Free Realms: Impressions

There's this free MMO that just released this week called Free Realms. It's a casual, kid/family friendly somewhat-fantasy based game that revolves around minigames.

Visually, I think it's very pretty, and far above anything you'd think of when you hear "free to play." The character models are well-rendered and the art style is cartoony, but in that stylized way that adults can appreciate. I like it, and find myself stopping consistantly to admire the landscape.

There's a lot to this game, and I've only played about half of it. There are several different profession minigames, and a trading card game. The games I haven't played yet are the trading card game, the tower defense game, and the two kart games. Oh, and there are game boards scattered around for checkers and chess.

There are no set classes in Free Realms. Instead, players can unlock a number of professions and can switch between them at any time. In fact, when going to play a minigame, you will automatically change into the profession that belongs to the minigame, if you've unlocked it. The default profession is "adventurer," and it's the generic "I'm just hanging out" profession. Any experience (represented by star power) you earn is earned toward your current profession at the time. You earn experience by doing quests and playing minigames, and since each profession has its own questline and minigames, there's plenty of experience to go around.

The games I've played so far are the two for cooking and the two for mining, and the combat "game," but more on that one later. For both professions, you have a gathering game, and a creation game. Both categories of games are variations of the same. The two gathering games are match-3 games that require you to link chains of consecutive tiles. The harvesting game just needs you to remove the tiles, each different tile being a different plant. The mining game adds ores to the mix, and you have to remove the tiles to drop the ores to the bottom. Same principle, two different strategies. The creation games are like that, too. The cooking game puts you through different stages to prepare the meal - slicing meat or smashing fruit, then watching as the food turns colors to indicate how well it cooked. The smelting game (turning your mined ore into bars) puts you through stages the same way, but again slightly tweaked. For instance, when smashing fruit, you have a power bar. A perfect hit will yield a smashed fruit, while a good hit will have to be repeated a few times to smash the fruit. Smashing ore is the same, except the ore splits into smaller parts, and you have to keep smashing until it is completely crumbled. There's enough variety to make the two games really feel different. And somewhat surprisingly, it's kind of satisfying to smash and then cook (or pour liquid metal) and yield a virtual item.

Free Realms is a fantasy adventure game. But one in which combat is completely optional. There are several different combat classes, only two of which are available to free players (more on that later). I've been playing as a brawler since I haven't found the ninja trainer yet (appropriately enough). To initiate combat, you go up to the monster and click on him, or you click on a door or gate signifying the entrance to an area. All combat is instanced and handled like a minigame. So you don't have to worry about getting interrupted by other players and some of your loot stolen (I'd say ninja'd, but there are ninjas in this game and they don't do that). The combat feels a lot more Diablo than World of Warcraft. For instance, you have a belt that holds four items - potions and food and whatnot. You also have up to four ability slots, which you activate by pressing the number keys (or clicking on them). The combat itself is just go up and beat on the monster like the Diablo-inspired action-RPG genre. But it feels deep enough to me to yield some satisfying gameplay, especially when grouped with other classes. This morning, I ran through a yeti cave and with a couple other people at my side, I bet we could've had some serious battles instead of me just carefully going one-by-one. It is a clickfest, yet (or a button-masher), but a fun one. And the objectives present in the combat minigames drive the play and make it feel a bit more important than just "I have to kill this thing." There are bonus objectives in all the minigames which give the game a bit more challenge if you want it.

So far, I really like Free Realms. Hopefully I'll start making friends soon and get to explore the social side of the game. I think it'd be fun to have some light social roleplaying going on, and this is certainly a good venue for online parties. If I want serious roleplaying with dramaz, I'll do World of Warcraft, but Free Realms is all about good clean fun.

The business model is part subscription and part micro-transaction. A good portion of the game is free. I think I read the devs saying something like 60/40 free/paid. The better stuff, higher level quests and gear, and some professions, are only available to paid members. But at 5 bucks a month, that's not really such a blow. Especially since the card game is free. I haven't seen the micro-transaction stuff yet, but I hear that all the pets for the pet trainer profession (which is free) are only available through Station Cash, which is Sony's micro-transaction currency.

I'll go into more detail on various aspects of the game as I play. For now, I'm really enjoying it, and if I can find the social side of things, there's a good chance that I'll pay that 5 bucks a month.