Ragnarok Online

Overview
Full Review
Screenshots
Videos

Area: USA,Global
Official Site: Ragnarok Online
Publisher: Gravity
Developer: Gravity
Platform: Microsoft Windows

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Overview

"Ragnarok Online" is a famous P2P fantasy MMORPG, and is one of the best known Korean MMORPGs available, featuring beautiful characters and music.

Features

Merchant class, player crafting
Great graphics and music
Large game world
Good PvP options
Large community
Plenty of dungeons and boss monsters
Multiple 1st, 2nd, and 3rd job classes

Area: USA,Global
Official Site: Ragnarok Online
Publisher: Gravity
Developer: Gravity
Platform: Microsoft Windows

Review

Reviewed by Mister Sprite

Ragnarok Online is three dimensional game with 2D sprites, or characters. The anime inspired graphics and the beautiful sprites give Ragnarok Online a unique graphic style that is so attractive that it has been copied by two other games: Secret of the Solstice and Water Margin Online. Those who wish to play on the new free server must go through a few extra steps which I'll try to explain here. First, players must create an account at the official site, next download the official client, install it, and patch it completely. After that, download the special Valkarie patch found on the Download page, double click but where it says extract to, change it from its default location to the your Ragnarok Online folder: for example; C:/program files/gravity/Ragnarok Online.

New players in Ragnarok Online start as novices and must chose how to allocate their initial stat points. The 6 stats are: STR, AGI, VIT, INT, DEX, LUC. Your beginning stats are very important and it is vital to know what 1st job class you will chose at level 10 before allocating your stats. There are 6 first job choices; Swordsman, Magician, Archer, Merchant, Thief, and Acolyte. Most people should be able to figure out the proper stat distribution for their class of choice; don't give your mage any str, don't give your swordsman any int, etc. If you need help with class builds, there are hundreds of guides available on the internet (check out the Guide section below.) A 7th first job is available, called the Super Novice, but is mostly for bored veterans and can be safely ignored by new players.

Movement and combat in RO are purely point-and-click and like most games, you'll start out hunting cute woodland creatures and slowly move on to scarier fare like zombies, skeletons, witches, dragons, etc. Interestingly, every character has two levels, a base level and a job level. By leveling your base level you gain stat points and generally increase your character's power. Job levels reward you with skill points. Each time players advance to a new job class, their job level will reset to 1 but the base level will stay the same. Players will still keep all the old skills they learned when they make a job advancement. The grind in Ragnarok is rather severe and while dozens of quests have been added over the years, they are not very interesting. Collecting 100 of a single item in exchange for a piece of equipment is tiring.

What Ragnarok Online may lack in quests and direction, it makes up with a massive amount of content. There are many dungeons to explore and many unique environments. Players can explore creepy graveyards, exotic underwater caverns, a strange parallel dark world, lush forests, and more. Like all MMORPGs there are a few prime grind spots but some of the best times I had with Ragnarok involved simply exploring new places with friends. Most dungeons also have a super powerful boss monster called a MVP and hunting down these monsters is usually a group affair. They drop unique equipment and special items used for upgrades.

Ragnarok Online has an in depth guild system combined with a large scale PvP feature called War of Emperium. At certain times during the week, guilds must battle for control of several castles which give special benefits to all guild members, for example certain castles gives guilds access to special dungeons. These large scale battles are very popular and make for good end game content. The max level in RO is 99 but getting there can take quite a long time and once achieved, played must start back at level 1 again in order to qualify for Transcendant Classes. Ragnarok Online was my first Asian MMORPG and I had a great time with it but it is beginning to show its age. For those of you who haven't tried this classic yet, you have no excuse left now that it is free to play. If you can manage the grind, Ragnarok Online is one of the most content rich free to play MMORPGs on the market.