E3 2009: Dungeon Fighter Online impressions
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jun 4th 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: New titles, Free-to-play, Hands-on, Casual, Massively Hands-on, Massively Event Coverage
Not so old-school, however, are the game's MMO features: a persistent, shared world, character advancement, quests, and loot. These aren't features we'd have ever thought of putting together, but we can assure you that the resulting low-rez adventure is fast-paced and fun. Best of all? You won't need a pocket full of quarters to enjoy it.
DFO was initially described to us as, "everything we love about arcade games, but with the advantages of online interaction" which is a tempting notion, no doubt. Its inspiration comes from classic 2d side-scrollers with lots of chaotic action, and the music harkens back to old-school arcade, but with a more modern orchestration. The music will change as you battle your way through each area of the game. It's entirely possible to button mash your way through if you want, but mastering combos will be key to success.
DFO classes:
NPCs do all the standard stuff: give quests, sell skills and additionally are quite colorful. DFO's non-player characters are also designed to be fun and all have dialog. In fact, the English voice recording sessions for many of them begin next week. This colorful design philosophy translates to the levels as well, they're all very beautiful.
Overall, the controls are designed to be simple and thus fast, it's all about the action. You're able to play solo, but being an online game the advantage is with party play and PvP. As for what to expect for PvP, think Street Fighter or Mortal Combat games -- it's all about the duel.
The world is highly instanced -- all dungeons (four players max) are instanced. Towns and cities are open on the other hand. Every dungeon has four difficulty levels and the dungeons are modulated (i.e. Diablo, a little different each time you run them) At the end of a dungeon, players are ranked for their style/technicality and rewarded based on their given score. Rewards are random and are based more or less on the level of the dungeon. This works by the game letting you pick a card, your reward is whatever loot lies behind the chosen card. Additionally, loot does drop from defeated monsters.
You can have up to 12 characters on your account. The design team haven't decided what exactly will go in their item shop yet. Each character class has the same default look, but there are lots of outfits that you can customize your look with and nine costume slots total. As for guilds, since the game features a small party structure, guilds are very important for socialization.
Surprisingly, in China DFO is doing much better than World of Warcraft. Being an import, it's already playable in Korea, which means the content of the game is very much finished. Nexon's work is primarily on translation and localization. Nothing is known yet regarding release or details on the final feature set -- so keep an eye out for that news in the future.
DFO classes:
- Fighter: Hand to hand melee.
- Gunner: Obviously... lots of guns
- Mage: Classic magic
- Priest: Faith, healer and smiting
- Slayer: A demon has possessed his arm, which is where his powers come from
NPCs do all the standard stuff: give quests, sell skills and additionally are quite colorful. DFO's non-player characters are also designed to be fun and all have dialog. In fact, the English voice recording sessions for many of them begin next week. This colorful design philosophy translates to the levels as well, they're all very beautiful.
Overall, the controls are designed to be simple and thus fast, it's all about the action. You're able to play solo, but being an online game the advantage is with party play and PvP. As for what to expect for PvP, think Street Fighter or Mortal Combat games -- it's all about the duel.
The world is highly instanced -- all dungeons (four players max) are instanced. Towns and cities are open on the other hand. Every dungeon has four difficulty levels and the dungeons are modulated (i.e. Diablo, a little different each time you run them) At the end of a dungeon, players are ranked for their style/technicality and rewarded based on their given score. Rewards are random and are based more or less on the level of the dungeon. This works by the game letting you pick a card, your reward is whatever loot lies behind the chosen card. Additionally, loot does drop from defeated monsters.
You can have up to 12 characters on your account. The design team haven't decided what exactly will go in their item shop yet. Each character class has the same default look, but there are lots of outfits that you can customize your look with and nine costume slots total. As for guilds, since the game features a small party structure, guilds are very important for socialization.
Surprisingly, in China DFO is doing much better than World of Warcraft. Being an import, it's already playable in Korea, which means the content of the game is very much finished. Nexon's work is primarily on translation and localization. Nothing is known yet regarding release or details on the final feature set -- so keep an eye out for that news in the future.
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Massively is on the ground in Los Angeles this week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments. |
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Herb said on 8:29PM 6-04-2009
Looks like it could be fun.......still waiting on mabinogi 2 :[
Reply
Olicon said on 7:40PM 6-25-2009
Mabinogi 2 is in the making? That could be the winner for me.
champ_thompson99 said on 6:03PM 7-27-2009
dude they arent making a mabinogi 2, its a free mmorpg it will constantly update for new features.
cal;antus said on 9:40PM 6-04-2009
game looks sweet.
Reply
Ataraxy said on 10:10PM 6-04-2009
This game is just like dragonica online except based on youtube videos, not good as good.
Reply
Bill Haslag said on 2:14AM 6-05-2009
I've played this here in China (live here) and it can be pretty fun if taken in small doses. Not sure if anything will change when it crosses over or not.
I did enjoy the character classes. If you liked the visual style of Samurai Showdown, or that kind of anime-ish look, then you'll like the look of this. The Slayer is a very popular class here, as his demon possessed arm wields a very big sword and dishes out elemental attacks. The mage is a little pointy-witch hat wearing girl who does the usual magic thing. The Gunner is pretty much ripped from Vash the Stampede (not necessarily a bad thing) and does ranged attacks. The fighter is a slim woman that wears gloves (which I found surprising in a pretty patriarchal society), and the priest is a big buff "foreigner" type who initially wields a cross.
All the character classes can melee, although the mage is the worst at it. The attacks are very much in the vein of my favorite scrolling arcade-action games. I can't remember exactly, but I think there was a "normal" attack that if you hit the button a certain amount times you get a combo, and then the special attack button, in addition to special abilities.
Initially the classes aren't flexible appearance-wise; you can't choose gender or what to look like. The pay part of the game comes into play here. If you want to look different from the other players in the game, you can buy clothes, hair styles, faces, skin tones, everything, and there is a HUGE selection for each class.
The dungeons are instanced, yes. The public space is the town and depending on what exit you take from the town will determine which dungeons you have access to. The dungeons have multiple "rooms" you can explore. Each room is like a short level from Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, Golden Axe, etc. The object of each map is to kill the boss monster, after which loot is dropped and rolled for by party members.
All of this sounding familiar? It's pretty much a persistent version of Golden Axe, but with levels and a grind. Like I said, it's fun when played in doses, but not very fun to play for more than an hour or two and I wouldn't want to play this alone.
I think something that needs to be mentioned when judging a game like this is that a lot of Chinese MMOs are made with the internet cafe in mind. Personal computers are slowly becoming more prevalent, but for a large section of the gaming population, particularly college students (no room in a dorm room that sleeps six for a pc), internet cafes are where you go for your fix. If you're going to play a video game at a netcafe, you're going to want to accomplish something fast, or even a lot of things within in a decent amount of time because you're paying by the hour. It's not expensive, but I think that might be one big reason why EVE didn't do well here, but the Korean games, like Go-Kart Racer, that basketball game that I can't think of the name for, and now DFO are doing extremely well. This isn't to say that there aren't people that spend hours in an internet cafe playing WoW or DFO, but I feel that the majority of Chinese gamers aren't necessarily like that.
So, again, DFO is fun. In small doses.
Reply
whowhat26 said on 2:18AM 6-05-2009
Sorry, I should say that the Slayer's demon arm does the power stuff and he does end up having a very big sword as you progress through the game.
Reply
postman said on 9:22AM 6-05-2009
i might actually try this......i hate f2p but this just has too much nostalgia packed into the graphics for me to pass up
Reply
Suzaku said on 4:01PM 6-26-2009
One thing I think should be mentioned is how heavily DFO is inspired by Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara arcade game. A pretty original and groundbreaking game in its time, it combined sidescrolling beat'em up gameplay with RPG mechanics, and had branching story paths which determined which levels you went through. You could even use passwords to save your progression or take your character to other arcade machines.
I'd say this is definitely worth checking out for fans of 2D action games, beat'em ups, or fighters. Even if it is F2P.
Reply