First Impressions:

A side-scrolling MMORPG. Maple Story makes a few very definite first impressions based almost entirely on this one rather unique premise. You'll be doing all the monster hacking, loot collecting and fetch questing you'd expect from a game in this genre, only now you'll be doing it while climbing ropes and jumping between floating platforms. It also doesn't hurt that it's completely free to download and play. You'll notice very early on that, as is typical of many Asian MMO titles, there is a significant focus on the level treadmill but the twist provided by the platform elements may, depending on your tastes, actually make that treadmill fun.

There isn't much in the way of initial customization. New players begin the game as a generic “beginner” class that can't learn skills and is limited more or less to civilian clothing such as t-shirts and sweat pants for armor. You'll also be given the option of three or four different faces, hairstyles and skin tones as well as the choice of a sword, axe or club for a weapon. At either level eight or ten, depending on your career choice, you can seek out a class trainer at one of the various themed cities on Victoria Island. This opens up your equipment options and allows you to learn special abilities such as spells and weapon skills.

Graphics:

If you're a fan of bright, colorful platformers, Maple Story's graphics are a joy to behold. The characters are drawn in a cutesy (perhaps too cutesy for some) superdeformed anime style and both the foregrounds and backgrounds are alive with color and scenery. Whether exploring the lush countryside of Henesys with its abundant plant life and quaint smurf style mushroom houses, the gritty modern streets of Kerning City crammed with construction sites and telephone wires, the fairy forest of Ellinia with its towering trees and hanging rope bridges or the dark, endless caverns of the Dungeon, the world of Maple Story is never boring to look at. There is a rather impressive array of monsters to fight as well, and they're all drawn and animated beautifully, though the actions they're capable of are somewhat limited.

Options for avatar customization become much more numerous once actually in the game. There is a staggering variety of equipment and clothing available and you'll be able to dress your character up as just about anything, from a kendo champion to a baseball player to an armored knight to an old-school aviator. You can even don a stocking cap and a bit of bling and go all gansta, Korean style. Additional hairstyles, faces and even emotes are also available, though you'll have to shell out real cash (usually around 5 bucks or so) to purchase them in the “cash shop”.

Sound/Music:

Maple Story's sound is, as a general rule, pretty good. Most of the music is catchy and some of it is actually very pleasant to listen to, such as the theme that's played in and around Lith Harbor. Unfortunately, since you'll be spending a lot of time in these zones exploring, leveling up and looking for treasure, almost all of it gets very repetitive after a while.

Sound effects, while not particularly noteworthy, fit the feel of the game and get the job done without grating on the nerves. Hitting an enemy with your weapon will get you a nice, solid thwack, monsters all have unique, sometimes humorous death sounds, and spells sound appropriately explosive or magical.

Gameplay:

Maple Story's game play is an interesting and rather odd mix of traditional platforming elements and typical MMORPG combat. The CTRL key lets you swing your weapon, ALT allows you to jump, and the up/down arrow keys will let you climb ropes, vines, ladders, etc. You can even lie flat on the ground to avoid projectile attacks and poke at your enemy's kneecaps. Alongside these 2d action staples, however, are monsters that take multiple (sometimes many) repeated hits to dispatch and things such as damage variances and miss chances governed by traditional RPG statistics. Basic melee combat involves positioning yourself in front of a monster and attacking it repeatedly in order to both do damage and knock it backward frequently enough that it can't touch you. Some of the tougher monsters can take quite a bit of punishment and spawn rates are high in most areas, so you'll often find yourself jumping and dodging to avoid colliding with other creatures while you whittle down your target. If struck, you'll also be knocked backward, so it's important not to fight too close to the edge of a platform or you could end up falling off. One of the nice things about this arrangement is that, unlike in most MMORPG's, you can actually avoid taking damage in many cases if you're quick and clever enough. While Maple Story certainly involves a lot of hack and slash, its combat system rewards skill to a certain extent and will keep you on your toes as you hop, climb, dodge and duck. Despite this, the combat does tend to get a bit repetitive after a while.

Initially, there isn't really anything in the way of special abilities or even ranged attacks to mix things up. As mentioned earlier, players begin as a “beginner” class, unable to learn skills or use special weapons such as bows and throwing knives. Your first ten or so levels will, as a result, be spent familiarizing yourself with the most basic game play elements as you bat low level enemies around with your chosen weapon. This initial portion of the game can be a bit unbalanced, as you'll want to put the ability points gained upon leveling up toward meeting the stat requirements of the class you want but don't actually have access to that profession's abilities yet. Aspiring warriors, for example, will have a vastly easier time of it, since they'll be putting points in strength and so will hit harder with each level. Future mages, on the other hand, may find life rather difficult, since they'll want to dump points into intelligence: a stat that won't do anything for them until they reach level eight and earn their job.

Once a job is attained, things begin to get more interesting. Within a few levels, you'll have access to fun abilities such as various magical projectiles for mages, ranged weapons for bowmen, and melee attacks that strike multiple enemies for warriors. There are also some interesting passive skills, such as an Endurance ability that allows warriors to regenerate health even while hanging from a rope or ladder.

There are also one or two minigames to play, if you grow tired of exploring and monster hunting. By finding an omok table and enough omok pieces, you can have an NPC make you an omok set, which can then be used to play games with other players. There is a card game as well, which can be played after collecting enough cards to make a full deck.

Note: Maple Story is a platformer in true console style. As such, it's best played with a game pad. Unfortunately, official support for such peripherals isn't implemented, but a program such as JoyToKey can be used to map keys directly to game pad buttons. See the “Web Sites of Interest” section at the bottom of this review for links.

Enjoyment:

Overall, Maple Story is a fun and addictive little game, though there are a few things that can get in the way. The first is that, platforming elements aside, this is still a grind-focused online RPG. Make no mistake, you're going to do a lot of fighting, leveling up and item collecting. There are plenty of quests to give some of the constant monster bashing a bit of context, but most of them are simply collection tasks given out by NPC's too lazy to run their own errands. There is, in fact, one quest in Kerning in which the giver tells you straight up that he's sending you out to collect things for him because he's bored.

The second hitch is that kill stealing is rampant. This isn't as big of a problem as it would be in most games, since monsters spawn by the score and there are always plenty to go around. There are even multiple instances of each zone so that, if one is overcrowded, you can flip to another one until you're able to get a place more or less to yourself. Still, it can be rather irritating when you've been plugging away at a particularly difficult monster and someone else walks up and begins hacking at it as if they can't even see you. Worse yet, high level characters who don't even need the experience or loot will often come breezing through a zone, mindlessly one-shotting everything in their path and snatching the hard-earned kills of lower level characters right out from under their noses. The activity is so commonplace that complaining isn't really even an option. There seems to be an attitude of calm acceptance toward it, and those who've had their prey stolen will simply move on to another target without complaining.

Multiplayer:

Despite these hitches, Maple Story can still be great fun. Exploring the expansive 2d world is enjoyable in and of itself, and it's even better with a friend or two along. There's just something special about hopping, climbing and slashing your way through a two dimensional fantasy world alongside thousands of other players. Despite some of the drawbacks, this single unique feature continues to stand out. The various adventuring zones, and even the towns, feel like great big playgrounds. Who didn't enjoy swinging and climbing around on the jungle gym with a few friends when they were a kid? Throw in funky costumes and wacky monsters and that's what you've got here. With a voice chat program like TeamSpeak or Skype, it's even better since you'll never have to take your hands off the controls.

Overall Impression:

Maple Story is an oddity, but it's a rather charming one. Despite the focus on constant leveling and item collection, the platforming elements make it a unique and fun experience for those willing to stick with it long enough to get through the rather uninspired “newbie” phase at the outset. The graphics are colorful and varied, the music is catchy, and there's no shortage of cool places to explore. Get a game pad, bring some friends, and with a little effort, Maple Story may end up being the game you can't put down.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

Maple Story is pretty gender-neutral. The avatars are childlike and androgynous to the point that it can often be difficult to tell male from female unless they're dressed in gender-specific clothing or are sporting distinctly male or female hairstyles. As far as the clothing goes, none of the female attire could be said to reveal anything inappropriate since the avatars are, as previously mentioned, rather androgynous.

It's also worth a mention that, despite being free, Maple Story is a commercial game (money is made through the in-game “cash shop” where players can buy access to special customization features, pets, and limited edition clothing for their characters) and the original television(?) advertisement does feature a young female gamer. While the fact that she spends a lot of time dancing around and dressing up in costumes identical to those in Maple Story before actually sitting down to play the game may not seem particularly dignified to more mature gamers, it's important to remember that this title seems to be marketed primarily to middle and high school aged students in its home country.

Web sites of interest:

Official Site

JoyToKey

Maple Story Trailer

Maple Story Commercial