Gamespot Score:n/a
My Score:7.5
(+)Pros: - Gorgeous anime-like graphics that fit the game very well, - Actually has an interesting lore and good story for a free to play MMORPG, - Flashy skill animations, impressive looking attacks and nasty looking bosses, - Great character designs and unique varying play styles for different characters, - Beautiful soundtrack, - Party questing is a blast.
(-)Cons: - Repeated visits to the same dungeons can make things pretty repetitive, - Takes awhile for the game scenery and pace to move on, - Story doesn't properly sync when using other characters that haven't been introduced in the story.
Gameplay time:-
So..."Rusty Hearts Reborn". It took me awhile to actually get into this game, due to my aspiring motto to not play any MMOs during the time that I actually decided to start on this game. If there was a term to describe "Rusty Hearts Reborn", it would be "anime-MMO", but when you think of anime theme MMO games, you think of stuff like "Fiesta", "Fly ff" and "Dragonica". Nope, "Rusty Hearts Reborn" isn't like that. Instead of the little cute chibi type characters this game some full blown character models that will completely please any player. If you want a more mature anime themed MMO, why not take a crack at "Rusty Hearts Reborn"?
MMOs have no story...is what I'd usually say. Surprisingly, this game actually has its own LEGITIMATE story! Yes, and I mean it. Unlike "Aion online" or "C9", which MADE efforts to make their story memorable, but failed, "Rusty Hearts"'s great story comes naturally through fully voiced cut scenes and energetic characters. The main character is Frantz, a vampire swordsman that travels with a young female witch known as Angela. Together they discover the town and decide to work together to find out more about how things came to be. There are a grand total of eight characters, but Frantz and Angela are the only ones introduced first, the rest come later in the story as the game progresses.
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| Oh hell yes, the combat is pretty flashy. |
So lets talk about my favorite part of the game first, its graphics. Anime themed MMOs usually don't impress me as their game graphics are usually so lame and cute, but in "Rusty Hearts Reborn", everything looks over the top sexy. The towns and environments not so, but the characters and monsters truly look good. Beautiful cel shaded graphics bring the game to life, and for a free MMO, this is definitely a steal. The second best thing is the fact that they actually created a good story. I thought of the possibilities before, but they could make "Rusty Hearts" into a full blown single player RPG! I'm sure it would be amazing!
"Reborn" is an expansion to the old "Rusty Hearts" (which I only got to level 3), and I guess there are some improvements here and there. Lets just take "Reborn" as my first true entry into the series. The game is an instance based MMO like "C9", but takes on a little more arcade side scrolling approach to how the dungeons are played. Its a little bit similar to another instance based MMO "Dungeon fighter online"(which has my country's IP banned, f**king Nexeon), but with some parts of a dungeon taking the traditional third person view.
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| Roselle is, unfortunately, is a pay to play character. |
As expected of a game with awesome anime-ish graphics, "Rusty Hearts Reborn" also has some beautiful skill animations. Be it Tude's evasive blows, Angela's enormous AOE magic that can instantly turn a group of enemies into stone, or firing a bullet through Natasha's magically enhanced crest symbol. All of these impressive looking attacks work together to make the game a complete visual flair when doing instances, especially when you take those flashy attacks and use them on a nasty looking boss, most of which look brutal. I never made it very far in terms of levels, but even some of the early bosses look great. Even better is that the game's soundtrack is pretty amazing, and hearing epic music while roaming the halls of an instance is always welcome. Oh and lets not forget skyping up with friends for a party quest, those are always good and hectic fun.
The game also have great character designs. As I said the game has a story, and these characters are so well made that you won't be forgetting them anytime soon. There are 8 playable characters, all of them look pretty unique and distinct on their own. My personal favorites are Frantz, Roselle, Natasha and Leila, in terms of character design. While some characters share the same combat styles, there are a total of 4 different styles to choose from. Frantz, Roselle and Leila use swords and axes. Angela and Edgar use unique weapons like glaives and scythes, while Meilin and Tude use primarly gauntlet type weapons. Natasha is the sole user of far ranged weapons, mostly guns (I am a Natasha player myself).
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| BAYUM! |
My gripes with this game are mostly the same as those in instance based MMOs. You will be visiting the same damn instances too often, and of course this will eventually lead up to repetition when you get to further and its harder to level up. It also takes awhile for the game to change scenery. Certain instances will make up an entire "area", and most of these instances in this "area" will love roughly the same. You will have to clear multiple instances to advance to the next "area" for a change in scenery, and well, that's not good. The final issue is that the story does not sync with the character you are using. This is understandable as the story is following Frantz and Angela, but it would have been way better if other characters would have their own story before they meet up with the group.
"Rusty Hearts Reborn" is fun, I won't doubt it. I'm very much someone who plays single player games so MMOs usually die out fast for me when I have something much more fun to play. If you're a fan of anime-MMOs, "Rusty Hearts Reborn" is worth checking out, especially since the graphics are so much better than those cutesy anime-MMOs. The lack of character customization MAY sting, but its understandable once you see how much effort they put into the character designs. Finally an MMO with a legitimate story! Lets see how other future MMOs take this into account.
Happy gaming!
