MABINOGI!!!!

OK so I have been waiting for this game for about 2 months now and finally my wait is over. Ever since i started reading the previews, and watching the videos for Mabinogi I've been blown away. The videos showed a game that looked lush and beautiful and had a cartoony realism to it that not too many games can pull off. This game has had me on the edge of my seat with anticipation ever since they released the date for the open beta testing to begin. And well that day has come, and I logged in the minute I got home from my daily errands.

Now my first thoughts of the game were thoughts of sadness, because after double clicking the desktop icon a lil box popped up saying my video card didn't seem suitable for the game, and instantly I thought oh no here comes the blue screen of death, that's usually what happens when a box like that pops up. But I got to the login screen, logged in and the game started, I created my character, I was so excited that I can't even remember what server he's in. His name is Loganrayne so if u happen to see me in the game give me a shout I'm always looking for friends.

So here I am on the character creation screen and the first thing I notice is that there is no class selection screen, this makes me happy, and than i notice the age selection screen...well since this is my first character I thought i might as well just go with 17 yrs old, and make just a random character that sorta looks like me. The choices are pretty generic for an MMO and are found in all games, so nothing different there. Now to start the game.

Alrighty here I go, double click character, game loads up quickly which pleases me since most games take a lil while from character selection to the actual game, alright here I am in a bright white room, run around a lil bit and hey whoa cutscene of some girl showing up. NICEEEEE. wow a mini cutscene in an MMO I am now very happy. Alright, zip thru the bits of text to get to the man game. Alright now im transferred to just outside the town and AHAHAHHAA theres a lil kid with a massive helmet on ahaha that's mint.

Ok enuff of this let me just say now that this game is amazing, Takes about 15 minutes to get into and after that ur off doing quests like normal MMO's, the only difference with this one is the types of quests. There's the usual collecting items and enemy drops and killing the many wolves, foxes and spiders (typical bad guys, kind of annoyed, how about developers think of some new bad guys please?) The characters and bad guys all look nice in all their cell shaded beauty. Now for the other type of quests, the barley/wheat gathering, sheep shearing, gem finding quests. The addition of these Quests makes leveling so much easier, I've played the game for about 4 hours and I'm already at level 18, now if I was playing Nexon's other classic game, Maple Story, I'd probably be hovering around level 12 maybe 13. Now sure thats not a huge difference in levels but here's why I mentioned that lil fact. In Maple Story I'd be bored off my ass, I'm not a big fan of going out and grinding myself to death just to get 10 -15 exp per bad guy and leveling once every 2 hours, it makes getting to better jobs harder and makes me get frustrated and quit :P. Hence the reason I haven't played maple story in a year. Another cool thing about the quests is the fact that they have time limits for certain gathering quests. Like for the church u have to gather 10 bails of wheat then return to the church lady. Now the time limit varies depending on the time u show up, the earlier in the day, the longer u have. When I showed up she gave me five hours (game time not real time :P) and i got it done in about 1 game hour. So that adds a little pressure, but it also adds to the fun and realism which I enjoy muchly. another thing I like is the owl aspect of the game, after completing certain quest and owl will show up and drop a scroll on your head notifying u of new quests. These are usually gathering quests or kill so many animal quests. This is a nice addition to the game and helps u not focus entirely on just completing main story quests.

My favourite thing about this game is the dungeons. Yes just like some mainly RPG's before it Mabinogi has added dungeons to the game. Anyone that knows me knows that the very first RPG I ever played was Legend of Zelda on the NES, and when I entered my first dungeon it brought me back to those days, when video games were fun, and RPGs kept u in the game and didn't bore the player. And not only do they have dungeons, but they have boss battles in the dungeons, which makes this game more like the RPGs of old and not like the rest of the MMOs out there.

Another thing I like about the game is the skill system, it's well organized so u can easily find the skills your looking for, whether they are combat, life or magic skills. Also the ability to earn extra exp by completing certain training goals for skills, like using it a certain amount of times, watching an enemy use the skill, or just buy reading a book make leveling up skills even more fun than other games where u just add a point to the skill and thats that. This game allows you to level the skills you're gonna use most, whether u just wanna chill and play ur lute, or sit by a campfire or just go out and kick butt, you can do it your way, making ur character completely unique.

Mabinogi is a fresh take on MMO's and is amazingly fun. The look and feel of the game makes you wanna continue playing and you don't even realize that you've spent hours playing it. The dungeons look great and play just like they should, having to kill all the bad guys in the room to unlock the door and get keys for other rooms really adds to the game. The sound and music are awesome, the skill system is amazing and really helps create your character the way you want him.

Overall what can I say, this was the most anticipated MMO for me this year, and it delivered the goods. I really have no problems with it, u can even customize the way ur GUI looks in a multitude of colors (my fave being the Windows 9x theme). This game is amazing, and I don't want you to believe me, I want everyone to go out and download it, I promise you won't be disappointed!

R.I.P. Gary Gygax, you will definitely be missed by many!