MapleStory M is already on its way to becoming a huge success. By creating this mobile version, Nixon was able to revive this game and restore its past glory.
Playable on fresher platforms, MapleStory M attracted former players together with a younger audience, foreign to this game, and satisfied the whole MapleWorld fandom.
Nonetheless, the game stayed almost identical to the original version – the colorful Maple World has the same appearance and includes the famous cities. You’ll get to choose one of the same five known characters to journey, explore towns and new surroundings, kill monsters and solve riddles in co-op with friends or random strangers.
The first step is character creation. You won’t have a large variety at the beginning but the more progress you’ll make, the more currency you’ll accumulate (or buy with real money) to obtain new items. Your character upgrade options are almost endless. You could make yours as different, vivid, funny and unique as you want. You could buy a giant pelican to carry you around, ride a bicycle change your hairstyle to look like whatever you like and obtain a variety of effects to aid you during the missions and fighting in the game.
Controlling your character is kind of tricky and needs some time to get used to. The virtual joystick doesn’t always register your input properly, which can lead to some frustration. In a game where you need to perform accurate jumps, the controls should be as tight as possible, and that’s not the case with MapleStory M.
But while character control was reworked from mobile devices, the overall MapleStory experience stayed the same. You talk to people, hunt monsters and loot them for items and resources. It can get a little repetitive, especially if you play for long periods of time.
Nexon offers a solution to this repetition with auto-quest. While you are away from the game, your character will continue to find and complete missions all on their own. They will kill monsters and travel to other cities to collect even more missions you don’t feel like doing.
Auto-quest is time-limited, and if you want it to stay active you’ll have to pay for it (either with in-game or real money). Moreover, some of your attacks won’t be available while auto-questing, and your character will not do a great job without your guidance – it will get hurt more often and use a lot of potions to compensate. If you chose the Bishop character, for example, you usually use the Heal ability instead of drinking potions during battles. On auto-quest, this ability is not available.
So what’s new? The game has a new and exciting mode called Dungeons. This game mode is more challenging than your standard mode, though you can tweak the difficulty if you want. You’ll join other people during some of the missions, and have to cooperate to score some sweet loot.
Dungeons mode is incredibly challenging, and I found myself failing several times when I wasn’t properly prepared. It shakes up the gameplay and going on missions with other people is extremely fun.
Like in the classic MapleStory, you can form a party with your friends or other players in your area, fight together, share experience, and use abilities to strengthen the whole team. Sadly, you can’t link MapleStory M is any social platforms such as Facebook, meaning you’ll have to ask each of your friends for their user and add them separately while they’re connected. This is rather odd – I’d expect an online game to take advantage of social networks and features.
The game’s UI was changed a little to be more touch-screen friendly. You have easy access to everything. Most of the features are found on the screen’s margins, resulting in ease of play regardless of your device. The new mission manager is clean and straightforward and gives you a clear view of new missions that open on every level you reach. Oh, and all that without interfering with your current gameplay.
Your skills are now assembled in the right bottom corner in a circle for your convenience. You can fill up to 3 circles with up to 15 different skills (5 skills per circle).
Other than the mobile optimization changes, MapleStory M has the same visual features as the PC version. The cute and lovely design is still the same as you remember it from the original game – everything is beautiful, colorful and very nostalgic.
As said before, the game has in-game purchases. The store allows purchasing cosmetic items, mounts, and even XP and in-game currency boosts. All of the game’s content is open to anyone, regardless if you’re a paying user or not, but if you choose to invest real money to reach higher levels faster – you can.
In-game purchases do not take over the game. It’s clear that the developers want to bring the real MapleStory experience to mobile while giving players the option to move faster to those who really want it.
Nexon promised to update MapleStory M on a regular basis and judging by the other games in the series – they make good on their word. New contents continue to flow in with every holiday, event or just because they feel like doing something special for their players.
Hopefully, regular game updating will make more people stay and enjoy new challenges without getting bored. The game already contains many hours of gameplay that will keep you coming back for more.
MapleStory fans shouldn’t hesitate to download MapleStory M just because it’s on mobile. It’s a true MapleStory game through and through. Grab your favorite device and join the fun.
Some of our posts include links to online retail stores. We get a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Don't worry, it doesn't cost you anything extra.
