Graphics 8.5/10:

The graphics were very good indeed, if you take into consideration that this IS a Flash game, and that it is only a 40 megabyte game. The graphics were very modern and doesn’t resemble something from the 1990’s. They were cute, and when too many people walked into a map, they turned into funny blob-like creatures reflecting your class. The animations for Professions were very well done, and the enviromental graphics were tuned. There were minor text issues, like the K in Talk was a bit cut off at the top and things like that.

Overall, I enjoyed the graphics and found them to be funny and enjoyable to look at.
Note: Funny animations appear when

-Tree pops back up
-Monsters Die

Gameplay: 6/10

Gameplay is where this little game did less than planned. The interaction with your enviroment was so realistic that you have to wait for more trees to pop up before you get to cut em, mineral veins have to come back ‘fore you mine ’em, etc. The professions are really fun to do aside from constantly killing monsters on your way, hopping around the globe finding ingredients to gather, cut, and the like, although getting the Professions themselves are not as easy as you think, in fact I think that’s the reason I lowered the score from a 7-6, there are almost NO indications on the map to where a certain major location is, you can see the basic icons on the map, but there is no legend, your wandering around for an hour wondering where the heck that guy who wanted you to go around killing hundreds of monsters, is.

Despite the Hacking and Slashing of the game, the battles themselves are fun if you have the time to spare it. PvP Battles is like going in an Instance if you’ve played WoW. You need alot of time to do them, especillay in Team PvP (Dear God). I swear, after 20 minutes of Team PvP, we were still at Full HP…but I was the only one dead (Stupid Healer). The game does require alot of smarts to plan it out. But the classes are overpowered while the Healer is stuck being the most underpowered class in existence.

Straying from the Combat, you can buy houses or spots to meet up in, you can create guilds, and other things. These are neat attributes to make gaming fun.

Music & Sounds: 8/10

Well, mainly being in Amakna and the noob place, I found the music to be good to listen to while fighting, travelling, etc. It was a foresty-melodish-upbeat kind of music, but it got repetetive after hour 8 at which point I shut off all means of it playing that horrible repetetive tune (The tune on no repeat is probably about 5 minutes..or longer I forgot) and just turned on some Sweatshop Union.

The sound effects themselves are well done, humourous at times, realistic effects and the sort, they add to the realism of the game and they don’t leave the game to be dull. Good sound effects.

DOFUS passes with great colours in Music and Sound.

Conclusion:

This is about it I can think of for DOFUS. To sum it up; You’ll first want to have a love of Tactical MMORPGs, have lot’s of time if you want to devote yourself to PvP, and enjoy slaughtering monsters. I like this game for it’s fun points at times. The classes are great fun in PvE.
You should at least try it once.

A game in beta testing is usually small. A game in beta testing usually has a couple of towns, a few monsters to fight, and a couple of weapons to get. Free World is in beta testing, but is neither if these. For a game in beta, FW is amazing. It has everything a reliesed mmo has. Pets? got it. Housing? got it. Full movement system? got it.

Graphics wise, this game is ok. They are pretty good, comparable to late Dreamcast graphics. It has some nice little effects too, like when a storm is blowing up, you look up into the trees, and you see the leaves rustle. Although the actual rain drops are kinda cheesy, it has cool fog effects and darkness effects. Another advantage of FW is the night and day system. In the tutorial, you get a lantern, verry useful in the nighttime. Char models are pretty good. The best part about the graphics though is that they dont take much. I have a dial-up connection and i can run all of the animations smoothly without a single bit of lag.

The sound in FW is mediocer. Whenever you attack, you get an odd little “Ungh!” sound. You kinda squat a little, too. There isnt any voice acting, and the only really good thing in the sounds is the weather effects and score. At night you hear happy little cricets, chirrping their heads off, and the wind sounds are really loud and pronounced. I loved the rustling leaf sound. The score is nice, and it serves its purpose for background music.

Gameplay was where FW really shines. It has a nice set of skills, although the system is confusing. I still havent figured it out. The controls may take a little getting used to, but they work, and they work perfectly. This game is really open ended, and you can lvl up without fighting. Although there are only like 20 people that play it (one reason im writing this is to raise the hype), they are all friendly. Someone is always ready to play a good game of hide and seek in one of the maze like towns (if you have certain armor, you really blend in with the enviroments. I was playing Hide and Seek once, and a guy hid in a bookshelf. never found him.). The npc’s are cleverly named, and give you the occaisonal quest. Pets are a great conveniance, because you can ride them on that 30 minute hike youve been neglecting. The charecter costomization is ok, but it needs to explain the skills a little better. The tutorial is a nice learning experience, where you get to know the look and feel of FW. The archery range was awesome, so i just wasted like an hour screwing around (: -P.

The battle system was wayy to hack-and-slashy to me. I perfer the battle style of, say, Guild Wars, or WoW. One of the major drawbacks of FW comes to PvP. There is no PvP. None. Zip. Natta.

So, overall, if your intellegent enough to figure out how FW works, its worth it.

~~SLJ x