Fairyland Online

Previewed by Tuan Vo
May 2005

Developer: CiB Net Station Website: Click Here Publisher: CiB Net Station Platform(s): PC Genre: MMORPG ESRB Rating: Not yet rated

Went to E3 and saw a game that I just had to review about. One in particular comes from Hong Kong Pavilion. Apparently they had a MMORPG that seems to blend in elements form Pokemon, Final Fantasy, and Super Mario RPG (you know the one for the SNES). That game being Fairyland.

The premise of the game is that there is a continent named Mysteria which is inhabited by three races, humans, elves, and dwarves. The continent was built on the foundations of fairy tales that was passed from one generation to another. But as time passes, children who would listen to these fairy tales were engulfed in games and comic books. Soon children no longer cared for the fairy tales causing mass panic to happen in the land of Mysteria . People were in chaos in what to do, until the wise one, opened the doors of Mysteria allowing free passage and claimed, “Let all who doubt our existence come and see us for themselves.” From then on anything from our imagination was allowed passage to Fairyland.

Okay, first reaction to this game was, “Damn, what a cute-looking type of RPG. I think I am going to hate it.” Well looks can be deceiving. Granted this game's plot is pretty shallow. And it is pretty much of a level grinding game, but it did have it upside in the sense that there are three main classes with each having 3 sub-classes to it. So each class has it up and down. And one class is no overly powerful then another, this is great for challenging other players. Also I love the trade on this game. You could be a miner, and fisherman, sewer, crafter, or a harvester. I recall times where I would buy rods, go to a lake and just fish. Leave for classes only to come back with my character have a bag full of fishes. Also in the game you are allowed pets that can even fight for you, and if done correctly, your pet can even fuse with you weapon or armor allowing you to have elemental abilities.

Concept: 8/10 : What can I say? A continent made up of fairy tales. Yeah, it is very original.

Graphics: 7/10 : I say that the graphics are nice. The only problem is that it seems some of the buildings, trees, and rocks look repetitive. Also the characters creation engine is practically non existence. But other than that, I really don't see much flaw in the graphics.

Sound: 6/10 : This is where the game suffers the most. There is some originality here, but if you listen closely enough you can actually guess that some of the sounds comes from other games. Maybe the creators decided to sample from other games thinking they could get away with it, who knows.

Battle System: 6/10 :Similar to that if you played the SNES Mario RPG in the sense that it is turned based. Only problem I foresee is that if you are partied with another person and that person happens to not be at the computer when a battle starts. Then you be waiting for a very, very long time.

Replay(Evo Factor): 7/10 :The game was good, but it didn't seem to entice me too much, seems more like a game for the casual gamer rather than something to really commit to.