MapleStory Adventures

I am pretty sure you have heard of MapleStory. It is a game that has garnered support from players all over the world. But today, we are not going to talk about that. What we are going to talk about is its Facebook counterpart, MapleStory Adventures.

In just a mere few months out of closed beta, it has already gained 1,600,000 monthly active users and 800,654 likes. I am pretty sure these numbers will continue to grow as more and more content gets released.

As good as all these may sound, there is something I find which might possibly deter a good number of potential players away from this Facebook game. If you have guessed the "Request for Permission", then you are absolutely right.

Not only does it want to access our basic Facebook information, it also wants to be able to post messages AS US to OUR Facebook walls. To top that off, it even wishes to access our photos? If all these are needed just to play a game, who wouldn't be scared away, right?

Nonetheless, in order to see what this game has to offer, I readily accepted these seemingly insane requests. And frankly speaking, even though it has already been a few days since I've started playing MapleStory Adventures, my Facebook wall seems pretty free of those "game spams" that I've been afraid of. Posts to my wall have been minimal or perhaps even non-existent. Apparently, the game only posts to my wall when I have chosen to click "Share" on events which happen while I am playing the game.

Once you've gone past the requests, you will be shown a very short story clip and then sent to the starting page to begin.

Compared to MapleStory, this game has very few jobs to select from. In fact, there are only two jobs, Warrior and Magician. I guess the ultimate motive of MapleStory Adventures is probably just to lure you into playing the actual MapleStory rather than keeping your attention on it. Although I can't help but wished they had more than two jobs to choose.

As for character customization, the options are pretty standard and simple - A male and female gender option, a set of hair styles and colors to choose, some variety of eyes and skin colors. That's all.

Well...with that few options, it shouldn't take you too long to finish your character customization and reach the tutorial stage.

As far as the tutorial is concerned, it is pretty complete in my opinion. It covers on the basics of how to move your character, attack and kill monsters in MapleStory Adventures. On top of that, it also introduces you to how the quests and rewards work in the game. However, I think they forgot to teach us how to quick slot our skills for usage.

In MapleStory Adventures, there is a system available which allows us to hire our friends to fight along our sides. If you level up a skill called "Multiple Hire", you will be able to hire more friends to fight with you. However, there is a catch to it.

Each of the friends you hire will have an "energy bar" on top of their heads. This "energy bar" is actually the number of attacks they will perform before their help is over. Once their "energy bar" is depleted, they will leave you.

Combat in the game is pretty simple and straight-forward. You click on the target to start the attack and click on the big red stop button to stop your attack. Each hit your character performs will consume some energy from your energy pool while each hit that the enemy lands on you will also deduct some energy from your energy pool.

With this sort of combat system, your character will not die in MapleStory Adventures. However, it is still best to avoid being damaged as it would reduce the amount of energy you have available to perform tasks.

Once you have depleted your energy, your only options will be to either log out or buy some energy replenishing items using Facebook credits.

Most of the skills that you can learn in MapleStory Adventures is somewhat lifted from MapleStory. However, they do not require skill points to learn or upgrade. Instead, what they require is some in-game coins and some skill permits which you can probably request from Facebook friends playing the game with you.

What I most dislike about learning skills is the fact that apart from having to level your character, you also need to add increasingly more friends before you can have access to learning the higher ranking skills. Without having a large friend base to play this game with you, the last resort you have is to spend Facebook credits to learn or upgrade the skills. Else, your character will surely become gimped.

To use skills, you will have to hotkey them first. This is done by clicking on the "Skill" icon on the lower right of your screen. Then click on the "Star" button as shown to add it to your quick slot. Finally, just click on a monster to start your attack and press the corresponding hotkey to use the skill.

In this game, each and every player is given a home. In this home, players can check their mails, craft items and upgrade equipments. And once a day, your home will be littered with items for you to pick. Each pick will cost some energy and will drop you some items, coins and experience.

You are also able to visit your friend's home too. There, you can help with the cleaning up of their homes and earn "Heart" points. As you gain these heart points and level up your heart level, you will be able to upgrade your skill "Multiple Hire".

At your home, you will find a place with cauldrons right beside an NPC called Yulete. To craft items, just click on the cauldron and choose what you wish to craft. The items you can craft are mostly just coins, magic stones, old scrolls, mystic dews and some other consumables. I don't see any weapons or armors to craft in the recipes available though. To unlock the other recipes that are available, just talk to Yulete and pay what he demands.

To upgrade your equipments, talk to the NPC called Alberich. You will need to pay him some coins and old scrolls for the upgrading process. Do note that the process can fail as you upgrade the items.

From the world map, I can see that the world of MapleStory Adventures is pretty large, but still in the process of making. Do give it some time to implement the other maps and perhaps it might just grow to become a game of its own.

Although MapleStory Adventures lacks in the multiplayer department (compared to MapleStory), it should provide you with some form of entertainment regardless of whether you are a fan of MapleStory or not. Just remember to bring in bucketloads of friends along for the ride.

MapleStory Adventures Video Clips

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