Recent reviews by ★AQUA

I am Kiera563 of Alexina, and I endorse this game!

I love Mabinogi: it's a fun MMO that has kept my attention for years. This is no small feat, because I have major attention deficit and MMOs generally do not hold my attention long.

You explore the land of Erinn as one of three races: Humans, Elves, or Giants (and yes, Giants really are more than twice the other races' sizes).

What is unique about this game is the leveling, aging and rebirth system: your character can be from 10 to 17 years of age to start with, and every week, he or she will grow age a year. This provides a small boost in stats, but more importantly, once you reach Age 20, you can Rebirth. Rebirthing allows you to reset your level to level 1, and your age to 10-17. Sounds pointless, right? Well, though you lose the stats you got from leveling, each level-up earns you 1 AP (ability point), and you keep all AP and skill ranks when you rebirth.

AP is used to rank up Skills, whether they be combat skills like Combat Mastery, Ranged Attack, or Defense (to name a few of many), life skills like blacksmithing and tailoring, magic skills like Icebolt and Healing, or any of the many other types of skills: the highly-defensive Alchemy skills, the wide-area, dual-attacking Puppetry skills, the buff-providing Bard skills, the massively powerful single-target Fighter skills, and my personal favorite, the lightning-quick, highly offensive, wide-area Gunslinger skills. A higher-ranked skill will be more effective, and will also permanently boost your stats.

This means a veteran player who is currently at level 1 but has rebirthed many times before could easily be stronger than a newbie who managed to reach level 50 for the first time. So, the best way to size up somebody is their skill ranks and stats, not their level.

There are also extremely powerful Transformation skills, and they come in two flavors: Race-specific and Demigod.
Race-specific transformations provide an impressive buff to all stats as well as resistance to certain forms of damage, and most allow you to use a unique skill. Demigod provides regeneration, increased movement speed, and the ability to fire off some of the most powerful attacks in the game. They're really cool looking, and once you get them, you have a couple highly effective trump cards up your sleeve to pull out for boss fights. If you're really desperate and/or going for overkill, you can use both at once!

Another unique aspect of Mabinogi is the ability to play music. You program a song onto an item called a Score Scroll (or copy paste it from the Internet...), and equip the scroll with an instrument, and voila, you can play MIDI-like tunes to your heart's content. (Until the scroll breaks, that is, but you can always make another.) Yes, hearing those tunes from your favorite games, like Mario and Zelda, echoing from the town square is really cool.

This game has a massive amount of content, so if you're just starting to play, you definitely won't get bored, especially if you play with friends. Mabi is a highly social MMO, and is at its best if you are screwing around with your buddies. Of course, there's plenty of room for serious play, because the enemies can get brutal in dungeons like Peaca. Mabinogi used to be much harder than it is now, but its original difficulty still shows at times, especially in early dungeons and story quests at low levels. But it's never unfair, and having a full party of friends is always enough to even the odds. *fondly remembers newbie bum rushes of Rabbie*
Mabinogi does have its flaws, and Nexon, its developer/publisher, has dropped the ball many times before. (Nexon is legendary for its screwups, though in recent times, they seem to be doing a lot better.)
However, I highly recommend this game if you're looking to get into a new MMO. And I'd be more than happy to show you the ropes if you add Kiera563 on Alexina.