Remember Luna Online? The MMO tried to break into the NA market a many years ago and it tanked pretty bad. Luna Online: Reborn is the second attempt to impress the masses, this time under publishers Suba Games. The MMO is also now on Steam, as a free to play download requiring under 1G of download space to get started.
And when you do, you’re jumping into the world of Blueland. It’s a typical Asian style fantasy MMO world, with mythical creatures, questing, and main story. So the question as usual will be is it worth playing? Having spent a few hours in it, here are the three most significant takeaways.
It’s Surprisingly Traditional
Luna Online: Reborn hearkens back to a time when MMOs were a lot simpler. It does have a lot of characteristics on an Asian MMO, that’s for sure. But the groundwork it shares with classic MMOs such as Ragnarok, UO and even Maple Story is there. For starters, character creation is pretty barebones, but it does shake things up. There’s 3 races and 2 classes. The third race, the Maijin, don’t have a class, and players get to build it the way they want to by spending skill points each level. Where it’s most traditional is in the game’s PvE. Everything from tutorials, to quests are all wordy dialogues, with some fairly extensive reading. Mind you, that’s not a bad thing, especially if you prefer that to newer and modern voice overs and cinematics.
Gameplay wise, I like that you can use either WASD or point and click to move. I like having options. The UI is a little cluttery, but that’s common for MMOs from an early era, so there’s a definite old school theme here. The world itself is fairly large for a 1G download MMO, and if you like casual questing with lots of kill and fetch quests, then this might be of interest.
The Graphics Are Underwhelming
Unfortunately, while the allure of a traditional MMO might appeal to many, it probably won’t appease the newer generation of MMO players. The graphics, and I mean everything from characters, to the landscape and environments, are dated. It looks and feels like 2004, and in 2017, that’s not going to do much for some folks, even if it’s a free to play game. Luna Online: Reborn does try its best however. The armor, weapons and mounts look really decent but the engine just doesn’t hold up. It makes me wonder what exactly have they changed since they axed the original Luna in 2009.
So Who’s It For?
In all seriousness, if graphics and grinding doesn’t bother you, then hey it could be your next casual MMO. There’s potential to relive the golden days of early MMOs here – where main town hubs are lively and filled with players selling wares. Places out in the world also contain monster heavy areas where grinding for XP and loot is a thing, and open tapping does not exist. I supposed it’s a nostalgia hunter’s dream, but it won’t work on the masses. If you’ve got kids you want to introduce MMOs to, Luna Online: Reborn could be the game to do that with. Otherwise, it’s just another free to play MMO on Steam that does not offer anything of standard to complement today’s range of MMORPGs out there.
