A/N: Ok guys so this is something that I've been toying with for a while now. It's a basically going to be a collection of reviews by me about things that I feel need more recognition or get a bad break. These will span from games to TV shows to maybe even YouTubers. Whatever I feel like reviewing while I'm not focused on my stories is fair game.

And where to start but the first ever MMO I played, MapleStory.

Ok so this game is as old as dirt, being originally released in 2003, but I love it. It's so simple and fun and the community is just awesome. The graphics are in sixteen bit so it never seems out of date and Nexon Korea just keeps adding on more and more to it.

The game itself is rather simple. It's a 2D platformer that has no clear goal. You just hop and jump around, creating your own story. And the game has over 700 hours' worth of quests to perform for various NPCs around the world, which is about the size of earth I think.

It has a grand total of thirty two different classes to play as, each playing differently with their own little quirks. There are a couple of these classes that have story modes that lead you through the world and have a rather significant impact on how you perceive the characters.

For example there's the story line of Mercedes, one of the legendary heroes of the world. She's the queen of the elvish people, who are, for all intents and purposes, extinct. As you progress through her story line you get to save these people and learn about how the world reacted to an entire species dying off. If you're not into a story then you can choose one of the more diverse classes. Then your only goal is to kill all that is cute and adorable. This leads me to the next point, combat.

The combat in the game is fast passed and interesting. With its cartoony and anime-esk attacks, you can have a lot of fun just going through and murdering things. And nearly all of the monsters are just so cute and adorable that you almost feel bad about shooting them to death in your giant mech…almost. In some zones however, the spawn rate was not thought out very well and it can get a little hectic and insane, especially at higher levels when your damage nearly fills the screen.

But for the most part, the monsters are beatable and fun to kill. However, I have to point out that after a few rounds, the combat can get a bit tedious and repetitive, especially if you're playing one of the hero classes. As every class gets new skills about every thirty levels, it might take a while before you can have any significant change of pace. But with current EXP curves and quests, those thirty levels can pass by in under an hour.

Despite all of this, MapleStory continues to be updated and improved on a regular basis, making it one of the longest standing games that I know of. Sadly, it has been dying off lately. Having been labeled by the majority of gamers as nothing more than a relic, it gets fewer and fewer new players every year.

In short, MapleStory is an old game that still has a lot of potential. With its flashy combat and frequent updates, it strives to impress and hold your attention as long as humanly possible. And as an added bonus it's entirely free, nothing costs anything, except cosmetics. And even then you get some pretty cool shit just from some grinding.

My final, biased, opinion of MapleStory is an 8/10. It is a solid game that does its best to stay one step ahead of, or even with, the competition and does a fairly good job. It's fun and entertaining and was one of the games that got me into the scene.