Asda Story is a Free-to-Play, casual, anime-style MMORPG. It was released first under the name "MicMac Online" in Korea and Japan in 2005/2006, and was later released in 2007 as "Asda Story" by game&game. This is where my Asda Story experience began. This version was shut down, like many games game&game brings us. In July 2008, the game was re-released by GamesCampus. When I found out one of my favorite games had been re-licensed, I jumped right back on the bandwagon.

I was not disappointed. A year has passed and I am still playing.

graphics & interface (8/10)

Graphics are a big deal in any game, and the graphics are what first drew me to Asda Story.

The first impression most people seem to get about Asda is that it looks like Kingdom Hearts: big shoes and goofy clothing. The graphics are not ground-breaking, but are quite good for a F2P game. A shader was recently added which makes the game much shinier. If you don't like the new shiny Asda, you can just turn the shader off. There is also a glow effect which creates a slightly softer, more vivid environment.

The interface is pretty easy understand and is not too cluttered. Most things are movable or collapsible, but it may be difficult to deal with on small screens. For most windows there are hotkeys which you can set. A versatile chat system has been added recently that allows you to create your own chat tabs and choose what types of chat to show in them.

Why not a full 10/10? The graphics lack some options, and occasionally there are bugs. With the water reflection option turned on, at some angles your water will be black. There is no anti-aliasing option, meaning the graphics always have sharp edges. There are no quality settings for any of the graphics either, but this may not be a big deal considering the already simple graphics. That may even be a strong point for some, as the game does not require an amazing graphics card to play.

Interface-wise, the new chat system contains a very annoying bug that makes it so the chat will scroll even when someone speaks in a channel you have hidden. This almost defeats the purpose of the new chat system. One last minus I give to the interface/handling is the fact that you can only have one hotkey set shown at a time. You can have 5 hotkey sets with F1-F5, but switching between them is a hassle in battle. At higher levels you may find yourself wishing you could have extra hotkey slots by doing ALT+1-0 or CTRL+1-0 like many popular games have given us.

character customization (8/10)

Each Asda Story account gives you 3 character slots. Unlike some older games, you are allowed to choose your gender for each character. While I almost always play female characters anyway, it's good to not see account-bound genders here.

When creating your character, you have 5 hairstyles to choose from with 3 colors each. There are several faces to choose from, each giving your character a pretty different look. Unfortunately the system lacks compared to games where you can change your hair at any time and dye your hair any color of the rainbow. You can only change your hair through the Item Mall, which contains the 5 hairstyles you can start with plus 8 more. Once you have changed hairstyles you cannot change back again without paying. The styles are cute enough, though, that I haven't found myself changing often at all.

Unlike most games, Asda gives you several armor sets you can choose from as your starting outfit. This is a very nice feature so you don't have to start out looking like every other new player. As you level up you will start to see more armor sets available. At a point, however, armor sets start to get recycled and recolored. There is no option to "re-skin" or color your armor like some higher-end MMOs have. This is one downside to the game if you really enjoy armor collecting. But, even without item mall gears there are at least 15 sets to mix and match from for each class, meaning hundreds of thousands of outfit possibilities!

If you really want to look "hawt", you can venture in to the Item Mall for 9 more sets of armor, with more to come! Item Mall armors generally come in three different versions for the different rarities. Unfortunately, some of the cutest armors tend to be limited time only (such as Halloween or Christmas specials), but there are some nice year-round gears as well. It all depends on your taste.

While there are many areas that could use improvement, I love how many great looking armor sets there are, and the fact that you can mix and match pieces to make your very own look. I strive to keep my characters looking great...and boy do they!

pve gameplay (7/10)

The gameplay is pretty typical of any MMORPG, especially free ones. It contains your average questing, grinding, partying, and clan systems. Asda has a back story, but the story isn't really put in to play in the game. A bit disappointing, however I find that most players don't read what NPCs have to say beyond quest requirements anyway, so maybe it's not that big of a deal.

Your character starts as a Beginner class. Once you hit level 5 you can do a quest to become a Fighter, Archer, or Mage. Not much to choose from, but each class has 3 skill trees which correspond with different roles (for instance the mage class has a tree for damage dealers, healers, and buffers). You can pull skills form any tree as long as you meet the requirements. At level 24 you become a Knight, Ranger, or Sorcerer, unlocking new armor and skills. At level 40 comes third job, which is Weapon Master, Master Archer, and Arch Mage.

Currently questing only goes up to the early level 30s. This means there is a long and difficult grind to hit the not-yet-reached-by-anyone level cap of 70. We have been told that higher level quests will be added with the introduction of 4th job hopefully later this year. But, even with most of my characters at the grind point, I still enjoy playing. Why? With the title system, the community, and item collecting, there's enough to keep you busy for a while.

Along with normal field maps, several instance dungeons exist which have a chess-world theme to them. There are four of them, suited for most levels ranges until about 45. There are also 4 Elite Fields starting around level 30, where you can get more powerful armor and more experience. However, these dungeons are a little more challenging and require a well built party to accomplish. A high level "raid map" called Dragon's Lair has been included as well, which contains all boss monsters who have a low chance to drop level 60 hero items which rival Item Mall gear. The main boss, Enkidu, must be summoned and is currently the biggest challenge in the game. He drops the best sowels and accessories you can find.

While it can get boring to play the same high level character all the time, you can always create more characters and experience a different side of gameplay. There is a 3 character limit per account, but you are allowed to create multiple accounts to fulfil your playing needs.

pvp gameplay (6/10)

PvP was added somewhat recently, and while it has it's balance issues, it can be pretty fun. Currently there are two types of PvP: one vs. one duels and Faction Wars. Dueling, as you'd expect, requires one person to request and the other to accept. Once accepted it counts down from 10, letting you get your most important buffs activated before the slaughter begins.

Faction War is similar to capture the flag, and takes place twice a day. Three teams battle for 10 areas on the map. The longer you keep an area under your faction's control, the more points your faction gains. You also gain points for killing members of the other team. The team who has the most points wins after 50 minutes and gains honor points and coins, later to be used for buying special items. Right now the teams are very unbalanced, but will hopefully be fixed once they add a Faction Change item to the game. There are also several glitches that can make you crash during Faction War, which means a lot of wasted time and effort if your team is already full. If it weren't for these issues PvP would get higher points. Even so, Faction War can be very fun to mess around with!

If you are playing a game for the PvP, Asda Story probably isn't for you. But for a casual PvPer like myself, you might get some entertainment out of it.

features (8/10)

Asda Story has several unique features, including the Soulmate system boasted in their tagline: "Find your soulmate". A soulmate is almost like a permanent party. You can level up your SM level and get special skills to use with eachother. The closer you are, the stronger you are. The best part is at SM level 5, you can heal your soulmate for a massive amount, which is a real life saver and makes you a powerful duo. You can recalled or warp to your soulmate once you gain the skills to do so, and even gain experience for them while they are offline via the skill "Deliver Soul Body". The soulmate feature is not as crucial to the game as you'd expect, but it is a fun and interesting concept that has a lot of room to grow. And no worries, if you don't like your SM, you can disband and find a new one. It will save the info for your three most recent soulmates!

There is also a pets system, which recently had some updates done to it. While pets do not fight with you or have skills, they give some pretty nice stats which can really make your character stronger. Pets are obtained by using an incubator to hatch eggs dropped by monsters throughout the Asda world. These pets are cute mini versions of several of the monsters, including one rare one of the boss Kaiya. There are also three unique pets in the Item Mall which are tailored for the three classes. These pets can also be evolved to be more skill-tree specific. Each pet has a max level they can obtain before you must use an item to push them past their level to a max of 10.

One of the newest additions is the Soul Guardian system, which is quite unique. Each class has their own guardian, and it is summoned by doing your normal skills. When summoned you will gain special buffs and will have access to three guardian attacks, determined by the skills you use to summon it. I have not seen anything like this in other games I have played, so it's a pretty nice feature.

The marketing system is pretty average. There is no real auction house, but an exhange market where you can sell things at a set price with a percentage fee taken out of it for the posting. There is also a personal shop feature which doesn't charge you a fee. You can open a stall and people can come in, buy your stuff, and chat with you if you're not AFK.

The sowel system isn't that unique, but almost expected of a game to have something similar to it nowadays. Sowels are stones that you can socket into your armors/weapons that will raise your stats. You can also strengthen your weapons and armor via the upgrade system. Each upgrade will give 3% or more to the capacity of your item depending on the upgrade materials you use. You can upgrade most items to a max of 5 times, or buy a Limitless scroll from the Item Mall to push your item past the limit. If it fails all your previous upgrades will be gone and your capacity back to normal. If you have used Item Mall enhancements to upgrade your item, they are all lost as well. The upgrade system overall is nice, but costs a lot of gold and possibly real money if you really want to be at your strongest.

Gear of almost any level can be crafted with the right materials, however, I'm going to be honest: The crafting system is one of the worst systems in the game. It is expensive and some of the requirements for crafting are absurd. I have found it easier and cheaper to buy potions from the misc shop, and find armor myself. There are still some good reasons to craft at higher levels, but it takes a lot of money to level your crafting skill up to that point.

The title system is fun, but very monotonous. It's another way to compete with friends and the rest of the server that doesn't involve your level. Get enough title points and you will be sporting a rank number over your head and have a blue chat background. Some things you have to repeat 3000 times before you will gain the title though, which is where the monotony comes in. Besides the monotony, a downside is that they do not give stats like most title systems in games. But, it has been said that this will be added in the future. What I've found unique about this title system compared to others is the fact that you can apply a prefix and a sufix title to create your own full title, some being quite funny! The title system is a great way to gain a high rank in the game without having to be the highest level player!

The features Asda has, overall, are great. As with any game, there is lots of room for improvement in everything. But if a game was perfect, what would we have to look forward to?

item mall (7/10)

Some people will call Item Mall users overpowered. However I believe GamesCampus has done a fairly good job at making it possible for users who don't want to spend real money on the game to obtain IM items, making it pretty fair. They will occasionally hold contests and raffles in which you can gain Campus Credit, or IM items. Often times these contests will gain you $30 worth or more! Most IM items can also be sold in the exchange market or personal shops, and there are plenty of players who are willing to do so for that extra bit of gold. They have recently added Peanut Labs surveys and offers to their site which allow you gain small amounts of CC from those as well.

There are some pretty helpful items in the Item Mall, such as scrolls that allow you to teleport to another player, recall another player, open your storage from anywhere, or allow you to revive on the spot when you die without any experience loss. Experience potions to help you level, and vehicles will boost your walking speed 80%. Buying armor comes in three forms. To get rare or uncommon armor you must buy a randomized booster. You can buy a full set booster or a booster which gives you one random item from the set in any rarity. You can also buy the  common armor pieces by themselves.

The item mall offers quite a bit, but some of the pricing is a bit steep for usable items. One "Additional Upgrade" material costs $3.50, and using it has a chance to fail! At the same time, some items seem quite cheap. During some events you can buy a full rare armor set for around $10. What a steal! All Item Mall equipment is permanent, unlike some games where you will find gear that lasts only 2 weeks. Usable items are permanent until they are used, and vehicles last one year from their first use (the cheapest vehicle is under $15. Not bad for a year!). Shorter-durations vehicles are often available as event rewards.

community (10/10)

If you can't find any other reason to play, then you might as well check the game out for the community. Asda Story has one of the friendliest and best communities I've ever seen in a game, and at least the GMs seem to care about player input as well. There are a few large clans out there that are like one big family. Have you ever joined a new game and experienced the eternal silence in your chat box? You will not find that in Asda. There are many helpful players as well who will help you if you're lost.

This game really is a place for friends to gather, chat, and have fun. What else is there to say when it scores a 10?

quick notes

5 high points

• -Allows use of the mouse and keyboard for movement (click and WASD).
• -Things to do even when you're AFK! Set up a personal shop or dig for crafting materials.
• -Marks on the map to show available quests and completed quests.
• -Armor is no longer gender based!
• -Nice relaxing music!

5 low points

• -New content/maps are slow to come (coming from Korea).
• -There is no account wide storage to transfer items between your characters.
• -A steep 10% experience penalty on death, no matter what level you are.
• -Uses loading between maps instead of one large world map. World is currently quite small.
• -All armor becomes soul-bound on use. No exceptions.

conclusion

Asda Story may not be the best MMORPG, but at least out of the free ones it's got a lot of potential. I have played several games that would fall under the same umbrella as Asda Story, but no others have kept my attention this long. If you are a casual player looking for some entertainment, a great community, and fun colorful graphics, Asda is definitely for you. But be careful: It's ADDICTIVE.

overall score: 7.75/10

...rounded to nearest .25

links

Game Site: http://asdastory.gamescampus.com
Client Download (mmosite): http://download.mmosite.com/download.php?id=2885
Forum: http://forum.gamescampus.com/asdastory/asdastory.php

Note: My ratings are compared to other free games I have played. It is not being compared to Pay-to-Play games which may contain more content and high end graphics.