Runes of Magic review

In short, a number of factors contribute to the quality and complexity of the gameplay without being too outrageously difficult. Moving your character around is as easy as point and click, or alternatively using standard WASD navigation. If that sounds like a tough deal to you, there’s a chance (if only a single opportunity) to challenge a quick tutorial on these basic maneuvers. I highly recommend that you do this (even if you’ve played other MMORPGs before) as it offers the chance to start off with some basic supplies that will come in handy as you adjust to the gameplay.

Combat in Runes of Magic is fairly straightforward. Just click your desired target once to select, then click again to confirm. As long as you don’t click anywhere else, you’ll be trading blows with your foe until one side is dead (hopefully being your intended target). As for when you’ve eliminated your target, you won’t see any pick-ups appear once your foe is down (unlike with some other MMORPGs); instead, just right-click the downed enemy’s remains and select what you need from the resulting item list (or just grab it all if you’d like, especially if there are some runes that you may be able to use on compatible battle implements.) You’ll have to do this fairly often when it comes to picking up necessary supplies that may be requested of NPCs as part of your quest log, anyway – so you’d better get used to it.

NPC chats work using the same click-plus-click targeting, and allow you to purchase supplies and gear – along with being your go-to for picking up and reporting on quests. Triggering a NPC conversation pulls up a list of choices that range from the informative to the conversational. Instructor NPCs offer skills to learn for various purposes, although you may run into a few surprises every now and then. One such bone toss occurs relatively early in your adventure, when you’re asked to learn three individual skills to help other NPCs with gathering materials to deliver into town, only to find out that (spoiler alert!) you really don’t need to help out after all, save for actually making the delivery yourself!

NPCs may also have various quests for you to challenge (indicated by an exclamation mark) which offer varying rewards for completion (including money, useful items and experience gains). These quests to vary in which NPCs to report to as part of quest completion (which is not always the same as who gave you the quest) and the number of steps in the quest’s progression. Oddly enough, the single-step quests that you’ll occasionally encounter automatically pop a “conditions met” report up in your face (which is true of any quest once you get to where you report in to the requisite NPC (as if collection counts and NPC instructions aren’t enough) which I find to be too helpful at times. Since it’s usually clear from the NPC’s instructions as to what to do (and where to report, as indicated by a NPC check mark), such in-your-face reminders are almost unnecessary, redundant and perhaps a bit too helpful.

Quests can involve anything from deliveries and monster hunting to the mundane stuff like general concept introductions. And yes, there is a good chance that you’ll have to proceed with an incidence of the dreaded fetch quest every so often – like with one pair of quests where you check on the status of an item put up for auction that (spoiler alert!) failed to sell, which you then have to pull out of a mailbox and deliver to the NPC that put it up for sale. That being said, you’ll usually get some helpful information on the game structure, what your next objective is, or even a new item or higher-graded weapons and/or protective implements just by completing the given quest requirements.

Character setup in Runes of Magic offers a choice between two race types (either human or elf) with six individual class selections for each racial type (four of which are available to either race). All class selections have their own inherent benefits and disadvantages. One case in point: the human Knight class excels at close range battle and can use the heaviest armors available; but then again, Knight characters are more of a tank class in general than anything else. That being said, you’re certainly not limited to whatever capabilities that your initial class selection provides: once you hit level 10, you can expand on your base class provisions by selecting one of the other class types as a secondary attribute to get a portion of the capabilities thereof (meaning that a Knight primary combined with a Scout secondary makes distance combat more feasible thereof). Any of the six classes per race can be paired with a selection from the other five classes in this manner, so you can be a human Knight/Priest combination or an Elven Druid/Mage, or whatever combination you prefer – either way, it’s your call.

 

I also found the difficulty to be gradual in nature, so you don’t have to worry about getting mobbed right away. In fact, most of the time (if at all) you’ll never have to worry about dealing with automatic monster aggro, which in turn makes adjusting to the gameplay system that much easier. You don’t have to worry about going into areas that are too difficult for your current level, either: all portions of the world of Taborea (where the events of Runes of Magic take place) are assigned a general level requirement so that you don’t end up walking into a situation which you’re not strong enough to handle just yet.

 

Runes of Magic also offers a decent number of game servers to choose from, of which all feature the same basic events and storyline progression, though I would have preferred a bigger selection of PvP-enabled game servers (of which Runes of Magic only has a selection of just two). That being said, you can have several individual characters on each server without any financial limitations; and the game doesn’t limit you on character registrations, either – you can use the same character name as many times as the number servers you desire to register on. In other words, you can have the character name “Shempstooge” on the PvE server Osha as well as the PvP server Indigo, so long as nobody else beat you to it.

Overall I was relatively pleased with the design, presentation and simplicity of the Runes of Magic game experience. The game controls relatively easily, and the selection of character classes (no matter how short) offers something for every player role; and with two racial choices, you can decide on what character form suits you best. Before I close this review, I would like to add that the graphics design isn’t limited to just the most capable PC systems like ASUS G series and HP Envy notebooks (or to Alienware machines by consequence); in fact, you can even download a slimmed-down version of the game client for Intel GMA systems and other low-spec PCs, which is a nice touch. And while there is a microtransaction system in the game, it’s mostly limited to cash shop use so it’ll probably not be such a huge deal-breaker in most cases. Simply put, Runes of Magic is one of the best games out there in the free-to-play market, so give it a try -- you won’t be disappointed.