I've wanted to do a review column around here for a long time. As most if not all of you know, I'm a rather opinionated person and I'm always trying different passtimes and other things. It just took me the right kick in the rear to finally make this thread, and that kick is named Mabinogi. I'm sure you've heard of it at the very least, the numerous banner ads featuring the busty young lady we've had floating around here for it lately have been hard to miss.

*sighs and shakes head* Vn may be surprised to hear this after my last conversation with him, but this review is going to be rather negative. My early confusion and hope have parted and I've done my research, and I'm displeased. My experience with the game is short, and some may doubt my word for that, but it's only proof that it doesn't take more than a fews hours of playing this game to realize its flaws.

First and foremost, Mabinogi is not truly a free game. I complained in the past about how Flyff has made cash shop use nigh-mandatory, well, that doesn't compare to Mabinogi.

Want to advance through the story after the initial scene? Well, that's gonna cost you. Care to see more of the admittedly attractive young miss Nao (the girl from the ads, and indeed, most of the promotional materials)? Fork over the funds. Want to raise that important skill so your character will be competent? Unless you budget your AP wisely, that's going to require an expensive rebirth. Plan to get around the skill limits by making a few characters and having them specialize in different ways? Yeah... unless you multi-account, you'll have to pay to have more than one character... and if you delete a character, you don't get the slot back for free unless that was your last/only character.

The battle system is intriguing on the surface, with a rock, paper, scissors-like dynamic being created by normal attacks, the defense skill and the smash skill. The problem is though, that instead of equipping more difficult enemies with AIs to apply those and other skills in strategic ways, they just gave the big guys a lot of attack power, a lot. In some cases far more than the maximum attainable HP.

Technically speaking, a brand new character, with a very skilled player, could walk up to the toughest boss in the game, and as long as they had defense and smash, they would have a chance. In practice though, this is actually a good way for top level players to lose all their equipment.

Leveling is easy, but meaningless, I got to level 8 with a defective touch pad with barely the faintest idea what I was doing.

Stat building through food is the typical way to get strong without spending real money, but the effects food can have on your already terribly dressed character's appearance is often grotesque. Keeping that cheese, just don't take off your skirt or everyone will see your fat fat legs. On the plus side, berries are both useful and slimming, as long as you're not going for strength.

I have yet to try creating anything, mostly because I have to budget all my skill points toward combat skills, but everything I read on the subject, even from the most zealous of supporters portrays it as a crapshoot, an expensive, time-consuming crapshoot. The music composition and playing system looks amazing... but again, budget.

Oh, if you've ever played an MMO game and been annoyed by bots standing in the middle of the starting town, spamming about their scam websites supposedly selling in-game items and powerlevels for real money, get ready to be annoyed. The place is thick with them. In a game like Flyff, which I miss more and more as I look at the other games out there, the slightest mention of one of those pains in the rear end gets a GM down there in no time. In Mabinogi, in-game moderation is virtually nonexistant. You can't see you own words in the log for all the constant blather of low prices and fast delivery in the mid of Tir Chonail. I was actually scared to go into town and shop because of them. SCARED!

There are other things I could discuss, but there's a limit to how much negativity I can stand to put in one post, so I'll stop here

So, in summary, Mabinogi, great idea, terrible execution.