...Based on a game, based on a game but with the game it was based on in it.
That's what Wakfu is. Seeing as how it recently hit its second birthday, and is slashing membership costs, I decided to review it for the public eye of the Escapist. So, Wakfu is an MMORPG/Strategy/Life Simulation/Whatever game that would probably fall under several different genres, in the casual-game sense alone. Think Farmville meets a simplified Terraria with a load of Final Fantasy Tactics, and you basically get Wakfu.
In Wakfu, you start out as a Bodyless. Or Soulless. It's confusing, and you're in Incarnam, the soul crossing. Here, you get tutorials on how to play the game; here's some seeds for weird flowers, plant them. Now kill this bunny thing, a... Wodent. Along the edges of space itself, there are statues of the classes, and their functions. There's pretty much any archetype you can think of: From supporters to puppet characters to nukers.
The tutorials you'll get in here are very extensive. They'll teach you about the elements, how they work, what they work with, different weapons, how Speed, Agility and Initiative are all different stats despite being effectively the same thing but not, to gaurding (face the enemy. Congratulations, you get an A) and various different items that you'll need to find your way in Astrub, the first area you'll find in the game.
So, there are 15 different classes. From Iops, the suicide-bombing glass cannon, to Fecas, the quaint red mages, to Euntrofs, who like blowing things up because why not. A basic rundown of the classes:
Obviously, Wakfu prides itself on the huge amount of versatility the player is given, when it comes to their class and how they play. While every class it able to play defensively or offensively, with varying levels of success based on the role, depending on player skill and character stats.
Another big part of Wakfu is the Life Sim part. That is, the political, militiary and enviromental aspect of life. Also jobs and stuff. There are four nations, Bonta, Sufokia, Amakma, and Brakmar. Each has a player-run office (at the time of writing, for example, the Head-of-Office for Sufokia is a guy called Hybridgear, for example, though an early-election's been called but I don't care because I have bread to bake, fish to catch and innocent birds to bludgeon) which is just one of them.
There's an entire group of people. Every nation has various taxes and relationships. For example, in order to raise money to replant all of the trees because some bastard cut them all down to make a weapon, realise he has a better one, then dropping it, an office might increase the taxes in storage and transport. As for the enviromental part, there are monster-populations that have to be obtained, and organic plants to be kept in check. In exchange for this, everyone in that area will recieve stat bonuses if the area is good in terms of eco-friendliness. This means that everyone has to work together and always have seeds for different plants lying around for the sake of extra XP gain.
Then there are the professions. Professions are various sub-stats that allow crafting or gathering. There's stuff from fishing to jeweling to baking to close-combat smithing. There are plenty of things to do with that baby bird's crushed skull, you can make it into a kimono (?), bake it into a crusted bagette (delicious but still gross) or sell it to someone else who'll do that. However, materials gathered from the beginning area, Astrub, will not advance your level after you hit level 10.
All of this give the game a ridiculously dynamic feel, which Runescape has trying to do for years now, but keep failing to achieve, due to the fact that it can take several days to actually make any progress. In Wakfu, pretty much everything is very fast, and it never gots that boring, because you'll always have something to do.
Last thing: The presentation. Wakfu's artist, Xa-xa-xa, whose DA page I'd link to but it has nipples (dun dun DUUUUN) of both the male and female variety and is thus more dirty than Satan's dirty belly button, obviously takes a lot of inspiration from Alex "0_8 how the hell do I pronounce that" Ahad, the creator and lead artistic director of Skullgirls, a highly prosperous indie game that's being rereleased right now because Konami had to defend its intellectual property (went home and took its ball with it).
There's also a certain element of Chris Sander's work in there. You know, that guy who led Lilo and Stitch, the really cutesy movie with a lot of child negligence and emotional issues... and a fluffy super bioweapon! Yeah, he draws rather explicit pin-ups inbetween movies, and even during them to pay for art supplies. They're very good. The style definetely shows; there are almost no straight lines or edges vertices, and the game all around looks great.
It's hard to tell if the characters are individually animated sprites that make up the body, or full models, and whether or not the backgrounds are 3d, or are actually 2d with layers, but the game does a good job at the anime style. The west is notorious for botching Manga-styles, from Avatar to its recent trend for animu faces (which are lazy and I hate them so damn much) yet this game manages to pull the general aesthetic together.
Wakfu is definetely a game worthy of your attention. Even if you only play the first 30 or so levels, start over because you picked a class that sucked or you deliberately feed your cat a dead cat for fun and watch it curl up and have a seizure in disgust. The game looks great, and is ridiculously indepth. It's also a good staring points for people who want to get into MMOs, Strategy Games, or just games in general.
That's what Wakfu is. Seeing as how it recently hit its second birthday, and is slashing membership costs, I decided to review it for the public eye of the Escapist. So, Wakfu is an MMORPG/Strategy/Life Simulation/Whatever game that would probably fall under several different genres, in the casual-game sense alone. Think Farmville meets a simplified Terraria with a load of Final Fantasy Tactics, and you basically get Wakfu.
In Wakfu, you start out as a Bodyless. Or Soulless. It's confusing, and you're in Incarnam, the soul crossing. Here, you get tutorials on how to play the game; here's some seeds for weird flowers, plant them. Now kill this bunny thing, a... Wodent. Along the edges of space itself, there are statues of the classes, and their functions. There's pretty much any archetype you can think of: From supporters to puppet characters to nukers.
The tutorials you'll get in here are very extensive. They'll teach you about the elements, how they work, what they work with, different weapons, how Speed, Agility and Initiative are all different stats despite being effectively the same thing but not, to gaurding (face the enemy. Congratulations, you get an A) and various different items that you'll need to find your way in Astrub, the first area you'll find in the game.
So, there are 15 different classes. From Iops, the suicide-bombing glass cannon, to Fecas, the quaint red mages, to Euntrofs, who like blowing things up because why not. A basic rundown of the classes:
Iop - Glass cannons who like things blowing up.
Fecas - Red mages with a focus on ranged combat and defensive support.
Enripsas - Healers, who can inflict various side-effects.
Euntrofs - You know those weird classes that nobody ever uses, like calculators or time mages? Yeah, Euntrofs are like that but with explosions.
Srams - Basically thieves.
Pandwa - Alcoholics, they specialise in buffing, and apparently pandas can get drunk from milk.
Osamodas - They can utilise pets which can be captured.
Ecaflips - Gambler warriors who specifalise in random effects in combat.
Xelor - All-rounding mage types who tend to focus on time-based spells. They also teleport, and can change the Initiative, Speed and Agility of their enemies (remember, seperate things)
Sacrier - Fecas are good at taking damage. Sacriers fight better when taking damage.
Cra - Ranged fighters, who are pretty typical in terms of class, despite the fact that every other class has a weird and overcomplicated but quickly-adaptable gimmick. They just.. shoot things.
Sadida - Like the Feca, they specialise in manipulating the area around them, by enchanting points of energy into beings that live. Unlike Fecas, who make Glyphs that aid their allies, Sadida instead make dolls that can shoot laser beams.
Rogue - Sort of like Sram, except with support-based skills.
Masqueraider - Use various masks to alter the flow of battle.
Foggernaut - Jack-of-All stats with various support abilities. Also robots.
Fecas - Red mages with a focus on ranged combat and defensive support.
Enripsas - Healers, who can inflict various side-effects.
Euntrofs - You know those weird classes that nobody ever uses, like calculators or time mages? Yeah, Euntrofs are like that but with explosions.
Srams - Basically thieves.
Pandwa - Alcoholics, they specialise in buffing, and apparently pandas can get drunk from milk.
Osamodas - They can utilise pets which can be captured.
Ecaflips - Gambler warriors who specifalise in random effects in combat.
Xelor - All-rounding mage types who tend to focus on time-based spells. They also teleport, and can change the Initiative, Speed and Agility of their enemies (remember, seperate things)
Sacrier - Fecas are good at taking damage. Sacriers fight better when taking damage.
Cra - Ranged fighters, who are pretty typical in terms of class, despite the fact that every other class has a weird and overcomplicated but quickly-adaptable gimmick. They just.. shoot things.
Sadida - Like the Feca, they specialise in manipulating the area around them, by enchanting points of energy into beings that live. Unlike Fecas, who make Glyphs that aid their allies, Sadida instead make dolls that can shoot laser beams.
Rogue - Sort of like Sram, except with support-based skills.
Masqueraider - Use various masks to alter the flow of battle.
Foggernaut - Jack-of-All stats with various support abilities. Also robots.
Obviously, Wakfu prides itself on the huge amount of versatility the player is given, when it comes to their class and how they play. While every class it able to play defensively or offensively, with varying levels of success based on the role, depending on player skill and character stats.
Another big part of Wakfu is the Life Sim part. That is, the political, militiary and enviromental aspect of life. Also jobs and stuff. There are four nations, Bonta, Sufokia, Amakma, and Brakmar. Each has a player-run office (at the time of writing, for example, the Head-of-Office for Sufokia is a guy called Hybridgear, for example, though an early-election's been called but I don't care because I have bread to bake, fish to catch and innocent birds to bludgeon) which is just one of them.
There's an entire group of people. Every nation has various taxes and relationships. For example, in order to raise money to replant all of the trees because some bastard cut them all down to make a weapon, realise he has a better one, then dropping it, an office might increase the taxes in storage and transport. As for the enviromental part, there are monster-populations that have to be obtained, and organic plants to be kept in check. In exchange for this, everyone in that area will recieve stat bonuses if the area is good in terms of eco-friendliness. This means that everyone has to work together and always have seeds for different plants lying around for the sake of extra XP gain.
Then there are the professions. Professions are various sub-stats that allow crafting or gathering. There's stuff from fishing to jeweling to baking to close-combat smithing. There are plenty of things to do with that baby bird's crushed skull, you can make it into a kimono (?), bake it into a crusted bagette (delicious but still gross) or sell it to someone else who'll do that. However, materials gathered from the beginning area, Astrub, will not advance your level after you hit level 10.
All of this give the game a ridiculously dynamic feel, which Runescape has trying to do for years now, but keep failing to achieve, due to the fact that it can take several days to actually make any progress. In Wakfu, pretty much everything is very fast, and it never gots that boring, because you'll always have something to do.
Last thing: The presentation. Wakfu's artist, Xa-xa-xa, whose DA page I'd link to but it has nipples (dun dun DUUUUN) of both the male and female variety and is thus more dirty than Satan's dirty belly button, obviously takes a lot of inspiration from Alex "0_8 how the hell do I pronounce that" Ahad, the creator and lead artistic director of Skullgirls, a highly prosperous indie game that's being rereleased right now because Konami had to defend its intellectual property (went home and took its ball with it).
There's also a certain element of Chris Sander's work in there. You know, that guy who led Lilo and Stitch, the really cutesy movie with a lot of child negligence and emotional issues... and a fluffy super bioweapon! Yeah, he draws rather explicit pin-ups inbetween movies, and even during them to pay for art supplies. They're very good. The style definetely shows; there are almost no straight lines or edges vertices, and the game all around looks great.
It's hard to tell if the characters are individually animated sprites that make up the body, or full models, and whether or not the backgrounds are 3d, or are actually 2d with layers, but the game does a good job at the anime style. The west is notorious for botching Manga-styles, from Avatar to its recent trend for animu faces (which are lazy and I hate them so damn much) yet this game manages to pull the general aesthetic together.
Wakfu is definetely a game worthy of your attention. Even if you only play the first 30 or so levels, start over because you picked a class that sucked or you deliberately feed your cat a dead cat for fun and watch it curl up and have a seizure in disgust. The game looks great, and is ridiculously indepth. It's also a good staring points for people who want to get into MMOs, Strategy Games, or just games in general.
