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Online in My Double Dragon? - Dungeon Fighter Online By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman For the last few months now, I’ve been in the market for a decent MMOG (massively multiplayer online game). Maybe it was hearing about Ron doing his WoW thing for over a year, but something really made me want to play some super expansive online game. While I originally wanted to get into Champions Online (an online comic book RPG), it seemed that I’d either have to make heavy upgrades to my PC or wait an unbearably long time for the Xbox360 release to enjoy this game. Luckily, I discovered an online game that’s seemingly made for me, as it combines all the mindless fun of a classic style beat ‘em up with the character building elements of an RPG. Dungeon Fighter Online by Nexon is the company’s most recent addition to the ever growing buffet of North American MMOGs. Though it’s only been available in North America for a few weeks, it’s actually been a favorite of Japanese and Korean gamers for the last 3 years or so. Essentially, Dungeon Fighter Online (DFO) is a class based beat ‘em up like Alien vs Predator Arcade or the Capcom Dungeons and Dragons game done in an online game format. Instead of working your way through various stages in some linear fashion, you’re given a handful of quests for your level which you can complete in the order of your choosing. I really like this system; it gives those who are new to games like this a chance to just take on maps as they feel comfortable, and it also gives those who know their way around the world of DFO a chance to stack quests and take on harder maps in order to breeze past the basics.
Character creation is very simple, there’s no skin editor or even picking genders for your characters. You pick one of 5 character classes and a name, and you’re ready to play. The class system is pretty diverse; Nexon even claims that the classes are so different it’s like playing a different game when you make an alternate character (this is pretty much bogus, since the classes feel more like picking between the various characters in Streets of Rage). The classes are pretty archetypical characters found in most every beat ‘em up/hack and slash game, ranging from: melee master (fighter), swordsman (slayer), gun wielder (gunner), magic spammer (mage), and hybrid/support (priest). Upon reaching level 18 players can choose 1 of 4 class specific jobs, basically giving them an emphasis of study in their respective degree (ie: the fighter can become a brawler, where they focus more on status effecting skills and underhanded attacks). As you lay waste to various baddies you accumulate skill points (along with standard experience points), which can be spent on learning new moves or strengthening existing ones. The game is pretty fun for what it is. However, I’ll admit that I probably wouldn’t be playing it if the game were not free, especially since it has several heavy strikes against it. My first complaint is this ridiculous fatigue system they’ve implemented in the game. It’s pretty much some in game deterrent that keeps people from ignoring their lives and playing this game as a career (but I’m also sure it’s there to keep things fair between those with family/a girlfriend/a job and those that don’t) by limiting the amount of dungeons you can explore in a 24 hour period. Though I’ve only used up all my fatigue points once, it’s still a little annoying to know that after about 10 dungeons I’ll be forced to call it quits or just kick it in the player vs player arena.
My second gripe with the game is something that just came up very recently. After you quit the game this weird intrusive piece of software begins downloading some sort of flash loader or peripheral program that simply can’t seem to be shut off on my computer. While bad Gameboy game reviewer, Dan Wang says he was able to close this program out from the taskbar, I can’t because Core FTP (the program I use to do the admin stuff for the site) attempts to boot and crashes everytime the download starts. 2 out of 5 of my most recent play sessions of DFO have resulted in me having to hard boot my computer and it seriously needs to stop (and yes, I did email Nexon about this). The presentation of the game is kind of hit and miss. I really like the mock Sega Genesis sprite array they have; they’re all very clean and well designed. But in the same note, there are such small amounts of variation between the genuses of monsters in each world that it’s downright maddening. By the time you play through the last map of a given world you’ll be glad you’ll never have to see its flagship creature again (whether it be: goblin, dragonoid, tau, whatever). The backdrops are a tad uninspired, but once you reach the hard levels in the game, you honestly become too concerned with not dying to be an art critic. The audio portion of the game is atrocious. This game does everything I hate in terms of sound effects and music in a video game. Not only are the tracks annoying and very painful to listen to, but almost all the sound effects are stolen. A lot of the quest completed, skill point obtained, quest item found, etc sound effects all sound like rips from old versions of Windows, AOL, and Mac OS. The fight sounds are original, but stupid in their own way (like those fake barfing and dying sounds in 80’s arcade games), so it makes them kind of funny and charming.
Despite my critical points about the game, I don’t hate it. I actually really like it. The player vs environment mode is short enough to not make me miss the life I lost, but is long enough for me to give a damn. Player vs player is not forcefully shoved down your throat (whether in quest or ads), but is a large component of the later parts of the game (it actually plays like a not broken version of the Double Dragon for NES versus mode). And the game does mix 2 of my top game genres together. If you want a decently low maintenance MMORPG to play that’s absolutely free, I couldn’t think of any other. Maybe, that has more to do with the fact that I haven’t played an MMOG in over 4 years. Either way, this beats the hell out of playing rounds of Gunbound or Maple Story.
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