by Adam Williams, Onrpg writer
Eudemons is a free to play 2D MMO produced by TQ Digital. Its design is very different than I am used to from my experience playing other MMOs and, while it has some flaws, it also has several good points.
Gameplay
When you first begin EuDemons, after installing and registering, you will notice that there is a deceptively small amount of customization. There are only three different job classes: Warrior, Mage, and Paladin, with the Paladin being a hybrid combination of Warrior and Mage. The customization in Eudemons comes from the raising and training of something called EuDemons, which are essentially similar to pets in more familiar games. There are forty different types of EuDemon that you can select and customize, with each type having its own strengths and weaknesses. They will fight alongside you and combine with you to add their attack and defense to yours. Some can even be mounted and rode around on.
You begin with two basic Eudemons. Occasionally they will drop an egg that you take to a Warehouse to hatch. This will take twelve real life hours and, once hatched, can be summonned anywhere. You can normally have up to two Eudemons summoned, rising to three upon completing the relevant quest. When you go out into the world to kill monsters for experience, your EuDemons will assist you and level up with you. You can also teach them spells or abilities to better assist you. They can be fed with crystals or experience balls (expballs) to level them up faster.
This sounds confusing at first, but to make it easier TQ Digital have videos on their website actually showing how everything would look in the game if the player was doing it, rather than just dry, text help. This is a very nice touch and made it much easier, for me at least, to understand the controls and game interface.
To further assist with learning the game and leveling up, they have a very interesting Mentor system which I learned only a little about. It’s too complex to fully understand without having a chance to participate in it, but overall it sounds very interesting. You are signed up with a higher level player as a mentor. This person can have up to five apprentices while they are a low level mentor, and up to ten as a higher level mentor. The mentor goes out and assists the apprentice in gaining experience, receiving a chunk of the apprentice’s experience themselves. When you have several apprentices that you’re assisting, the experience bonus adds up fast. This becomes more pronounced if you’re a good mentor and your apprentice continues to play, levelling up, and becoming a mentor him/herself. The apprentices that your apprentices pick up also contribute experience to you, making it very advantageous to go out and assist people.
Graphics
Eudemons’ graphics are pretty average for a 2D MMO. Overall they’re very smooth and not choppy at all, unless you’re experiencing the fairly common server lag that has been a problem recently. EuDemons also makes good use of small, detailed pictures to give depth to the NPCs and your personal EuDemons. Because of the game’s 2D nature, you can’t zoom around or get better angles on them, so instead you can just look at the smaller picture.
PVP
The real meat of Eudemons is in its PVP system. Outside of the beginner cities, once you reach level thirty-five, there are no safe zones and anyone can attack you, looting your money and your gear. This can actually cause problems when bored, high level players sit in these early zones killing the new players for their money, making it difficult for some of them to advance. It causes a situation where low level players are forced to find a good mentor and join one of the legions (EuDemons’ guilds) for protection. The legions lose points every time you’re PKed, and gain points when you PK people, making it advantageous for them to assist you in leveling as fast as possible. The only really flawed portion of this system is that the legions can purchase these points with gold, and the only way to get gold in the amounts needed to be a top tier legion is to purchase it from TQ Digital. This becomes an enormous turn-off for people who want to be competitive, but don’t want to do it through their credit card.
Summary
Eudemons is a very interesting game with much to offer any person who enjoys large amounts of in-game customization and enormous amounts of cut-throat PK. The mentor and legion systems make it easy for new players to find people to assist them, whilst also providing a kind of safety net to prevent them from getting overwhelmed. If you’re the kind of player who doesn’t enjoy interacting with other players and prefers to be a loner, then this really isn’t the game for you because you will get ganked over and over and over again as you try to level up, with everything you own being looted and taken to be sold.
Pros
– Solid FAQ setup.
– System designed to help new players get acquainted with other players.
– Huge customization available through personal Eudemons.
Cons
– Difficult to play without a legion.
– Impossible to play at all if you don’t enjoy PK.