Review Submitted By: Narol
Author Status: Player and staff member
Started on The Eternal Fantasy: Roughly 4-5 years ago
Submission Date: Apr 11, 2006
TMC Listing: The Eternal Fantasy
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Narol]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Eternal Fantasy takes a bit of time to learn, I'll give it that
right off. As far as it goes as a game, there's a lot of
customization possible, with seven possible races: elves, half-elves,
half-lunars (like Cecil from Final Fantasy 4), kelbans (from Final
Fantasies 5 and 6), moogles, dwarves, and of course humans. Each race
has its own feel and playing style, which leads me to the next thing:
over 40 classes all based on Final Fantasy to some degree, but
original enough that you don't get the same experience as just
playing the games they're based on. These classes range from your
standard Black Mages, Dragoons, Thieves, and Paladins, but also to
classes you don't usually see, like the Beast Man, Mystic Knight, and
Inventor. With all the possible races and class combinations, you can
create virtually any character you like: a moogle Knight and a kelban
Knight are never going to feel the same.
Advancement along these classes isn't cut and dried, either. There
are three 'tiers' to each class, with increasing statistical
requirements, such as Thief advancing to Rogue, and then to Treasure
Hunter. You can also combine your skills as a Rogue with those of a
Monk to become a Ninja, or your skills as a Black Wizard and Squire to
become a Dark Knight. All of the tiers have their own skills, as well,
so a Treasure Hunter will play pleasantly differently than a Ninja,
even though they have similar class requirements in them.
You can even combine classes freely, switching between a primary and
secondary class, in a system that resembles Final Fantasy 5 and Final
Fantasy Tactics, to whatever suits you, or whatever seems fun, or even
just whatever'll beat that hard boss you need to kill.
The system itself is a bit different from what the MUD standard is,
but it's not going to stump anyone, and can be adapted to really
easily. I'll admit that it's a rather small mud in terms of player
base, but the world is vast, there are quests abound if you take the
time to look for them, the immortals are friendly, and you can even do
fun stuff like raise a pet chocobo. An aspect I've found Eternal
Fantasy excels in is that death is neither a permanent thing, whether
inflicted by mobile or by player, and corpse runs are unnecessary in
all but a very small list of areas; the only penalties are lost time
and lost experience, plus a penalty imposed on your class growth.
It's not overly generous if you keep dying over and over, however.
The game does more than just set things in a world that feels like a
game knock-off, too. Each world has its own, original plot in which a
player can feel like they're really seeing a story, instead of there
just being weak pretense to slay mobiles over and over. As far as
roleplay goes, it's supported, not enforced, so if you want to be a
min/max'er and not engage in RP, you can, and if you want to play a
character, you can, and not get into any fights because of it
(although I admit some people might give cry of 'that's stupid!'
but that's frowned upon).
As far as social aspects go, Eternal Fantasy has a variety of
channels, such as ooc, newbie, rp, elite (for high-levels to talk in),
and whine. You aren't forced to go through any character approval
process, and although copyrighted names are frowned upon, it's not as
vehemently enforced as 'your name comes from Obscure RPG X, you're
going to be deleted' (although you can't make such characters as
Sephiroth or Squall). Clans are offered, and application is as simple
as talking to a clan member. You can even set up your own fairly
easily. Colour is varied without being an eyesore, and you can set
colours for communications.
In short, I'd say that Eternal Fantasy is worth a shot for people
who like the older games in the Final Fantasy series, or just fantasy
in general, and want to have fun without being in a roleplay-enforced
environment or in a game where you have to worry about rampant player
killers.
