Nexon Korea's MapleStory 2 Alpha test kicked off late last month and thanks to my super duper busy schedule I haven't had a chance to write about the awesome game until now. Most of my alpha experience memories are still fresh, so I am going to share what I have learned throughout my ultimate chibi utopia adventures in MapleStory 2.

Character Customization - Cuteness Overload

MapleStory 2 offered a moderate amount of customization, but not so much that you will end up spending hours on creating a character. Most of the in-depth customization options revolved around hairstyles and facial features. Nothing along the lines of body or height sliders so everyone will end up having an identical chibi body. Not that it matters for a cuteness overload game. A few days later, I discovered that I can fully re-customize my character in the fashion district in terms of hairstyle, skin color, dye clothing, and plastic surgery. If I had to guess, a complete makeover will consume a cash shop ticket of some sort.

The World - What is it like?

Nexon decided to go with a 3D blocky Minecraft or Cube World look where the ground textures and buildings consist of large blocks. Other stuff like characters, fences, NPC's, monsters, trees, and stuff are not so blocky. The world isn't one big seamless world, but it does connect from zone to zone in forms of medium to large scale maps with a channel system. Although I didn't have a chance to try, the game also offered instanced raid dungeons. I didn't run into any areas where I can add my own customize content to the world already given to me. I hope they add some areas where players can fully customize their own maps or zones like guild areas. The camera direction also seems to be fixed and can't be rotated.

Playable Jobs - Basic Stuff

The playable jobs during the alpha test was Priest, Knight, Assassin, Ranger, and Wizard. The other playable classes should be available in the future tests along advance jobs. As much as I wanted to try them all, I ended up playing both the Priest and Knight in this review.

World Bosses - Fear the Chibi Zerg Army

In a distant world of chibi utopia there are evil monsters that spawn on various fields! Players must unite and zerg them all down like there is no tomorrow~! Even after successfully slaying the raid boss players must bash down and overkill it so that it never rises again. On a more serious note, the world bosses of this game is a lot of fun! The Griffon boss battle is my favorite because you can mount on it while it flies through the sky laying waste to your fellow allies below. There are times when bosses will perform a special move and you must jump and latch on to the boss so that you don't get hit by his special attack. Take the Griffon for instance, he starts raining down hellfire death balls that one shots players that failed to mount on him or run out of the AoE range. The looting and reward system is very user-friendly, even a newbie can earn some free loot by hitting the monster once and hiding in a corner. Everyone gets their own loot and the last person that hits the monster will earn better swag compared to everyone else. I suppose there is no MVP system that rewards players for dealing the most damage or else there would be a lot of high-level players hogging bosses. Once the boss has fallen down, players can continue the boss beat down making it bleed out meso coins each hit.

Questing and Leveling - Nice and Casual

The leveling pace during the alpha test wasn't that bad. MapleStory 2 had a lot of quests which helped out a lot during my newbie adventures. Not being able to read Korean that well, I had trouble with some of the quests so I ended up skipping a few here and there. It would be nice if they added a quest helper feature in the future that guides players on where to go on the map. Thankfully, I was able to catch up on EXP easily by hunting world bosses. I wanted to try out another class during the 3rd day of testing, so I decided to level up a 2nd character. Upon hitting level 12, I decided to try something different this time around and that was leeching like boss. I searched for the nearest world boss and tagged it once with a random skill. After an hour's worth of leeching multiple world bosses, I was high enough to job change. Add few more hours of that and I was already level 20 strong enough to contribute to boss fights! In short, tagging world bosses is the most efficient way to level up because not only you get a ton of EXP you will also receive a lot of rare equipment. Of course, this system will only work if there are a lot of players hunting and melting the bosses left and right.

Sandbox Feature & Housing System - What Can Players Customize?

Now for the big question, what kind of sandbox features does MapleStory 2 offer?! First and foremost part is players can customize their own clothing! You've probably noticed it by now, but most of the outfits that I have been wearing throughout this test was made by me or other players. For example, the Miku outfit shown below was created by me and it was extremely popular during the alpha test! Players will have to use a third-party application to edit the clothing templates using Paint, Photoshop, Sai, etc. Players can import that outfit into the game by purchasing a blank outfit from a special NPC. After finalizing the outfit, you're given an option to sell it on the market. The Auction House Market is filled with all kinds of apparel created by the community ranging from shoes, gloves, one piece dresses, shirts, pants, pajamas, and more.

Players have a lot of control over the housing system, but they don't have much control on where they can build their houses. Houses can only be built on specific areas and they must rent the land for 30 days. If you're a late player joining the alpha, then you're going to have a lot of trouble finding a house in the starting areas. Luckily, there are other areas out on the field for those that really want to play house or something. What are the benefits of having a home? For one thing you can fully pimp out your house into any style you want. You can even customize your own block textures using a third-party tool and import it to the game. If you ever need a quick trip back to town and too far away from a teleporter you can just warp home. From there you can run to the nearest town or teleporter.

Gameplay and Combat - Been There Done That!

Honestly, the combat in this game is nothing special. I wasn't all that impressed and it reminded me of Dungeon Striker, especially after playing the Knight class. Was it fun? Yeah, it was exciting the first few days after that it was just... okay. I'm sure the combat picks up once the higher tier jobs becomes available. Nothing special other than spam all your skills until you're out of mana then get it all back by using your mana leech skill. Rinse and repeat.

Graphics and Sound - FML Why Is It in 3D?!

Eversince the early teaser trailers I was determined to get into the alpha and test this game out. The game is extremely cute, enough said! I never really got into the original version so I can't really relate when it comes down to naming that monster or remembering that BGM. I could only come up with one reason why MapleStory 2 doesn't look like the original in terms of enhanced 2d graphics. Even today the original MapleStory is extremely popular in various countries and still continues to grow strong with updates. Nexon doesn't really want to lose that targeted audience so instead they are trying a new approach. Will it be successful? Time will tell!

Mini Games - Fun Stuff

The mini games made me rage hard, but I was determined to beat one of them at least once! That moment came during the last day of the alpha test and boy I was extremely happy. I've always wanted to know what was inside the special boxes rewarded to players who survive or win the mini games. Inside, you will find a lot of cute accessories like bunny ears, shades, lolipop, etc.

Conclusion - Already Missing the Game

I had a blast during the first few days of alpha and it would have been a lot more fun if I had made some friends along the way to dungeon with. I actually thought the alpha would have more sandbox features in terms of player created areas, but none of that was available. MapleStory 2 left me satisfied and if I happen to have a chance to test the game again, I would definitely do it. Thanks for reading another one of my game reviews and hope to see you again in the next one! Spare a few minutes and follow or like my two social media pages below. Have a wonderful day!

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