Old-style meets new-style. Innovations that go great with the beloved little trinkets of the past. Meet the future.
And my god was I surprised. You aren't bound by "classes", even though there are "roles" you must fulfill. Such as, you won't be called a mage, ever, but you can distribute your points to be. While that doesn't sound to good, you can also do what is one of the major innovations of this game.
I'll be using my example throughout this review to be fair.
You will be tossed into a world where a tutorial will explain things quite well. During the course of the tutorial, you will acquire all sorts of items, some of which you don't need. You can simply NPC the items for a miniscule fee OOOOR you could go to one of the larger towns and use the Market.
Now, this is how it works.
There is a centralized bank system in the game. You register (costs nothing, takes ten seconds?) and your in-game bank account (For in-game currency only of course) is created. From that point on, if you sell anything at the market, the money will go there.
Why is that good?Well, let's assume you hunt for three hours trying to level up. During the three hours, let's say you get oh, 120 beans. Now. With those beans, you can simply make food to use or sell, or you could put the ingredients up in the market. Uniquely, if the profit is large enough, the market asks for 5% comission fee. What does that do? It will put the item up on the market at a price *you* choose, and people who need it can buy it. Let's say you put it up and you go hunt another hour or so. You'll receive a pop-up message stating what was sold, how much and how much you earned, as you fight. Because this is entirely real-time! If you beat the prices of someone, naturally people will buy off you!
Likewise, if you decide to mine, you can put what you find up for smiths to buy. Those smiths can later make guns, axes, spears, bows guns swords etc etc, and sell them to players or use for their own leisure. The skill of a smith/cook/medician determines the effectiveness of the item. My example. I'm not that strong yet but I can make a Bronze Sword (LV 2 sword basically) at 115% of the original item's stats. So you get 1-3 bonus attack points, and more if you play the minigame that pops up during the time you smith!
Thus, you can have an insanely strong beginner sword if you comission someone that's strong. And you can. If you bring materials, and ask nicely, they're prone to do it. Free experience :-D.
Goonzu online is a fantastic game with breaths of freshness inside of it, innovations that are superior to most of the current games which offer the usual monotonity. If you tire of battle, collect items to make things with. You can also "mentor" a starting character until he or she reaches level 20. I'm not entirely sure what that does but people are advertising it so they must get something good out of it XP.
The site is harshly incomplete and missing bits and parts and the GM/dev team is ridicilously lazy in looking at bug reports, but there aren'T many errors I bumped into during my 12 or so hours of playing Goonzu.
Be warned, this isn't for everyone. There is of course a "Grind" curve, when things begin to get harder, your evolution slows and you must work hard/harder. You get an isometric view of a good-looking world, your sprites are 3D modeled, any items you equip show up to make a diffirence. You can even pick which hand you use your weapon with, unless it's 2-handed.
The choice of what to do with monsters and items is entirely up to you. You should definately check this game out however, if you have cable or better. Signing up is free and you can delete the game in half a minute if it doesn't please you! Check their page and download info for requirements. Also, Google Goonzu online. I'm not sure advertising/directlinking is allowed so I will refrain. Enjoy.