Mabinogi Heroes Open Closed Beta ended just a few days ago but it left me craving for more.  A lot of players who haven't played the game yet probably has a lot of questions, hopefully I will answer most of them in this review!  Just like all my other reviews on Steparu.com I will be totally honest with this one.  While I was happy with the little time I played the game.  For some reason I felt that Mabinogi Heroes was missing something that I just couldn't quite put my thought on. 

Fiona Gameplay

Just like all my other reviews this one will have a ton of videos and text!  I know a lot of foreign gamers and new players will probably end up playing this game so I will try to be as helpful as I can at the same time not confuse you in this review.  After you have successfully read this review, hopefully you will have a deeper understanding of what the game is like and how to play it.

Quests And Mission System Tutorial

Duoing Mission 04

The game feels a bit small honestly, you will find yourself coming back to the same small town called Cohen.  This is the first town that you come across ingame,  I am not sure if there is a second town yet but it seems like this is going to be the Tir Chronicle of Mabinogi Heroes, which is the starting newbie town for the original game called Mabinogi.  Mabinogi fans should rejoice since you will find your favorite blacksmith of all time in the first town.  Which blacksmith will it be!?  It's FERGHUS of course!  Unfortunately, you can't get a friend of Ferghus title in this game yet.  Anyway, you will be talking to a lot of NPC's in the first town.  Yeah, seriously like a lot!  There are a lot of quests you can get in Cohen along with missions from all the NPC's in different houses and shops.  After you receive a new Mission you can head on over one zone away to the boating docks.  In here you can find, create, join a party, then set sail to start on your Mission.

Soloing Ice Cavern Part 01

Questing and Missions in this game is pretty easy and simple at least the starting ones.  Though if you don't speak or understand Korean you will probably get stumped on accepting a couple Missions.  Notice I said accepting since Missions, since Missions in this game are pretty much straight forward.  Now I will explain on how to progress through your missions correctly.  Completing a Mission in this game will only get you a certain percent completed.  Doing extra objectives in that certain Mission will earn you a higher percent.  You will NEVER get 100% in a Mission on your first try unless you're on Mission 1, which is a guaranteed 100%.  So for example you complete one of your Missions and you're at 30%.  You've talked to every person in and town and probably wondering.  WTH? Why can't I get my next Mission!?

Soloing Ice Cavern Part 02

Well, that's because you must redo that previous Mission again to earn a higher percent the second time around.  BUT you have to select the alternative Mission objectives by highlighting the Mission and selecting specific objectives on the drop down box.  Confused yet!?  I bet you are.  Anyway, so you pick up that same Mission and click on the drop down tab but this time around you would select an alternate objective.  These alternative objectives may vary for example some will be, time attack mode, solo, don't use smash(right click), and etc.  Do a couple of them and earn yourself to a certain percent then you can unlock your next Mission by talking to the required NPC's.  Achieving 100% is not necessary to progress through your Missions.  You may also unlock Missions that will have a "lock" icon on it, this means you have not met the requirements on the previous or certain mission percent wise.

Also note that sometimes you will need to do little errands to unlock other Missions.  For example one of the starting few Missions will require to buy materials to make Pants.  After you craft Pants from favorite blacksmith Ferghus and deliver it properly you then unlock your next Mission.  As for Quests, pretty much the same thing as your other quests in other games just do the objective and talk to the NPC.  You can also check out Climbatiz translation on Making a Party and Quest Window.  Congrats now you have a clearer understanding on how the Mission and Questing system works in Mabinogi Heroes.

Gnoll Chieftain with a party of three.

Gameplay

You've seen a lot of gameplay videos now to read gameplay described in words.  Monsters in this game are pretty dumb AI wise.  I felt like I was slashing some porings or something.  You will find that the first few missions ingame are too easy.  Don't pat yourself on the back yet.  I really think Mabinogi Heroes has very poor AI... or they are just making it too user friendly.  However, boss fights in this game is a whole different story.  Though the game may feel and look easy, failure is just not an option.  If you get hit by some monsters further along the missions you will find yourself chugging a bunch of potions.  Failing to dodge certain boss attacks or dungeon traps will have you eating dirt.

Ice Dungeon and Loogey Boss Fight

You can almost break and pick up everything you see ingame and hurl them towards your enemies or teammates.  You have a lot of options after grabbing an enemy monster for example you can use them meat shields, break their backs, give them face make over, knock em against a wall, throw them on other monsters, suplex them on breakables and many more.

Red Wisp and Gnoll Chieftain Boss Fight

Boss fights are pretty epic in Mabinogi Heroes.  For example when you are fighting against the Gnoll Chieftain.  He does a Windmill attack that can hit everyone in your party if you are in his radius range.  He also has a super hammer vertical attack that deals about 75% of your HP if not kill you.  So how does one fight a Gnoll on steroids?  There are a couple ways to battle out bosses in this game.  Teamwork is a essential in Mabinogi Heroes, sorry Rambo players.  The Gnoll Chieftain has hit boxes.  So let's say your plan to own this boss is grapple hook his right arm, then another player grapple hook his other arm.  This will make it so that the boss will only kick you.  Pretty awesome way to take down a boss!  You can also grapple his legs and trip him over and go for an awesome low blow.  If you happen to run out of grappling hooks, bombs, and javelins.  Then you move on to your next resort which is to hurl over huge rocks and stones at boss to stun him.  After landing a successful stun your party can do keep him permanent stunned with melee attacks(primary attack) and smashes (secondary attack).  Just like the boss you also have your own hit box, so If you're taking heavy damage from the boss or enemies your armor will break, leaving you naked in boxers or bikini.  You can either repair during battle by bringing a repair kit with you or just fight with no armor.

Mission 2-1 and Preview of one shot trap of death~

Character and Classes

There are only two playable characters at the moment.  The chick who wields a sword and shield is named Fiona.  Characters are locked gender wise in OCBT so if you want to play a Paladin like tank setup then you must pick Fiona.  Don't get all emo now though, the best part of Mabinogi Heroes is many choices of character customization.  Even if you pick this type of character I guarantee that you will not find your clone.  The other playable class is a Male Dual Wield swordsman.  Lethita is very fast compared to Fiona, he also has a longer and wider reach than Fiona which is very good for huge crowds.  Both characters have their own advantages for example Fiona can block attacks with her shield while Lethita on the other hand can only evade.  Like I said both characters can be fully customized.  If you have played Mabinogi then you would already know how the character creation screen looks like.  There are a lot more characters that will be available in the future Alchemist, Two Hander, Archer, and etc.

Two Lethithas in action!

Controls

The controls for this game is pretty simple.  You are given around 4-5 premade keyboard mappings that you can switch to. You can also fully customize each keys ingame to your own preference.  Climbatiz has kindly translated a couple menus ingame, here is his translation of the keyboard menu.  Climbatiz keyboard picture layout.  Lot's of keys similar to Counter-Strike or other steam games.  You're right, it's pretty much the same thing.  Also if you're wondering if the mics work ingame.  They actually do, so keep that in mind the next time you hold down your microphone button and say something that might scare your party members away.

Messing Around during Missions

Graphics And Audio

The graphics are really amazing who would've thought that a source engine would go this far.  Since most online games now a days are running on Unreal Engine.  I was pretty surprised that Mabinogi Heroes looked nicer ingame compared to the screenshots.  I was playing the game almost next to the highest setting experienced a couple slowdowns during huge fights and breaking tons of breakable objects.  It's hard to keep your FPS steady on max settings for this game unless you have an up to date rig.  I didn't find anything wrong with the sound or graphics ingame other than the lack of BGM during dungeons.  The only time you will hear BGM in this game is in town and during boss fights.  Curious to what the menu look like? No problem! Climbatiz has yet provided us another translation of the graphics and sound menu that can be viewed here.  Audio Menu, Resolution and Preset Graphics Menu, and Custom Graphics Menu.  As you can see in this translation there is a slider bar on the resolution menu.  This allows you to change graphical setting without tweaking each one of the drop down boxes.  Which is great for lazy players or players who simply can't understand what they are clicking on!

Random Gameplay before server down~

Crafting and Party Network

The only thing I hated about Mabinogi Heroes is how you are forced to farm materials for your weapons and armor.  If you are a rush gamer like me you will find yourself carrying a bunch of materials that you don't even need anymore.  Then again the game would be super easy if I can just go to Ferghus and buy my next set of weapons and armor which would then lead to boredom and fast power leveling.  Mabinogi Heroes has a very easy party system with a slight problem.  It was very hard to connect to other player created games in Mabinogi Heroes.  Their network system is just total failure.  They are currently upgrading their servers to make partying in this game more easier stated front page notice.  There were a lot of unsatisfied OCBT players because it was almost impossible to party with other players.  Not confirmed but I think the party leader is the host of the room, or require super synchronization.  My experience was when I was lagging during a dungeon my friend said everything was frozen for him also.  Which leads me to conclude that this game is hosted by the party leader.  Do not take my word for it though that was just a minor hypothesis.  Though it would explain a lot of things like players having trouble connecting to each other and stuff.  I must say I was really disappointed with their network setup and hope that they fix it in the future.

Soloing Mission 05 Part 01

Soloing Mission 05 Part 02

Conclusion

Open Closed Beta lasted for only a couple days but I felt like it was incomplete.  Maybe it is because the other character classes are not released yet  The only thing I am worried about is for all the hardcore players in the world.  Mabinogi Heroes seems like a game that can be completed very easy like Diablo II.  I always ask myself this question when I play games.  "What is the end game?, "I finished all the Missions, what now?" and so on.  Having had played all the other DevCat games I have very high hopes for Mabinogi Heroes.  Let's hope for some fun end game content or a never ending generation of updates just like Mabinogi Online.  C9 Closed Beta is almost here so expect a OCBT review of that game also at Steparu.com.  I hope you enjoyed reading this review and thanks for your time! Until then good luck have fun.

Game Score: 9.4

Developer: DevCat
Game Publisher: Nexon Korea
Game Site: http://heroes.nexon.com/