Recent reviews by StonedFox

It's fun but there's no gravity-type physics involved when it comes to large structures. You can take out all the walls of a building and one tiny square block will keep it standing. On top of that, when you get rid of that block the building just falls on its ass and bounces around until it stabilizes. Would be so SO much more time consuming if buildings had better physics. I want to see that big thing come crashing down in to pieces when I ruin some of its integrity!!

So far I've only but in a little over an hour in the game but plan to continue putting in more.

I'll start with the good points that I enjoy about the game and why I think it has potential:
-Solid engine with nearly smooth mechanics.
-Great concept for gameplay, some say it's Battlefield-like which gives a realistic feel.
-Progression system that seems slow, something I personally like.
-A nice small cluster of guns and maps.
-It has a framework set up that with constant updates could really shine.
-The dev team seems to be consistently pushing out new updates.
-Great weapon designs

The downsides:
-Very small collection of weapons to play with.
-Very very small collection of attachments and modifications currently.
-The gun sounds are not that great, it just sounds cheap.
-Pay for currency to unlock weapons if you're "too busy with life to play"
-There's a battle pass.
-Small collection of maps and game modes.
-The latency tends to be high, it should be noted I'm in North America.

To touch on the bad points really quickly, I don't believe these are reasons you should not play. This game has a lot of potential and I could see it gaining a cult following or possibly larger if the diversity of choice within the game expands more. I plan to play more and continue to progress to the different weapons but after an hour I question how much time I want to commit for such a lack of content to unlock. I figure it will be an on and off thing as time goes on until there's a nice amount of maps and guns to play with, as well as modifications to change your weapons around with. It would be really cool if you could make weapons look and work differently depending on the combination of modifications you place on it.

Tl;dr = Fun simple game with a bit of a lack of content. Has tons of potential to fill those gaps and they seem to be following through with lots of updates. Worth at least one match to see what it's like.

you can view your horses testicles in 4k majority of the game since you're always on horseback.

To start, I've only put in roughly 75 hours as of this review of Maplestory on the Steam launcher. I have played this game since around 2004 until about 2013 followed by a return in 2016 before leaving once again. My guess of time spent would be close to the quadruple digits.

TL;DR summary below.

I started in the MMO world when a family member introduced me to Runescape followed by Maplestory when I was just growing up. I got sucked in to it immediately, making tons of characters, tested every job (There only being 4 at the time, not even Pirate was around.) and wasted tons of hours doing pointless things. I made a ton of friends, got a wife in the game, spent a year making it to a third job advancement alone, and overall had fun coming back every day after school. If I remember correctly it was around v35 I joined in, and the game is now in v210 I believe. Let's just say a lot has changed and personally I don't enjoy it.

Leveling:

The leveling system is way too simplified and easy now. I played for nearly 3 hours before writing this review and was spoon fed 35 levels as a classic Page/Warrior. From the very start every quest I turned in gave me a level and upon the first job advancement the maple guide was tossed in my face, telling me where to go to train and teleporting me there instantly. It feels like the development team over at Nexon regressed in their progression system and treats every player like a toddler. If I started grinding at the same age I did when I first started playing then I would be thrown away by all the information coming at me at once. Most of the fun I had was figuring out mechanics for myself and having to travel everything to get anything done.

Travel:

Like stated above, the traveling in this game has been made way too easy to the point where quests don't feel accomplishing. Just downright dumb. You click one NPC which teleports you to another NPC which gives you enough EXP to level up only to follow the cycle until you move on to the next questline. When there isn't a teleportation option available they give you bright flashing "LOOK AT ME" arrows which hold your hand to the map you need to go to. Again, where is the adventure?

Social:

The state this game has moved to has implemented more of a self-centred style of gameplay than a social one overall. Cutscenes here and there, quests claiming you're the only one to stop X from doing Y to the world. No push for party questing or anything, just solo grinding spots and quests to do. Now, back before the Big Bang update took over I wasn't very social either and tended to my own business more often than not but because of how brutal the game could be with the long leveling times and the difficult mobs/bosses you had to face, it forced me out of my shell and to make friends that could help me out later with certain tasks. Leveling took hours or days at a time but 8 times out of 10 there was a PQ for your leveling bracket and it gave tremendous amounts of experience for a short duration of time. It was a fantastic system.

Aesthetics:

One thing I will give the big bang update is it made the game look crisp and updated. The experience bar updated in real time which made the game feel more fluid and like you were making more progression than an instant filling bar pre-big bang. But since the big bang's visual update it has just gotten worse. If you played before BB then you probably remember certain NX cash times that stood out from the regular graphics, such as Janus wigs (I believe they were called) as well as some Cygnus Knight NPCs. The entire game has basically warped more around a bubbly anime style now than what it used to be. Sure you can use classic items such as old school equips but at some point you will be forced to wear some cute anime bubbly-looking armour or weapon that just doesn't feel like it should be in the game, as if you are on a modified private server where devs couldn't follow the pattern scheme.

Other Mechanics:

I'll be quick with this one since there are so many to list. Drop rates are way too high, I get armour or weapons from every 5th mob I kill, quickly filling up my inv and giving me quite the meso income, this is not very rewarding one bit. The flashy enhance items system gives you +10 to every stat for a price starting at around 5-6k mesos making you way too strong for your level, it was unneeded and still is. I actually like the item potential system but I liked it more when the Big Bang patch dropped because you had to actually buy magnifying glasses to search the potential. Now it's a free button click away. Grinding is way too "mobbing" oriented now, back then when you were still first or second job status you had to single attack every mob with most classes and it was a huge weight off the shoulders when you got your first mobbing skill, and that was what you worked hard for. Every single class has a mobbing skill right off the bat now as well as transportation skills like flash jumps and spin offs of such.

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Overall I would say the state of the game currently is just unplayable. It feels pointless to play and get to level 100 in less than a day. I know most of it might seem nostalgic but I continue, to this day, to play the classic version of some MMOs because they are much more accomplishing than what the current games are today. World of Warcraft is too easy now and is self-centred, so I resort to WoW Classic, which I have a much easier time getting in to. Runescape 3 has the same issue, too self-centred and easy, so I resort to Oldschool Runescape. Maplestory is the exact same problem but sadly the devs have already made it clear they will not be opening a classic/vanilla/pre-bb version of the game any time soon, shutting down anyone suggesting/asking if it's a possibility. In the mean time I just play classic version, low-rate server(s) to get that classic Maplestory leveling and social feel. Sad thing is, it seems the oldschool private servers have an equal amount or possibly even more than what Steam projects as a playerbase for the game. Just goes to show.

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TL;DR

Baby game made for babies with attention spans of a cat on catnip.

It's like Max Payne in Multiplayer on Roids. 11.5/10