by Jeff Francis on Oct 24, 2011
Eastern games continue to enter the North American market and Dragon
Nest is one of the latest, not to mention probably one of the more
entertaining, of this breed. This fantasy MMORPG focuses on a great
combat system married with an anime-cute visual style. Dragon
Nest was
developed by Eyedentity Games and published by Nexon and is
free-to-play. So if you want to look adorable, but be able to kick much
monster ass, then read on!
The design of the game is your typical hub style MMO. You have several
quest hubs (towns) from which you can enter various dungeons that are
instanced. You clear a dungeon by killing all the monsters found
therein, and, at the end, you fight a boss monster. Upon completion,
you get to choose a random chest for extra loot. There are multiple
difficulty settings for each dungeon, which results in better loot and
more experience the more difficult the setting.
Combat is the central feature to Dragon
Nest and it
is a damn good system.
It’s flexible, dynamic, and loads of fun. There is no
targeting in Dragon Nest.
You use your crosshairs to aim your attacks,
so you really have total control of your avatar. To dodge, you hit the
same direction key twice. You use your two mouse buttons for your base
attacks and you use the number keys for combo attacks. The left
mouse button is your normal attack whilst the right mouse button is
your special attack. The special attacks vary depending upon the
situation and the skills you learn as you level. As a warrior, my base
special attack is a kick. Later on, I can gain a new special attack
where I do a normal kick first and then follow it with a roundhouse
kick. If an enemy is stunned, my special attack will kick them up into
the air, along with any adjacent enemies. If I jump and do my special
attack, then I do a cool drop kick. My absolute favorite is when an
enemy is down on the ground. In that situation, my special attack
delivers a crushing elbow slam. (Can you smell what the Jeffprime is
cooking?)