First Impressions:
Adventure Quest is an amusing animated Flash type fantasy RPG game that you can play in just about any browser. That means you play it online with Microsoft Explorer, Firefox or even Safari on a Mac. It isn't massively multiplayer, it is a one person experience.
I first started playing Adventure Quest in 2004. When I went back to it recently my cookie was recognized and I was able to log right in. You can create a "Free to Play" account there and play the game and enjoy it. There is no outside advertising on the pages of the game to take you out of the mood. There is no monthly fee either. What they do is offer upgraded "Guardian" membership packages that you can pay for.
The game also has a two fold money system. Game gold is used for purchasing normal equipment and supplies. If you provide a valid email address you will get 1000 game gold for all your characters. But to have more access to extra weapons, shields, armor, Player Houses and more quests you have to purchase the "Z-Tokens", using real money. Z-Tokens are very rare coins that can be found in the game too by battling challenging monsters.
Gameplay:
The game has evolved considerably since that last time I played it. They do updates every now and then and add new quests. Items and monsters are added very often. There are currently over five hundred monsters in the game. The weapons and the enemies are based on the elements of air, earth, fire, water, ice, dark and light. It is a good idea to have a variety of elemental weapons, armor and spells to defend against the various monster types, rather than having one elemental speciality.
Every-time your character gains a level you receive five more stat points and access to more monsters. To increase any of your stats you need to defeat a trainer and pay gold for increasing your attributes which are strength, dexterity, endurance, intellect, charisma and luck. You can also have pets to help out in battles. I had a pet rock which did one or two points of earth damage. Then later I got a cute penguin that slid on its tummy to do water and ice damage up to around six points. It was more for amusement than any serious help. Better pets can be obtained later on. They have hundred's of weapons to choose from for melee, ranged and magic attacks. There isn't any direct control of your character. The battles are turn based and are slow. They are determined randomly. I noticed that usually my first two attacks on the higher level monsters were always deflected, so it was a good idea to save spells for later attacks.
Graphics:
The 2D graphics are clever. The colors are pretty good. It isn't realistic graphics but what they have done has taken lots of time and effort to produce and they have done a good job on it. There are many spells, which look cool to cast. The maps are interactive, but the environments are not. Each battle pops up with its own background scene which might be an arid desert or even underwater. It is all cute and fun.
Conclusion:
In this kind of online game you don't have to deal with jerks, stalkers, and player killers. The looks and game play are simple. Sometimes it is better to achieve something and do it well without being over ambitious, there have many examples of online games that couldn't financially maintain themselves as free to play. An advantage of a free game like this is that you don't need an expensive PC to play it. It runs well and it is an effective time waster. As free games go, it gets an above average 6 out of 10.
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