take a ship to Victoria Island, where most of your adventure will take place. Victoria Island has seven towns. Six of them form a circle around the seventh, which is found at the center of the island. Each town has its own theme from a harbor town to a forest glade complete with fairys to village with Native American flair to a modern city (complete with grafitti on the walls). Once you become strong a whole new area, Ossyria, will be open to you. I wish I could elaborate on it; however, I haven’t reached that point yet.

The game is suitable for all ages. The violence is cartoonish and the monsters range from the cute Green Slimes and Bubblings to the shaggy and sinister Crimson Balrog. No blood. No gore. I’d be more then happy to let my younger siblings play it if it weren’t for the people. Being that this is an online multiplayer game, the social experience is only as good as the community makes it. Most people are very nice. But like all online games, a few bad apples are expected.

Some activities require some teamwork. You can create parties to help get stronger faster. There is also a quest that requires a team of four to complete. I recommend the Party Quest if you can do it. It requires patience to get started but the prizes can be good and it’s a great way to level up.

There is no race system in Maple Story. Everyone in the game is a human. However there is a class system. There are four basic classes: Warrior, Magician, Bowman and Thief. Each job has a guild located in four different towns around the island. Future Magicians can choose their job at level 8. Everyone else can join their guild at level 10. Each of the four basic jobs can split even further in to more jobs that you can advance to at level 30. For example, at level 30 the Magician can advance to either being a Wizard specializing in fire and poison, a Wizard specializing in Lightning and Ice or a Cleric (the healers). Personally I plan to be a cleric. Not only can Clerics heal but they also have an advantage over evil based monsters.

And best of all...it’s FREE!...for the most part anyway. Wizet has actually licensed the game in a few Asian countries so the download might not be available to all. It’s a pretty large download but in my mind it was worth the wait. It helped save my sanity in June and I hope you would enjoy it as well.

If anyone wishes to contact me, I play on the Bera server under the name "Cyanna."