WonderKing or Dragonica Online?

There are a bunch of awesome side scrolling MMORPGs out there, but the best ones include MapleStory, WonderKing Online and Dragonica Online. There are a few more, but they really aren’t worth mentioning. I’ve played MapleStory from Nexon to death, as I’ve leveled like 10 characters to 40 by now, so I’m a bit tired of it. Both WonderKing and Dragonica Online though are still new territory to me. I mean, I’ve played them both for a while, but not nearly as long as I played MapleStory. When you play one game for so long, you get a bit sick of it, even if it’s a great game.

WonderKing is by Ndoors and it was released in 2009 to compete with MapleStory. It is being published by Ndoors, the company who developed Atlantica Online, but I’m not entirely sure if WonderKing was developed by Ndoors or not. In fact, I’m pretty sure WonderKing has been available n South Korea for many years and only came to the U.S. Recently. Why Ndoors waited so long to localize such a great game like WonderKing is beyond me. Luckily, we gamers in the U.S. Don’t need to wait years to play Vindictus. Nexon is localizing it pretty fast! Nexon has actually been pretty good with localizing their games. Mabinogi and Combat Arms came out in the U.S. Pretty fast. Anyway, WonderKing is a lot like MapleStory in terms of graphics and gameplay, except a bit sharper, visually. There aren’t as many playable classes in it, and that’s my biggest complaint. The number of playable classes in an MMORPG is very important. MapleStory has like 20+ playable classes. Like MapleStory, WonderKing is a 2D MMORPG.

Dragonica Online, although a side scrolling MMORPG, is significantly different than MapleStory and WonderKing. It’s actually a 3D MMORPG, and the first 3D side scrolling MMORPG I’ve ever played. Visually, it’s not as “cute” / “cartoony”, but it still has anime inspired graphics. It looks and feels a bit more mature and the controls are responsive. It’s more of an action MMORPG as well, because players have to get combos to do optimal damage. It also has a lot of quests, so you never need to out right grind. Much of the fighting in it takes place in instanced dungeons rather than in a persistent world, so it’s a bit original in that department as well. Like Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine, players can play each dungeon in Dragonica in 3 different difficulty settings. This leads to players sort of being forced to play each dungeon multiple times, which can get boring. In terms of character customization, Dragonica Online has a slight edge, but in terms of variety, WonderKing wins. Dragonica has so few playable classes, which is a big down side to it. On the positive side, with only a handful of classes, the classes are balanced.

So which game is better? Sorry. I can’t say. Both are top notch fantasy MMORPGs that are worth checking out. You should download both and give them each a try.

Zero Online is a Fun MMORPG

Zero Online is a fun 2D Sci Fi MMORPG. I think a lot of other MMORPGs would benefit by looking at Zero Online and copying some pages from its playbook. The first good thing about Zero Online is that it can run on almost any computer. The game has very plain, yet appealing 2D gaphics which can run smoothly on a Pentium 3 computer, making the game very “accessible” worldwide. A lot of fancy new MMORPGs like Dungeons and Dragons Online from Turbine and Age of Conan from Funcom have absurdly high system requirements that a lot of people can’t meet. Game developers need to realize, not everyone has a super gaming computer. The most popular free MMORPGs are usually the most “accessible” ones. Games like MapleStory and RuneScape for example. Another good aspect of Zero Online is that it has fast leveling. This one is a bit controversial probably, but I really like games that have a fast experience rate. I think most people will agree with me on this one. No one likes to grind for hours on end just to level up once. In Zero Online you can reach level 50 in under 4 hours. In most MMORPGs reaching level 50 takes 4 weeks.

Zero Online is also win because the game had “job advancements” very frequently. One thing I really disliked about MapleStory, even though it was such a great game, was that job advancements felt way too far away from each other. I think everyone could make it to the level 30 advancement in MapleStory, but very few people made it to the level 70 one. In WonderKing from Ndoors, it’s even worse. The first advancement is at like level 120 or something ridiculous. Job advancements should be easy to reach, as people like upgrading their characters. In Zero Online, players could advance their characters every 15 levels or so, which made the game progess a lot faster. For some reason I really like Zero Online, but I don’t love Conquer Online or Crazy Tao, both of which are from the same publisher – TQ Digital. TQ Digital did a great job with Zero Online in my opinion, but their other games are only so-so. I think Conquer Online is their most popular game though. Their upcoming MMORPG Heroes of Might and Magic Online looks awesome though. But time will tell if its actually good or not. As is, the game has no North American release date, so it could be a while before it releases.

Obviously not every aspect of Zero Online is good either. The game only has two playable classes, which is terrible. Modern MMORPGs should have at least 5 classes and ideally more. I love it when games have lots of classes. I guess it’s a reason why I like MapleStory a lot. MapleStory has like 12+ starting classes, which is awesome. I’d like to see TQ Digial add more characters to Zero Online, as is the game only has two and it really sucks. What’s worse is that the artillery class is absurdly over powered compared to the game’s melee class. So yeah, Zero Online isn’t perfect either, but it’s a good game.