Mixing side-scrolling fighting action with RPG elements seems like it should go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so the biggest surprise about Dungeon Fighter Online is that no one else thought of it first. The game is still in the middle of its open beta, but Nexon's most recent offering gave us a small preview of some of the dungeons to come in the game as well as a number of screenshots of them in play.

Each of the dungeons in question are accessed from a larger hub area, allowing you to whisk yourself promptly off to a specific dungeon, each with its own enemies (and presumably different rewards). The central area Grand Flores, for instance, leads to Mirkwood Frost and Blazing Gaqarak, with the former being a rime-coated expanse of woods and the latter an eternal forest fire. The Sky Tower leads to the Vestibule of Darkness, full of light-dousing goblins and enchanted armor, and the Golem Tower, in which you fight a large number of... well, okay, that one kind of makes it obvious. (It's not kittens.) The Temple of Apostasy leads to the GBL Arad Branch, a library-themed dungeon in which hordes of librarians attempt to surround you with magic and the rage of a thousand cracked book bindings.

Last but not least, Noire Ferra includes among its cavernous reaches the Spider's Lair, sure to be a top vacation spot for arachnophobes everywhere. Take a look at our gallery of shots, and if it gets you interested in Dungeon Fighter Online, let's not forget that the game is currently in open beta.

The team over at Nexon has given us a look at the Mage class from their new 2D dungeon crawling brawler, Dungeon Fighter Online, and boy does she pack a punch!

Hard hitting magical spells define this class, of course, but that's not all she can accomplish. The class also has some monster controlling abilities, like gravity wells and knockbacks, in addition to their elemental area of effect spells. If that wasn't enough, the mage can also summon elemental pets, making her the "stand back and let something else beat it" class of the game.

Of course, you shouldn't take our word on this alone. We have this fancy exclusive video of the mage exploding people! Hit the continue reading, and let your eyes absorb all of the tasty monster destruction.

We reported back in August that Nexon America had begun the third Quarter of 2009 with a very solid July; their revenue for the month grew 35% over the numbers for July 2008. Now that Q3 is over, they are happily touting some additional (and still impressive) figures. August 2009 beat out last year's August revenues by 32%, and September hit a lofty 44% growth in revenues compared to the same time in 2008. Overall, Nexon America's third quarter revenue grew 36% compared to Q3 2008.

Nexon America's CEO David Kim pointed out that this success comes without the bump that releasing a new game often brings: "Increasing our revenues without having added any new games to the company's portfolio for more than a year tells me that we are on the right track. Dungeon Fighter Online is just ramping up, so no revenues generated by that game are reflected in the outstanding third quarter we've had.

Dungeon Fighter Online is still in open beta, but an item mall has just been launched for the game. We can only imagine that Nexon's growth will continue when these revenues begin to show up on future financial reports.

Dungeon Fighter Online hits open beta today, so anyone wondering whether or not they'll like the game can give it a shot. If you need a little more encouragement than that, we can tell you that the game feels like a cross between classics like Golden Axe and Diablo with an MMO bent for good measure. You can even hook up an Xbox 360 wired controller to your PC if you'd rather not use a keyboard.

Sure, it's a free-to-play game and that brings certain negative assumptions to some peoples' minds, but we think the juice is worth the squeeze. Fruits never hurt anybody, unless you're smashing a lemon into your face, and then you're just asking for it anyhow.

For those in the audience looking forward to Dungeon Fighter Online, you may wish to know that the upcoming Nexon game has launched their own website, along with a guide to the game and a new initiative called "DFO Corps."

DFO Corps will consist of a handful of fans of the game writing about issues and news in the game via the official website, letting the community control what they want to hear about the game. The initiative seems to be very close to EVE Online's Interstellar Correspondents project, where players volunteer time to write up brief news stories about their sections of the galaxy for the rest of the EVE community.

Dungeon Fighter Online has also moved into a "early access" beta, where any player may sign up and retrieve a key from 1up.com or Gamespot.com. If you're interested in trying the game out, full instructions can be found here.

Nexon America is coming to the Penny Arcade Expo this year, and they've released two very cool new Dungeon Fighter Online and Dragon Nest gameplay videos. Now, we were already curiously interested in Dungeon Fighter Online before, but after seeing this video we're now officially excited to try the game out at PAX.

Then you've got this Dragon Nest gameplay video, which really caught our attention when we watched it. This game has seemingly come from left field with combat that looks as though it were ripped straight out of a console action RPG. If you're into these games at all, it should be good times soon enough when they officially release in North America -- DFO sometime soon and DN next year.

Click and ogle the videos after the break.

Not going to be at Comic-Con to see the Dungeon Fighter Online preview that will be on show? Fear not, as Nexon has provided us with a new trailer for the game that gives a short introduction to its story and its five classes, as well as showing a tiny bit of gameplay at the end -- it's pretty much the perfect way to get acquainted with the game if you haven't looked into it yet.

Head past the break to meet the Slayer, the Fighter, the Gunner, the Mage, and the Priest (each with their own incredibly cheesy catch phrase), all while getting worked up listening to the adrenaline-filled arcade-style tune pumping in the background.