Mabinogi is a free-to-play MMORPG game made in South Korea. The game was originally released back in Korea in 2004. Its popularity grew in number ever since then as its user base increased into other countries in Asia in 2005. It was not until 2008 that Mabinogi made its way into North America before being released in Europe in 2010.
Mabinogi proved popular enough that Nexon (the game's publisher) wanted to release the game on the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, the game never was released even though production of the Xbox 360 version of Mabinogi was reportedly finished. The only way to play Mabinogi is via the PC. Not that this is too much of a bad thing considering the game is free-to-play on the PC. If it was released on the Xbox 360, gamers would have needed to play for the game and their Xbox Live subscriptions on top of this …
In terms of creating characters in Mabinogi, you can only create one character at one time. This is unlike other MMORPG games where you have the option to create more than one character. If you want to create more, you will have to play money in order to do so. There are three races for you to create at the start of the game. You can choose to be a male or female and whether they are going to be human, elf or even a giant. Once you've created your on-screen avatar, you are then ready to enter the wonderful world of Mabinogi.
The game starts off with a beautiful introductory cutscene. You get to see the bright and colorful graphics that Mabinogi has to offer. The entire game world is rendered in full 3D but the character models are illustrated in traditional Japanese anime-style 2D. If gamers have ever played Namco Bandai's Eternal Sonata on the Xbox 360 and PS3, you will know the type of visuals that are on offer in Mabinogi.
Despite the game having a lovely soundtrack, great sound effects and striking visuals, the only thing missing are voice actors. Most MMORPG games do not have any voice overs and this is to be expected, although it's slightly disappointing considering another MMORPG game called Wizard 101 has a ton of quality voice acting work.
Unlike in Wizard 101, combat is done in real-time. All you have to do is click on top of an enemy using the mouse and your character will instantly hack away. Combat is varied as enemies will only attack you depending on their behavior. Some of them are really aggressive and attack you the moment they see you while others will ignore you unless you provoke them first. This cave the game a sense of realism just like in the real-life animal kingdom – not all of them are going to attack humans.
There are so many things that you can do in Mabinogi it's almost mind-blowing. Although most gamers will follow the main quests, there are a number of side-quests and part-time jobs that you can participate in. You can do minor things such as fishing or even harvesting wool just to name a few.
Much like in other MMOPRG games, you will have to play for services that offer you bonus content. It's not a necessity to pay for these items, but they can help you in the long run. Only pay for these items if you think you're going to invest a lot of hours into Mabinogi. It will be a waste of money if you're only a casual fan and is going to only play the game once a week.
Mabinogi is a high-quality MMORPG game that offers hours of fun and will cost you absolutely nothing in order to play it. The game's visuals are great and the amounts of quests that are available are simply mind blowing. Even if you're not a fan of MMO RPG games, it should not hurt you to give Mabinogi a go.