MapleStory M Review
MapleStory M was released on Mobile globally on 24 July 2018, it’s been 5 and half years since there for this nostalgic 2D OG MMORPG game port from Nexon. As with many MMORPG players, you must have heard of the world of Maplestory and most surely tried it once or twice. Maplestory M attempts to bring that game to the mobile gaming world. With majority of the current features intact, with some of the systems a bit more mobile friendly, tons of Pay2Win elements as since it is a mobile game. Let’s see if Nexon done a good job, or did they fail like most PC to Mobile ports? Let’s see if Maplestory M is worth playing or if we are all just playing this to get the 500 rewards points daily for Maplestory.
Combat
The combat is nice and fluid for a mobile game. Although it isn’t as fast-paced as the PC Maplestory counterpart, it is impressive nevertheless and I dare say it does somewhat captures the original essence (pre-big bang) of the game. Although one thing to note is, it has a in-game bot system and auto-play and auto-quest. Also they have paid teleports items that allows you to just teleport all around the map handing in quest to quest to quest. The aesthetics of the game closely mirrors the PC game, and it even has most of the classes available with more simpler skills & functions. Honestly, not going to lie, I probably lost interest within the first 10 minutes of the game. The PC game just felt a lot more superior and while the combat isn’t bad, the auto-quest function was just too convenient as it lets me go from quest to quest without paying much attention unless I wanted to read the story.
Cash Shop
This is a gacha game, meaning as long as you can infinitely pull for rewards and each pull if lucky allows you to get stronger makes the game extremely pay2win, or you could say, pay to progress. However, besides the gacha system, there are other cash shop items such as Pets and character customisation and cosmetics. In fact, just like regular servers on Maplestory, you can even gear up your pets and add their own cosmetics to it.
Gacha System
MapleStory M’s Gacha system is known as “Golden Apples”. The system is similar to a lottery, where players can obtain a variety of items, some of which are extremely rare and valuable.
To participate in the Gacha system, players must first purchase Golden Apples from the Cash Shop. Each Golden Apple costs 90 diamonds, and a bundle of 10+1 can be purchased for 900 diamonds. The items that can be obtained from the Golden Apples are diverse. Notable items include the Storm Growth Elixir, which allows players to instantly gain a level upon consumption, potential stamp tickets that can increase an item’s potential, and Star Force enhancement scrolls. However, the probability of obtaining these high-value items is quite low. For instance, the Storm Growth Elixir has a probability of only 0.02%1. This aspect of the Gacha system has been a point of contention among players, as it requires a significant investment of real money for a chance at these rare items.
In addition to the items, players also have a chance to obtain puzzle pieces from the Golden Apples. Collecting all nine pieces of the puzzle allows players to receive a “superior” reward1. These rewards include unique potential scrolls, Star Force enhancement scrolls, and weapon/armor rank up stones. Some of the items obtained from the Golden Apples can be sold on the Trade Station, providing another avenue for players to acquire these items. However, the availability of these items depends on whether other players are willing to sell them. Like all gacha systems, it would requires a significant investment of real money for a chance at the most desirable items for most players unless you are super lucky.
State of Game
The game runs decently via on my PC via Bluestacks while it runs quite smoothly on my Pixel mobile. The game crashes kinda often when first opening it and the load screen to get into the game takes a good minute or two. Then again, what kind of Maplestory will we be playing if it doesn’t crash. After all, the desktop Maplestory has a good 50/50 chance of crashing when entering the cash shop each time. Moving along, once you are inside the game, each load screen is basically a faction of a second to load making it very fast and smooth game play. Interesting enough, I did see quite a few players using SMEGs (world chat) making me believe the game is some what alive.
While I would imagine, for most of the PC Maplestory players who are playing Maplestory M, we would log in for 20–30minutes a day and auto-battle for the daily PC task for the additional 500 reward points. After all, what is available in the M version is “miniature” compared to the actual game itself. The full game just offers so much more content without any of the auto-play mechanics.
Events
Like most mobile games out there today, it is flooded with constant events and never a dull moment. From level events to quickly level your Maplestory M characters to gear events that allows you to quickly gear up or get the stats you want to cosmetic based events where you have a ton of different event limited time cosmetics to earn and choose from. Surely there is something to do in Maplestory M for everyone. Here is an example below of the current events that is in Maplestory M for the beginning of 2024.
Artwork
While the quality is worse then the PC desktop version, the same style is still there. Still a clean and full of vibrant colours look with chibi cutesy characters that you can customise to your heart desires. Just like the PC version, the sky is the limit with the customisation here as long as you have the money to spend. The artwork will not disappoint you if you are into chibi designs. Even the character skills very closely resembles that of the original character in the desktop version so you won’t really feel like you are playing a totally different class.
Is It Worth Playing?
Maplestory M to me was personally not worth playing, I didn’t need another 2D scroller in my life if I am already having tons of fun on the desktop version which has the more fuller experience. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to play Maplestory M either unless they cannot play Maplestory on their PCs/Laptops and is really craving that Maplestory itch. The desktop game just feels a lot more polished, expansive and fun. I can see why they made some dailies in Maplestory M for the desktop version and vice versa for addition rewards, it was in order to attract players onto the mobile game. For now, I only really log in to do my dailies before logging out, this is definitely not a gacha game for me.
Originally published at https://fayiette.com on January 16, 2024.
