Toontown online is in short, underdeveloped, but if given room to grow, could very well surpass many mainstream MMOs.
User Rating: 6.5 | Disney's Toontown Online PC
Disney's Toontown Online is an interesting concept, both in design and in gameplay. For one, the environment which the game provides is nonstandard in that it has a good deal of privacy features, although they are practical enough to not restrict the multiplayer aspect of Toontown, something that wouldn't be expected from a company like Disney. The gameplay, however, is a completely different story. While there are no classes per se, there is some degree of limitation in character development. Each character starts out with two weapon types, known as "Tracks". These weapons, known as gags, come in up to seven varieties, though only 6 may be had at any point in a toon's career. While at first, you are only given the choice between a more accurate, or a more powerful attack, soon you gain access to attacks that are weaker, but hit all enemies, gags that heal, and those that can destroy some enemies in one hit, but require a set-up from either the player, or a helper on the next or same round respectively. However, the most unique aspect of the game is this: combat is completely turn-based. That's right, no auto-attack and skill combination, no run-and-gun blitzing. Instead, you get a final fantasy like menu that allows you to choose your actions within a 30 second limit. Even then, your actions aren't restricted to your own tools. Later on, you can get a pet for healing purposes, as well as gain the one time use assistance of various NPC toons that can be found around toontown, once you rescue them from the first cog headquarters. Unfortunately, as of late, the game's development has shifted from focusing on the gameplay, to several minigames on the side. It is hoped that they are simply preparing for a large update, but this is most likely not the case. If you have some time to spare and want to try a fundamentally different MMO, or have kids and want to introduce them to MMOs without the more cruel aspects of other games, then this is for you. Pricing is at $10 a month, with discounts for larger amounts of time purchased.
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