Maple Story Review – An Online Virtual World Populated With Adorable Monsters and Interesting Quests

Maple Story is an online virtual world/game developed by the makers of games like Sugar Rush, Combat Arms, and Audition. Maple Story is a two dimensional side-scrolling online game based in a virtual world called the Maple world. The game has been a huge commercial success, and has attracted close to 50 million users till date.

At the beginning of the game, each player has to pick a profession for himself. A player can be  a warrior, thief, magician, bowman or pirate. After picking the profession and customizing the character, you can set out on your quests, collect points, progress to higher levels – quite like a regular Role Playing Game (RPG). The level of customization allowed by Maple Story is quite high, and one can spend hours choosing from the myriad of options at your disposal.

The chief aim of Maple Story, like any other RPG, is to complete quests and collect points to reach higher character levels. To earn more points, every user has to kill different monsters. However, these monsters are so adorable that you might actually feel bad killing them. In fact, the whole game plays heavily on the cute quotient.

It is rather ironical that Maple Story really doesn’t have a very strong story line. It starts off well but after a certain point of time, there is no concrete sense of direction in the story. Initially, the users are hooked on to the game because of their curiosity to experience the higher levels. But once this anticipation goes away, the interest also wears off as the quests tend to get a little repetitive.

As is mentioned earlier, Maple Story has a heavy cute factor working in its favor. This “cute factor” can, in fact, make up for the repetitive quests and the lackluster story line. On the other hand, this sometimes becomes the game’s weakness as it becomes annoyingly cute after some time, more so with hardcore gamers, who expect more out of a game than mere cuteness.

The Maple Story has characteristically different controls. Nearly the whole game is played using the keyboard; the mouse has very limited usage. The controls are very convenient and easy to get used to. The best part is that the game allows the users to customize the controls according to their comfort.

The Maple Story is backed by a strong sense of social community. The user might be surprised to find the map of the maple world thronged with users. This presence of community can either create a sense of healthy competition or on the flip side, it can also lead to hostility. Even inside the game, users can create their own houses and have fun with friends.

No game is complete without a technically sound mechanism. Despite the repetitive quests and the dull story line, Maple Story shines brightly in the graphics department. Right from the cute monsters to the amiable backgrounds, everything has a vivacious, luxurious attention to detail. Even though this is primarily an action based game, the environment still manages to present something eye catching and soothing to the players.

The sound is equally great. The game has a catchy background score, so much so that you might actually find yourself humming the tune unconsciously. The sound effects only supplement the cute quotient. The sad shrieks of the monsters when they are killed and many such effects make the game more enjoyable and likeable.

The Maple Story is a web based game and can be played free of cost online. However, a lot of features including customizations have to be paid for separately. The game does not require very advanced technical requirements on the PC, making it hassle free to play and download.

So, in spite of the minor story and game plan related problems, the Maple Story comes highly recommended. Backed by excellent technical specifications, it has the potential to be very addictive, is interesting and extremely enjoyable!