A great free MMORPG.
Hero Online has many typical elements of a MMORPG, such as character classes, skills, quests, weapons, and armor. When you start your character, you will begin the first of many quests. As you fight monsters to complete your quests, you will eventually get to level 10 (or 1 Dan 0 Kyu). You will be allowed to choose your character class at that level. There are four character classes- Hunter, Warrior, Physician, and Assassin, each with their own fighting style. Each character class is unique and has its own set of skills and array of weapons. I find the skills learned to be an outstanding part of the game, because they look very good and authentic to the martial arts theme. Even the normal attacks have a great animation. When you reach level 30 (3 dan), you can use a group of skills called wind drift, which can allow you to run, jump, and land on buildings. Regular movement is controlled by the mouse or the arrow keys, whichever you prefer. You are going to have to move a lot, since the maps are big. As you level higher and higher, you get more quests to complete. In Hero Online, quests give you a good amount of exp, which lessens your time to train tediously on monsters. Quests give you a reason to kill monsters, and rewards you well for it. However, the quests should have much more depth, as they are a main point of the game. You should be able to do more in a quest than just gather items from a particular monster. There are just a few quests that do not involve killing monsters. A majority of the quests require you to slay monsters to get special items to give to someone. When killing monsters, you can get lots of weapons and armor, some of them having higher levels and special bonuses. You can grab loot buy pressing a hotkey (default is S), which I think is much more useful than a point and click method. Items can be traded with other players by opening up your own shop. You can also kill other players (PvP). You can go to a free-for-all player killing (divided into two teams by their nation), you could go to a special event (Battlegrounds) to win rare items, or you could kill an assigned person for an assigned bounty. When you are monster killing, you can set up parties with others to gain more experience and loot. You can also have a pet. Each pet can do either of two things: fighting beside you, or being mounted so you could travel faster. Pets have their own levels like you do, and can change form. However, the character and pet advancement can be slow, as you need a high level for each to progress. There might be some bugs and glitches in the game. I once found myself on a building after I clicked to move. I once did a quest where I had to answer questions and I got all of them wrong when they were certainly right (They fixed the glitch afterward; this is “The Lesson” quest). They once did a weekly maintenance and they “rolled back” my character to the time before my last log-out. Luckily, I didn’t lose much progress. Despite some improvements that could be made and some bugs and glitches, Hero Online is an outstanding, free MMORPG..
Graphics- 9
Hero Online has pretty good graphics. Most of everything looks good and detailed. The animations are the best of the graphics, especially the skills. However, some of the things in Hero Online look blocky and pixelly, such as characters and pets. The items (the icons, not the stuff your character is wearing or wielding) in the inventory menu look blurry also. The terrain is great, except for the mountains, which are just green.
Sound- 9
The sound is pretty good.
Value- 9
There is lots to do in this game, but you might spend most of your time grinding. There are many quests complete, many items to loot and buy, many skills to learn, real players to fight against, and even a better pet if you play long enough. Even though you may fight most of the time, the skills and pets lessen the monotony of fighting. You can have three characters per account, which means you can try out three classes.
Tilt- 9
This game is worth your time to download. Many of the elements of a good MMORPG are found here, and they play well, especially the combat system. This game emphasizes individual skill and glory in the hero your character is.