By Danny "Ralsu" Gourley

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Love them or hate
them, the graphics  in Fiesta
Online
use cel-shading and bright colors.

Graphics

Fiesta Online
uses colorful cel-shaded graphics that are likely aimed at the younger
audience. I actually like them and think many people who play style="font-style: italic;">World of Warcraft
will feel at home with them. Players who prefer more realistic graphics
will tend to dismiss the graphics in style="font-style: italic;">Fiesta Online as
cartoonish or childish.



Damage numbers splash above enemies in starburst callouts, spells and
attacks have colorful graphics, and the character models have fluid
animation. Because of the graphical style used, the game does not have
a lot of trouble rendering environments. Players can see to the cartoon
horizon in any directions. Some trees and buildings may draw in as
players get near enough to see them, though.



User Interface and
Controls


The user interface in Fiesta
Online
is pretty clean and straightforward. Players can
activate up to 3 hotbars for skills that correspond to the 1 through =
keys. The second and third hotbars use either the shift or control key
plus 1 through =. The hotbars also can be moved between horizontal and
vertical positions.



Selected monsters and non-player characters are highlighted in a ring.
I was unable to find any part of the interface that told me the level
of my opponent or whether or not it was aggressive. Trial and error
solved the riddles every time.



Players can click to move around, but the game supports WASD movement
as well. One very frustrating thing was that opening the chat dialog
box makes it impossible to move. In the heat of a close battle when you
need to give orders, this can be a lethal control scheme.



Leveling

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Monsters in style="font-style: italic;">Fiesta Online look
like they escaped from a Nintendo game.

The Mage can blast to level 10 in just a few short hours. His spells do
massive damage compared to the melee abilities of the other three
classes in the early going. Kiting is pretty easy in the beginning,
too,
because so few monsters are aggressive. The starter quests keep players
with something in their journals for those crucial beginner levels. As
a player levels, he can visit a skills trainer to purchase upgrades to
existing skills or to get new skills.



The Archer is a little tougher to get to level 10, as his attacks are
just not enough to finish an opponent before close range combat begins.
Te Cleric has the benefit of heals to make leveling easy in the
beginning, but his melee damage dwindles with levels. I did not test a
warrior.



After level 10, the curve steepens a fair bit. Monsters are now tough
enough that solo play requires frequent rest. Quests pit players
against swarms of monsters that are too tough to face alone.



Sadly,
groups can be a little hard to find. My wife and I had a level 15
archer ask to join us when were only level 11. He said he couldn't find
any other groups to play with.



Finally, if it is any indication
of how tough the grind is, the game uses system announcements to alert
everyone logged in when a player reaches level 20. That tells me that
it gets really hard to gain a level at some point in the teens. The
grind started to get to me by level 14.



Parting Thoughts

Fiesta Online
serves as a
great introductory MMOG. It's free-to-play, so your only investment is
time. OutSpark doesn't bombard players with advertisements for their
online mall, either. The archetypal classes teach budding players the
roles they'll be expected to fill in other games. Early quests do a
good job of teaching the fundamentals of the genre. Even the gold
spammers in town serve to teach young players about using the ignore
function, an important skill for future gaming. Adults can enjoy Fiesta
Online, too, if they bring a group with them Finding a pick up group
can be brutal and risky.




To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Fiesta Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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