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Asda Story
An MMORPG that targets the younger (and less serious) gaming audience, Gamescampus delivers Asda Story to the world. But will the seemingly button-mashed game title and the cutesy anime-looking characters inspire gamers to try out this world?
Much Asda About Nothing
When you look at MMO ads, you'll find Asda quite the compelling game to try out. "Find your soulmate" sounds like you're delving into a social or casual game in a different timeframe. On second glance, Asda Story is that game that falls short of its ROSE predecessor and copies several World of Warcraft systems. Much like some random programmer just put in a lot of junk to make a treasure out of it.
Topsy-Turvy
Asda Story is set in a dream world called "Omnibus World." The world is said to be constructed out of the people's imagination and dreams, with Tillia serving as their god of creation and Lumper as the god of destruction. Eventually, the people lost their will to construct their world, and thus started the world's demise. A being of nothingness called Nihil emerged, wanting to destroy the world of Omnibus. Thus the two gods joined forces to stop this being. Nihil, being nonexistent, created his representative named Omnidecron to do the dirty work for him. Eventually, Nihil was vanquished, leaving Omnidecron and his Decron Army ravaging the world of Omnibus.
In a nutshell, that's how Asda Story goes (according to their website, as far as I can understand it). But as far as plot is concerned, it's actually non-existent in the game. Your quests are as simple as gathering quest items, killing random monsters, and/or delivering stuff from NPC A to NPC B. Eventually, the quests end and you're forced to do the dreaded grindfest until the next level to unlock the next set of quests. As your levels go higher, the quests will eventually lead you to the different maps appropriate to your levels. But that's it, the compelling plot doesn't sink in to you.
Me Asda Game Sees It
Graphics in Asda are not something to boast about. It's best describe as a below-average attempt at creating a captivating 3D world apt for it's cartoony motif. The game's visuals offers cartoon-inspired monotonous areas, filled the with same type of boulder, tree, fence and grass in every 3 maps or so. The terrain is littered with colored polygons or pixels clumped together to form a picture. Grass is just a spray-painted color in game, and the water is a stagnant piece of flat texture lacking depth and movement. The NPCs lack variation, and their models are usually repaints of another NPC from the previous town or map (save for a few NPCs perhaps). The monsters aren't helping boost the game's morale as well. You'll end up killing the same cat, crab, or duck model repaints with obvious name changes (Patchlinks Cat, Patchlinks Gang, Red-eye Patchlinks to name a few cats) up until your late level 20s-30s.
Your character is preset with a stick-like body, bulging head and clown-sized shoes. The only customizable feature is the gender, face and hair, the two latter having only a few options to choose from (around 6 faces and 8 hair sets). The faces are just actually changes in the eye angles, eye color, and mouth grins. Premium gamers can opt to buy newer hairstyles in the item mall, though. Like the trend in recent MMORPGs, armor styles and weapons change appearance as you change your equipments, but with only around 2-3 armor visuals per class every 10 levels, you're pretty much stuck looking like the same guy an inch away from you. A notable feature in armors is the presence of female-only and male-only wearables, making hunting or buying for equipments an additional challenge or a chore.
The game only has a few maps (I'm assuming they will add more maps in the upcoming patches), around 8-10 field maps with the 3 small towns included, and 5 instance dungeons. The maps resemble much like Ragnarok Online-- contained in a squarish map border, with portals connecting one map to another. This posts another flaw in the game, the lack of seamlessness in the map. The wait between load times is becoming a chore especially when your quest monster is in MAP B and the NPC to submit the quest to is in the far edge of MAP A.
Enough with the Asda Puns
Asda Story is a point-and-click game. It doesn't offer movement via the keyboard (like the typical WASD or arrow key movement). A good feature, perhaps apt for those lazy gamers, is the map-clicking feature. You can click to any point in the map (or any other field map), and your character automatically runs to the location you clicked. It'll enter any appropriate portals if needed and run through it's own course, without any regard for the chasing mobs.
Shortcut keys are customizable from numbers 0-9, - and = buttons, and can be saved with six presets (F1 to F6). The scrolling between the groups of keys has a noticeable delay, and even the response from pressing the shortcut to the casting of your skill has a noticeable delay as well, regardless of how nonexistent your cast time is.
Acquiring skills is based on a skill point system. You gain 1 skill point per level, and you're able to spend these points on an available skill. The skill tree is divided into 3 specializations, depending on the class you selected (example: Warriors have a 1h Sword, Spear and 2h Sword skill tree spec). For a skill to be unlocked, you should have fulfilled a certain condition, like base level, number of skill points spent on that tree, or an unlocked prerequisite skill. For World of Warcraft fans, you're going to assume Asda's skill tree is a spitting mirror-image of WoW's talents tree.
The game boasts an Auction House, a welcome feature in more of the recent games, and completely eliminated the vending system. You're given the choice of selling your wares to the NPC (for a cheap price), selling it in the auction house, or peddling it across maps (which is a chore). The auction house is sorted according to armor or weapon type, and you can narrow your search by selecting a specific class, level range and gender. Depending on the current market flow, your searches will sometimes end up with a list filled with female or male-exclusive sets.
Your inventory is pretty much a simple interface, much like Ragnarok Online or Perfect World's inventory window. The window displays your equipped items, and the inventory slots below. The inventory is sorted into Normal and External tabs. Normal tab stores your general loots, trash drops, sowels, pots etc. An interesting thing to note here is that your gold/money earnings take up 1 slot of the inventory. The External tab stores weapons and armors that you've acquired. Weight capacity is seen in your HUD, just below the HP and MP bar, fairly easy to miss.
A nice feature in Asda is the Sowel item. They're basically gems that you can insert into your weapon or armor slots. However, unlike the usual permanence in socketable items we've seen like in the Diablo series, Sowels are pretty much replaceable like bullets to a gun. You can exchange your the sowel in your armor or weapon for a new and stronger sowel. Sowels can offer additional attack or stat bonuses aside from the weapon/armor bonuses provided.
Two other features of Asda is the Soulmate system and the use of titles.
The former offers additional skills and certain stat or exp bonuses whenever you and your assigned soulmate is within a near range or in a party. Like you, your soulmate status also levels up, automatically unlocking more skills like healing your soulmate, giving extra buffs, teleporting to your mate's location, or reviving a fallen soulmate.
The latter, titles feature, is a means to give players a sidequest. Titles, as the name suggests, give your character a certain "title" above your name. There are more than 50 titles to acquire, mix and match (example is "Boring Newbie"), with an ingame ranking system that tells who has discovered the most titles so far.
Since it is f2p, Asda Story has an Item Mall, in which you can spend "campus cash" for certain time-limited mounts/rides, some potions and scrolls, and a number of new hairstyles. Thankfully, the item mall doesn't have items that somehow "compel" you to buy in order to gain an edge in-game, like time-limited epic weapons or armors.
Asda Jury Reached a Verdict?
Sad to say, clumped with Asda's mediocrity, the game is also a haven of bugs and glitches. Having personally played through its open beta and commercial launches, the bugs and glitches keep piling up as the days pass by. Some of the bugs include party chat problems (you see a different party's chat conversation), soulmate chats unable to reach each other, unable to move and cast skills inside instance dungeons, and frequent disconnections between map-changing load screens are a few of the game's problems.
Though Asda officials say that some, if not most, of the problems have been fixed, the bugs still persist.
The patches don't help either. You'll be surprised that the Asda client is actually downloading over 300 files when you haven't updated for a long time. Personal experience records a total of 740+ files since previous login a few days after commercial launch. And what's with the patch client? The client is always on top, and can't even minimize the window for you to do other things while the patcher is running in the background. You have to drag the window to corner to see your desktop again. It's certainly downright annoying.
Along with the bug-laden world, customer support is slow and GMs are hardly visible in-game. This is evident with the presence of ad spammers. Randomly-generated level 1 players, seemingly perform like a chat bot, spamming a website for hours on end. And the only thing that stops them is the eventual 1-minute automated chatban.
In all, Asda story is a mediocre game. But with the bugs, annoying irks, lack of PvP feature and a few maps, the mediocre grade becomes blasphemous in a sense.
Asda Story could be a nice way to pass time, or a game for PCs in the lower end of the spectrum, if you can get used to the bland world and bugs it offers. For everyone else, it probably might not be worth the download.
Much Asda About Nothing
When you look at MMO ads, you'll find Asda quite the compelling game to try out. "Find your soulmate" sounds like you're delving into a social or casual game in a different timeframe. On second glance, Asda Story is that game that falls short of its ROSE predecessor and copies several World of Warcraft systems. Much like some random programmer just put in a lot of junk to make a treasure out of it.
Topsy-Turvy
Asda Story is set in a dream world called "Omnibus World." The world is said to be constructed out of the people's imagination and dreams, with Tillia serving as their god of creation and Lumper as the god of destruction. Eventually, the people lost their will to construct their world, and thus started the world's demise. A being of nothingness called Nihil emerged, wanting to destroy the world of Omnibus. Thus the two gods joined forces to stop this being. Nihil, being nonexistent, created his representative named Omnidecron to do the dirty work for him. Eventually, Nihil was vanquished, leaving Omnidecron and his Decron Army ravaging the world of Omnibus.
In a nutshell, that's how Asda Story goes (according to their website, as far as I can understand it). But as far as plot is concerned, it's actually non-existent in the game. Your quests are as simple as gathering quest items, killing random monsters, and/or delivering stuff from NPC A to NPC B. Eventually, the quests end and you're forced to do the dreaded grindfest until the next level to unlock the next set of quests. As your levels go higher, the quests will eventually lead you to the different maps appropriate to your levels. But that's it, the compelling plot doesn't sink in to you.
Me Asda Game Sees It
Graphics in Asda are not something to boast about. It's best describe as a below-average attempt at creating a captivating 3D world apt for it's cartoony motif. The game's visuals offers cartoon-inspired monotonous areas, filled the with same type of boulder, tree, fence and grass in every 3 maps or so. The terrain is littered with colored polygons or pixels clumped together to form a picture. Grass is just a spray-painted color in game, and the water is a stagnant piece of flat texture lacking depth and movement. The NPCs lack variation, and their models are usually repaints of another NPC from the previous town or map (save for a few NPCs perhaps). The monsters aren't helping boost the game's morale as well. You'll end up killing the same cat, crab, or duck model repaints with obvious name changes (Patchlinks Cat, Patchlinks Gang, Red-eye Patchlinks to name a few cats) up until your late level 20s-30s.
Your character is preset with a stick-like body, bulging head and clown-sized shoes. The only customizable feature is the gender, face and hair, the two latter having only a few options to choose from (around 6 faces and 8 hair sets). The faces are just actually changes in the eye angles, eye color, and mouth grins. Premium gamers can opt to buy newer hairstyles in the item mall, though. Like the trend in recent MMORPGs, armor styles and weapons change appearance as you change your equipments, but with only around 2-3 armor visuals per class every 10 levels, you're pretty much stuck looking like the same guy an inch away from you. A notable feature in armors is the presence of female-only and male-only wearables, making hunting or buying for equipments an additional challenge or a chore.
The game only has a few maps (I'm assuming they will add more maps in the upcoming patches), around 8-10 field maps with the 3 small towns included, and 5 instance dungeons. The maps resemble much like Ragnarok Online-- contained in a squarish map border, with portals connecting one map to another. This posts another flaw in the game, the lack of seamlessness in the map. The wait between load times is becoming a chore especially when your quest monster is in MAP B and the NPC to submit the quest to is in the far edge of MAP A.
Enough with the Asda Puns
Asda Story is a point-and-click game. It doesn't offer movement via the keyboard (like the typical WASD or arrow key movement). A good feature, perhaps apt for those lazy gamers, is the map-clicking feature. You can click to any point in the map (or any other field map), and your character automatically runs to the location you clicked. It'll enter any appropriate portals if needed and run through it's own course, without any regard for the chasing mobs.
Shortcut keys are customizable from numbers 0-9, - and = buttons, and can be saved with six presets (F1 to F6). The scrolling between the groups of keys has a noticeable delay, and even the response from pressing the shortcut to the casting of your skill has a noticeable delay as well, regardless of how nonexistent your cast time is.
Acquiring skills is based on a skill point system. You gain 1 skill point per level, and you're able to spend these points on an available skill. The skill tree is divided into 3 specializations, depending on the class you selected (example: Warriors have a 1h Sword, Spear and 2h Sword skill tree spec). For a skill to be unlocked, you should have fulfilled a certain condition, like base level, number of skill points spent on that tree, or an unlocked prerequisite skill. For World of Warcraft fans, you're going to assume Asda's skill tree is a spitting mirror-image of WoW's talents tree.
The game boasts an Auction House, a welcome feature in more of the recent games, and completely eliminated the vending system. You're given the choice of selling your wares to the NPC (for a cheap price), selling it in the auction house, or peddling it across maps (which is a chore). The auction house is sorted according to armor or weapon type, and you can narrow your search by selecting a specific class, level range and gender. Depending on the current market flow, your searches will sometimes end up with a list filled with female or male-exclusive sets.
Your inventory is pretty much a simple interface, much like Ragnarok Online or Perfect World's inventory window. The window displays your equipped items, and the inventory slots below. The inventory is sorted into Normal and External tabs. Normal tab stores your general loots, trash drops, sowels, pots etc. An interesting thing to note here is that your gold/money earnings take up 1 slot of the inventory. The External tab stores weapons and armors that you've acquired. Weight capacity is seen in your HUD, just below the HP and MP bar, fairly easy to miss.
A nice feature in Asda is the Sowel item. They're basically gems that you can insert into your weapon or armor slots. However, unlike the usual permanence in socketable items we've seen like in the Diablo series, Sowels are pretty much replaceable like bullets to a gun. You can exchange your the sowel in your armor or weapon for a new and stronger sowel. Sowels can offer additional attack or stat bonuses aside from the weapon/armor bonuses provided.
Two other features of Asda is the Soulmate system and the use of titles.
The former offers additional skills and certain stat or exp bonuses whenever you and your assigned soulmate is within a near range or in a party. Like you, your soulmate status also levels up, automatically unlocking more skills like healing your soulmate, giving extra buffs, teleporting to your mate's location, or reviving a fallen soulmate.
The latter, titles feature, is a means to give players a sidequest. Titles, as the name suggests, give your character a certain "title" above your name. There are more than 50 titles to acquire, mix and match (example is "Boring Newbie"), with an ingame ranking system that tells who has discovered the most titles so far.
Since it is f2p, Asda Story has an Item Mall, in which you can spend "campus cash" for certain time-limited mounts/rides, some potions and scrolls, and a number of new hairstyles. Thankfully, the item mall doesn't have items that somehow "compel" you to buy in order to gain an edge in-game, like time-limited epic weapons or armors.
Asda Jury Reached a Verdict?
Sad to say, clumped with Asda's mediocrity, the game is also a haven of bugs and glitches. Having personally played through its open beta and commercial launches, the bugs and glitches keep piling up as the days pass by. Some of the bugs include party chat problems (you see a different party's chat conversation), soulmate chats unable to reach each other, unable to move and cast skills inside instance dungeons, and frequent disconnections between map-changing load screens are a few of the game's problems.
Though Asda officials say that some, if not most, of the problems have been fixed, the bugs still persist.
The patches don't help either. You'll be surprised that the Asda client is actually downloading over 300 files when you haven't updated for a long time. Personal experience records a total of 740+ files since previous login a few days after commercial launch. And what's with the patch client? The client is always on top, and can't even minimize the window for you to do other things while the patcher is running in the background. You have to drag the window to corner to see your desktop again. It's certainly downright annoying.
Along with the bug-laden world, customer support is slow and GMs are hardly visible in-game. This is evident with the presence of ad spammers. Randomly-generated level 1 players, seemingly perform like a chat bot, spamming a website for hours on end. And the only thing that stops them is the eventual 1-minute automated chatban.
In all, Asda story is a mediocre game. But with the bugs, annoying irks, lack of PvP feature and a few maps, the mediocre grade becomes blasphemous in a sense.
Asda Story could be a nice way to pass time, or a game for PCs in the lower end of the spectrum, if you can get used to the bland world and bugs it offers. For everyone else, it probably might not be worth the download.
Tags: Asda Story Asda Gamescampus Review
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