Recent reviews by Reyak

The amount of immersion and adventure I get from playing this has honestly been unparalleled.
HUD-less DD2 has quickly become one of my favorite single player gaming experiences of all time.

The game got it's final free title update a few months ago (Fatalis). I beat him and made his armor set and weapons a few months back, and have been finished with the game since then.

I have my gripes with the balancing of some mechanics that were introduced in this game that I feel ultimately made the player a lot stronger (too much?) than in previous titles:

- The clutch claw (introduced in Iceborne). It allowed for players to grapple onto monsters and wound them for additional damage. Wounding body parts like this, however, became a very high maintenance chore for me personally in the later game.

- The various mantles you could equip mid-fight (introduced in World). I felt like they just added another layer of maintenance upkeep that made the player way too strong. (Some even offered temporary invincibility)

- The unskippable cutscenes. They were terrible for playing through story quests together with friends.

And this last gripe of mine isn't a mechanical one, but:

- How it lost the goofy charm of the original games. They attempted to go all in on a super serious AAA story with World, but it just doesn't hit the same notes for me. Not to mention how a lot of the weapon designs ended up watered down as a consequence of this.

If you're interested in an online action game with the depth of a fighting game, you don't need to look any further.
Every weapon plays like a different game entirely. And its really satisfying learning to use them and succeeding against monsters you weren't able to best before.

Layer on top of that craftable armor sets that you can mix and match for skill effects, along with online coop shenanigans, and you've got yourself a great video game.

My GOAT

Even if this game doesn't seem up your alley, you'll probably love it.

For those confused, the Global version of DFO has been out for a little over a year now. It was only recently that the game was added to steam, hence the swamping of reviews with deceivingly low playtimes.

The game was originally published in the west by Nexon America, who blamed the game’s playstyle and outdated graphics for its lack of popularity. They let the original localized version of the game die a slow and horrible death, with almost of year of absolutely no content, and little to no events.

Fast-forward to 2015 and the developers themselves, Neople, decide on a whim to try publishing a game on their own for the first time. As you could probably expect, there were rocky beginnings, but solid communication between the developers and the game’s loyal player base helped the game grow more than ever.

There are a couple aspects I’d like to touch upon on my review, and I apologize in advance if this turns out being longer than I expected. I’ve been around DFO, and in and out of its respective foreign versions for around 7 years now. My first contact with the game being with the Japanese version’s Open Beta in 2008. I saw screenshots of the game on a website called OnRPG.com felt I needed to try it right away. The 2D-Sprite/Arcade-esque design and flashy skills looked so damn cool to me. Which brings me into my first review point:

Graphics:

If you’re a fan of 2D sprite-based graphics, I honestly think the screenshots you’ll find on the steam page will speak for themselves. The game’s been in development for over 10 years now, and now with proper widescreen support, the game looks (to me) as sick as ever. Along with the recently added widescreen support is as an in-game texture up-scaler option, which basically follows suit with many GBA/etc emulators in sharping out pixelated edged to create crisp, high resolution sprites. Needess to say, it looks incredible on 1440P monitors and above. (Said option can be turned off and on at will in the options menu).

The character and world design pretty much hit a soft spot with me as well. I think Neople’s most recent marketing attempts really try to push the anime-y aspects of said art direction, but I don’t really think that’s its main appeal. Everything from NPC character design to even the loading pages for each area are vivid, and more than anything, unique (Look up artist Paristo). Before you realize it, you’ll lose yourself in the world and its lore.

Story:

Not so strong. I mentioned in the previous section that the world is engaging, which it is. But it’d be a lie to say that storytelling is the game’s strong point. Very recently Neople introducted the Scenario quest system, where basically you steamroll through dungeons, watching cutscenes and reading NPC dialogue. It’s interesting for me, to some extent, but more often than not you’ll probably find yourself mashing space to clear dungeons and spend your fatigue faster.

Gameplay

DFO, at its core, is a side-scrolling beat-em-up reminiscent of old classics like Streets of Rage and Final Fight. Take that, and add in keyboard-based play, fast/stylish combat, and countless skills. That being said, it’s still a “Korean” MMO in the sense that progression = grind, normally in the form of daily quests, but the core gameplay is so fun and satisfying that you won’t feel it matters.

There is a large variety of classes. I think like 44 in total sub-classes. Each basically plays completely differently (even the male-female counter parts). So there’s enough diversity to keep you engaged for a very long period of time. I actually think the game encourages having many characters, as you start with a whopping like 20-something character slots, and fatigue limitations are per character.

There is a fatigue system, which resets daily. If you’re willing to accept that fact and try the game out, you’ll understand that it’s not really limiting at all. There are fatigue potions basically given out through so many outlets like weekly events events and alchemy that you don’t actually feel limited at all. Come end-game, you’ll actually feel like having to finish all your fatigue is more of a hassle because you want to spend time working on so many different characters.

PvP (no fatigue necessary) is sadly a dead horse for the most part. It’s really freaking fun but due to the game’s netcode, it has pretty much been abandoned by majority of the playerbase. (It’s still going on strong abroad through, youtube search “Action Tournament” and “DFO F1”).

Connectivity:

DFO’s netcode is based on P2P. Meaning that there is no server related connectivity other than that of logging in, and doing stuff like inventory management. The farther you are with your party mates, the more you will lag. Given that this is the global version of the game, you can imagine this being a pretty big issue. That being said, I’ve never really had too much problems personally in my day-to-day gameplay connection-wise. If you play with the same people, and no one has like, cardboard box internet, you’d be fine.

Music:

Look up “Chasing the Moonlight” or “Final Pursuit BGM” on youtube. If either of those two click for you, you’re in the right place.

Community:

As with most MMO communities there are ups-and-downs. I think for DFO’s case in particular, people can become really toxic and quick to snap because they love the game, and are so close to it so often. In particular if Neople makes a certain decision or announces X coming out next month instead of Y, there will always be people that flip out. Not to mention the sea of misinformation around the web sprouting from inexperienced players or people that assume they know how the foreign versions work.

With all of that aside, however, the developer Neople is very open with the community, has bi-weekly livestreams on twitch, and basically always acknowledge the community’s concerns and complaints very quickly. Game-community wise DFONexus.com and the DFO sub-reddit are the main online hubs for information and message board’ing. I think if you’re a new player, or are just curious to find out more about specific classics, systems or even future patches, it’d be a good idea to hit up either of those two sites. Basically everyone around loves the game, and will answer your questions (A lot of jokers around too, of course).

Guilds will be the reason you stay for sure. There’s a lot of guild specific content, and etc. I won’t go into detail since I’m sure you’re familiar with most of it, as most MMO players probably are. I can’t really speak for other guilds, but I recruit new players into mine regularly and level new characters together and stuff. Since most of my to-do list is daily-gated, I find myself spending a lot of time just hanging around or chatting with friends/guildies in town.

Cash Shop:

Most of anything you can get from the cash shop is either given away through regular events or purchasable with in-game gold. There are hundreds of avatars you can use to dress up your character, and the package deals that are offered at all times can be bought off the auction house. That paired with dyes, and you can really go crazy dressing up your character for hours.

One irk of mine, though, is that avatars, once purchased/opened, are untradeable. This is something specific for the global version of the game, and that I think is pretty garbage, but know it makes sense from a business standpoint.

But yeah, I wrote so much, but I’m pretty sure no one will read this in the sea of reviews. Just know if there’s one guy out there that can write this much for no reason, this is probably a game worth trying out.