Tales Of Free Realms
Free Realms, a free to play MMO from Sony Online Entertainment has recently seen release to the public. As an MMO is an open ended experience I have decided to write a diary style review, with observations of the world, its players and my overall experience. Hopefully it will bring more of an insight into the day to day gameplay of Free Realms and allow me to fit writing around by busy party lifestyle.
Day One
Just loaded up the site, looks very nifty and easy to navigate. Signed up for an account and have created my character. I was given the option of human or fairy, I chose human because I reckon fairies will get copious amounts gay jokes flung in their direction. I’m thinking ahead, that’s the key to success.
My character is called Balaamsafe but I had to pick a temporary name from some drop-down bars while Balaamsafe gets approved, I choose Oliver Charmingpants (guess I will have to deal with some homo hate after all).
OK, the client has been downloading in the background while I setup my character and I just jumped in. Pleasantly surprised to see it runs full screen, no in browser crap. WOW, it looks far better than I expected. I’m in a tutorial with some guy, he looks like he wants to take me to a gay bar, and I see a recurring theme here. The camera drags around with right click; left click interacts but also can be used to move. You can also use WASD or Arrows but playing the game mostly with the mouse frees up a tea drinking hand. I do a few training quests, chasing some goblins out of a farm with a charm on me so I look like a bad-ass monster is the highlight.
Day Two
The number of servers/world has doubled from 3 to 6. Polished off the tutorial, showed me how to fight and (worryingly) make soup through Bejewelled esque mini games, hope I won’t be doing much of that. There seems to be a peaceful or aggressive way to do most things, as to not get mistaken for a fairy, I murdered some goblins (with a cute rendition of Eye of The Tiger playing on the trainers radio). Weirdly, the game takes you out of the main world when you enter a PVE fight so it’s effectively an arena battle. I haven’t been playing with anybody yet so I have no idea how that will affect the social aspect, but my initial reaction is LAME.
Overall the game reminds me a bit of Guild Wars mixed with RuneScape. The landscape is beautiful and varied, one of my favourite things about the game so far.The UI is really friendly and taking on and managing quests isn’t a chore. Things like “quest tracks” (think breadcrumbs in Fable, a trail that you can follow to your destination and one click actions really help. It can fell pretty childish at times, it is aimed at a younger audience, but I’ve been cursed at enough and seen deep discussion suggesting that I’m not playing with a bunch of kids.
One other technical thing I have noted is that the game downloads content when you start a quest, mini-game and at loads of other points. It doesn’t disrupt the game but if you had a poor connection it may well slow you down 10 seconds or so every time you start or finish an event.
Day Three
Today in Free Realms was pretty eventful, I found my first dungeon and fought my way through it, levelling up to brawler level 2 in the process. The combat at the moment consists of using my standard sword attack, special leg sweep when it’s powered up, and healing when necessary. It’s pretty much just a balancing act of healing and draining the enemies’ health. It is also key to try to sneak around enemies, attacking them one at a time rather than in groups is the key to success. I expect the combat to become progressively more complicated as I learn more moves and have to remember which to uses against which enemies.
Day Four
Server numbers have increased again from 6 to 8 but they now feel noticeably empty. I decided to tour around the world a bit today, the environments really are the best part of this game. I did a bit more fighting and some more quests but they became pretty repetitive (hence my decision to go to a different location).The quests vary slightly in different locations, with different creatures and location specific tasks, but some more structured missions would be nice.There are also new mini-games in new locations which are nice, but there are only so many ways you can clone Bejewelled, Cooking Mama and Tetris.
It seems that you need to do the same fight repeatedly to gain levels and progress through the game, something you MMO people call grinding. Grinding sucks bum, I want a constant flow of new content.
The main attraction of Free Realms really is the world itself, beautifully rendered the quests seem designed to ferry you from one beautiful vista to the next.Unfortunately I feel like a tourist rather than a member of the world, I feel I’m only scratching the surface. More knowledge and guidance could make me feel a bit more included.
Day Five
I knew it, there’s so much more to Free Realms than I have been playing in my first few days. I continued my general exploration of free realms today, looking for new locations and activities and I hit the jackpot. Turns out there are tonnes of “jobs” that you can undertake and the only profession I have touched on is Brawler.
The jobs list consists of 15 jobs, with 5 reserved for members. The jobs include Card Duelist, Chef, Miner, Blacksmith, Postman, Medic, Kart Racer, Ninja, Brawler, Archer, Wizard, Warrior.
I tried out both Kart Racing modes today, one plays like Destruction Derby, the other like Mario Kart and they are both very fun. They are also entirely 8 player PVP so you are constantly included in the social aspect of the game. The key to victory in Destruction Derby mode is to use your boost wisely and ram opponents at full speed, there is also a hop button that allows you to jump over an opponents attack. The race mode is a lot like Mario Kart, but less balanced, so you know what to expect there. Overall both modes offer a great half hour or so distraction from your main questing that I could see myself comming back to numerous times, especialy with friends.
After discovering all of these other jobs I have started to see Free Realms differently, it’s not a quest heavy MMO, it’s a collection of minigames tied together by some compelling quests and a beautiful world.
Overall Roundup
Having played the game for more than a week now, and experimenting with over eight jobs, I can confidently say that Free Realms is the best free MMO that I have EVER played. In the past SOE made games like Star Wars:Galaxies and Everquest, games for people who love MMOs. With Free Realms they have stepped out of their comfort zone and tried to make a MMO for people who don’t play MMO’s. For that audience this is a great place to start.
The world SOE have created is so rich and varied that, although i’m not going to play it daily, I could see myself dipping in and out of Free Realms for the next year. Then of course, will come the PS3 version, and it will blow Home out of the water.
I originaly wrote this review for my video game site www.scrambledpixel.com, please check it out.
