Let me stress first of all that this is a First Impressions review. It's an MMORPG and there was no way I was going to slog through until I hit the level limit. So this review comes from the solid six hours I sunk into the game. No, I didn't explore every area, complete every quest and fight every boss, but I have the rest of my life to get on with. Food doesn't eat itself. But anyway, for this review I shall split it up into five categories, which should cover the core aspects of the game. Then I'll deliver my conclusion at the end.
Graphics
Graphics are, for the majority, the biggest selling point of any game. If a game has horrendous graphics, it's going to turn a large percentage of the player base away. Now, I'm not against Anime graphics, Quite the opposite in fact, but I think Fiesta Online's choice to use anime graphics has shot itself in the foot somewhat. The art style may seem kind of cute and quirky at first but when you get down to it, it just looks, well, childish. All your characters look as though they haven't even hit puberty yet, which is rather inappropriate when you're swinging around swords and blasting magic spells all over the place. The curious thing is that all the NPCs look properly grown up, so we're led to believe that this is a town that's populated mostly by children.
On the other hand the Towns look quite nice, though I only visited two of the promised three. I spent the majority of my time in the starter town running back and forth completing errands for people. The town was rather small but what little of it there was was rather nice. Same goes for the environments outside of town. Everything was nicely varied and I looked forward to exploring the new places. The graphics for the creatures, however, isn't as varied as I hoped it would be. You'll come across exactly the same creature a lot of the time, but with an extra word stuck on its name. It just strikes me that when you're making an MMORPG, that has a rather large world, youll at least make sure you have enough creativity on your team to not recycle graphics.
He's a guy. No, Really.
Quests
It's my belief that at least some of the quests in a game should reveal the plot. Apparently this memo wasn't given to the makers of Fiesta Online. From the six hours I've played and with no real mention of any storyline, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't have one. I mean, sure, most MMOs suffer from the problem of making you out to be the only one that can save the planet, which is let down when everyone else is told the same thing, but there must be a better way to solve this than cutting out the whole plot.
As a result of this the quests feel more like simple errands than quests fit for a hero. An example of this when I got a quest to go and collect twenty crab pincers to use as pegs for a washing line, because this person's washing kept blowing away in the wind. Telling her to get her own claws wasn't a viable option so I had to go off and kill crabs to get their pincers. Then I had to help an old man with his back by going off and killing more innocent creatures. Now, I should mention that this is a Free MMO so Grind comes as standard but when I'm Grinding I like to think I'm working towards making the world a little safer. I also like to think that all the time my guy spent training up as a fighter would go to better use than acquiring makeshift pegs for a washing line.
Combat
I touched upon the grind in the previous chapter but this is not helped along by an unimaginative combat system. I've seen this system so many times now that it feels almost wrong to single out this game and critique it. But, nevertheless, I'm going to. The basic controls are Click on something and wait for it to die. You're constantly wishing your skills would recharge quicker and that you had a better weapon. Nothing we haven't all seen before. The weapons are suited to your class and level so chances are you'll see exact clones of yourself running around killing things in an identical way to you. Maybe I'm demanding too much from a Free game but a little innovation would've been nice.
Character Customisation
You don't get much Character customisation here at all. Your only real distinction, in terms of facial features, is which gender you pick. Another problem is that there are only four classes: Fighter, Archer, Cleric or Mage. For an RPG that's pretty poor. What, for example, if someone wants to play as a rogue like character? Nevertheless, being the Tank that I am, I opted for fighter and was given a basic sword. I was then given a quest to go out and kill things for a while. So I did and was rewarded with pieces of armour. I felt rather proud of myself wearing my hard earned armour until someone waltzed past wearing exactly the same armour which spoiled the magic somewhat. On closer inspection I found that armour was restricted by Class and Level. That's all very well but it means your character is going to turn out like everyone else that picked your class, meaning your individual style won't shine through.
There are little touches here and there that add a little strategy, however. I like that every level you get skill points that you can use to upgrade certain aspects of skills. I spent points upgrading the damage of my basic skill so that it could be used to finish off enemies, while putting points into increasing the effect of another skill. This kept things fresh for a while, but you only get one skill point per level and it's hard to see that your points are having any effect. Maybe they get more significant in later levels, I don't know, that's something for you to discover on your own.
Miscellaneous
This section is all the smaller bits of the game that deserve a mention. Firstly the soundtrack. Oh Dear God the soundtrack. The music that plays over the log-in screen sounds like something that would seem at home in a carnival. It got so irritating at one point that I muted my speakers until I had logged in. The soundtrack in game is better and can be quite good at times but after a few hours of the repeated music it can get very annoying. Then again this could be another sign that Fiesta is aimed at a slightly lower audience.
The community is rather nice, which was a bit of a surprise. The average conversation that I find in most MMOs contains about 90% curse words but the people in this game were all very civil to each other. Maybe the nice graphics put off potential idiots. Someone even gave me a free gift, which seemed to be quite rare, without even asking for anything in return. It's a shame that such people couldn't exist in other games, to be fair.
Conclusion
It seems to me that Fiesta Online is set to be aimed at a younger audience (despite an abundance of suggestive imagery), yet the micromanaging of both skills and attributes would probably be a bit over the head of young ones though. The abundance of potions and 'HP Stones' you get would make up for that, but you'll still die a lot if you're too reckless.
My verdict is that cute graphics disguise an ultimately generic MMORPG that seems almost terrified to push any boundaries. You might want to give it a look-in if you're tired of massively complicated games and you want something simple to dip in to now and again but for a truly absorbing experience, look elsewhere.
US Version: http://fiesta.outspark.com/
European Version: http://fiesta-online.gamigo.com/
Price: Free to play with micro-transactions.
Graphics
Graphics are, for the majority, the biggest selling point of any game. If a game has horrendous graphics, it's going to turn a large percentage of the player base away. Now, I'm not against Anime graphics, Quite the opposite in fact, but I think Fiesta Online's choice to use anime graphics has shot itself in the foot somewhat. The art style may seem kind of cute and quirky at first but when you get down to it, it just looks, well, childish. All your characters look as though they haven't even hit puberty yet, which is rather inappropriate when you're swinging around swords and blasting magic spells all over the place. The curious thing is that all the NPCs look properly grown up, so we're led to believe that this is a town that's populated mostly by children.
On the other hand the Towns look quite nice, though I only visited two of the promised three. I spent the majority of my time in the starter town running back and forth completing errands for people. The town was rather small but what little of it there was was rather nice. Same goes for the environments outside of town. Everything was nicely varied and I looked forward to exploring the new places. The graphics for the creatures, however, isn't as varied as I hoped it would be. You'll come across exactly the same creature a lot of the time, but with an extra word stuck on its name. It just strikes me that when you're making an MMORPG, that has a rather large world, youll at least make sure you have enough creativity on your team to not recycle graphics.
He's a guy. No, Really.
Quests
It's my belief that at least some of the quests in a game should reveal the plot. Apparently this memo wasn't given to the makers of Fiesta Online. From the six hours I've played and with no real mention of any storyline, I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't have one. I mean, sure, most MMOs suffer from the problem of making you out to be the only one that can save the planet, which is let down when everyone else is told the same thing, but there must be a better way to solve this than cutting out the whole plot.
As a result of this the quests feel more like simple errands than quests fit for a hero. An example of this when I got a quest to go and collect twenty crab pincers to use as pegs for a washing line, because this person's washing kept blowing away in the wind. Telling her to get her own claws wasn't a viable option so I had to go off and kill crabs to get their pincers. Then I had to help an old man with his back by going off and killing more innocent creatures. Now, I should mention that this is a Free MMO so Grind comes as standard but when I'm Grinding I like to think I'm working towards making the world a little safer. I also like to think that all the time my guy spent training up as a fighter would go to better use than acquiring makeshift pegs for a washing line.
Combat
I touched upon the grind in the previous chapter but this is not helped along by an unimaginative combat system. I've seen this system so many times now that it feels almost wrong to single out this game and critique it. But, nevertheless, I'm going to. The basic controls are Click on something and wait for it to die. You're constantly wishing your skills would recharge quicker and that you had a better weapon. Nothing we haven't all seen before. The weapons are suited to your class and level so chances are you'll see exact clones of yourself running around killing things in an identical way to you. Maybe I'm demanding too much from a Free game but a little innovation would've been nice.
Character Customisation
You don't get much Character customisation here at all. Your only real distinction, in terms of facial features, is which gender you pick. Another problem is that there are only four classes: Fighter, Archer, Cleric or Mage. For an RPG that's pretty poor. What, for example, if someone wants to play as a rogue like character? Nevertheless, being the Tank that I am, I opted for fighter and was given a basic sword. I was then given a quest to go out and kill things for a while. So I did and was rewarded with pieces of armour. I felt rather proud of myself wearing my hard earned armour until someone waltzed past wearing exactly the same armour which spoiled the magic somewhat. On closer inspection I found that armour was restricted by Class and Level. That's all very well but it means your character is going to turn out like everyone else that picked your class, meaning your individual style won't shine through.
There are little touches here and there that add a little strategy, however. I like that every level you get skill points that you can use to upgrade certain aspects of skills. I spent points upgrading the damage of my basic skill so that it could be used to finish off enemies, while putting points into increasing the effect of another skill. This kept things fresh for a while, but you only get one skill point per level and it's hard to see that your points are having any effect. Maybe they get more significant in later levels, I don't know, that's something for you to discover on your own.
Miscellaneous
This section is all the smaller bits of the game that deserve a mention. Firstly the soundtrack. Oh Dear God the soundtrack. The music that plays over the log-in screen sounds like something that would seem at home in a carnival. It got so irritating at one point that I muted my speakers until I had logged in. The soundtrack in game is better and can be quite good at times but after a few hours of the repeated music it can get very annoying. Then again this could be another sign that Fiesta is aimed at a slightly lower audience.
The community is rather nice, which was a bit of a surprise. The average conversation that I find in most MMOs contains about 90% curse words but the people in this game were all very civil to each other. Maybe the nice graphics put off potential idiots. Someone even gave me a free gift, which seemed to be quite rare, without even asking for anything in return. It's a shame that such people couldn't exist in other games, to be fair.
Conclusion
It seems to me that Fiesta Online is set to be aimed at a younger audience (despite an abundance of suggestive imagery), yet the micromanaging of both skills and attributes would probably be a bit over the head of young ones though. The abundance of potions and 'HP Stones' you get would make up for that, but you'll still die a lot if you're too reckless.
My verdict is that cute graphics disguise an ultimately generic MMORPG that seems almost terrified to push any boundaries. You might want to give it a look-in if you're tired of massively complicated games and you want something simple to dip in to now and again but for a truly absorbing experience, look elsewhere.
US Version: http://fiesta.outspark.com/
European Version: http://fiesta-online.gamigo.com/
Price: Free to play with micro-transactions.
