GameLight Review - Realm of the Mad God

Official Site: http://www.realmofthemadgod.com/
Play on Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/Wild_Shadow/realm-of-the-mad-god
Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/200210/

Source: Youtube Channel MMOHut

Developer: Wild Shadow Studios, Spry Fox
Publisher: Wild Shadow Studios
Platforms: PC
Release Date: June 20, 2011
Genre: MMO Danmaku-Bullet Hell Shooter

Pros:
-No need for registration, can use account of Kongregate or Steam to login for saved account
-Fast-paced, instant-action, easy to pick up and play
-Lots of content to extend its replay value
-Designed to continuously keep players involved and working together
-Challenging, provocative, and downright fun

Cons:
-The game was intended for browsers, so it doesn't run smoothly full screen
-Lag can be an issue in the harder parts of the game as the player loses control of their character
-Cooperating with other players can be great, but they can also steal the loot you fought for
-Perma-death sound unforgiving, and for some players this is a turn-off
-Needs to have a better method of keeping track of friends and finding each other

Realm of the Mad God has been in development as early as 2008 and was put in public beta in 2010 before being officially released in 2011.  This is why it surprises me that I have never heard of it till just yesterday when it was released on Valve's Steam client as a free-to-play MMO.  Upon watching some videos and looking at screen shots, I was already entranced by the simplicity and design of the game.  It's a truly unique online game where it plays like a shooter in a fantasy MMORPG-like setting.  Players don't have to worry about setting up parties, instances, gathering quests from NPCs or preparing a path for a skill tree to play on.  Players simply just jump on, choose a dungeon and start fighting against hordes of enemies with other players with the capacity to have 85 player co-op in one dungeon.  The game is designed so that players would inevitably work together, play carefully/on edge (perma-death is implemented, meaning you lose your character when it dies), and continue playing even after dying (gain currency through each death and unlocks new classes).  It's definitely worth a try for ANYONE as it is free, very accessible, and doesn't take long to get the gist of the game.  You won't even be wasting that much time as you can start playing immediately by playing on the official site or Kongregate (Steam version requires download, but only 36 MB) and the tutorial is at most 3-5 minutes (and can be skipped).  The game still has a lot of room for growth: more items, dungeons, classes, enemies, and any additional mechanics they choose to add, and so it will still be a game that has a lot to offer after hours of playing.

Aesthetics
The first and most noticeable aspect of the game is the retro 8-bit pixel art style the game goes for.  It's simple, very easy to distinguish between objects and differences in classes, and quite charming.  Bullets and enemies are easily detectable on screen which is extremely important as players will come to understand when enemies and bullets start to move quicker and dangerously close.  Although the inventory/equipment system is archaic and has a limited space, its intended design is impeccable.  The game cannot be paused and action is constantly around the player in the battlefield.  It's fairly easy to keep an eye on health, mana, and items as well as the map and the actual gameplay screen.  The map can also be zoomed in or out using the buttons above it or by using the mouse scroll.  The user-interface is well thought out and implemented into the game quite effectively.  The game can also be played on full-screen; however, the game's frame rate and response rate drops dramatically around highly populated areas and can cause the player to lose control of their character or have very delayed responses.  It might have something to do with resolution as my 17" laptop screen has a high resolution but causes everything to slow down in full screen.  Using full screen on my 20" secondary monitor that has a low resolution ran a lot more smoother, though still a bit laggy at times.  It would also be nice if the screen was pulled back a little as everything just comes out of nowhere and gives little time to respond to it.  I understand it's part of the design to keep the tension high and the risk consistent, but it's so hard to see things sometimes.  Although the graphics are two dimensional, the camera can actually be rotated and can be very useful in the battlefield.

Sound is an important aspect in the gameplay as the visuals can get overwhelming.  Sound effects cue players of having "no mana", types of enemies near-by, and feedback on hits and damage.  The music, unfortunately, doesn't take much precedence in gameplay.  There's only one song loop that plays throughout the entire time you're playing the game and it gets really boring/annoying after a while.  You can turn off the music and play your own music in the background (which is what I eventually did), but I generally try to play a game with its own music.  It'd be nice if there were more songs that it could cycle through (like what Dungeons of Dredmor or Granado Esapada did).  Placing consideration of the faults in optimal process speed in the visuals and lack of variety in music, the graphics and audio are sound and used effectively.  Aesthetics: 8/10

Buttons
Almost all the keys in the game are configurable which is good for anyone used to playing their games with a certain part of the keyboard or a certain way.  The game is played like a top-down 360 degree shooter using WASD keys to move the characters and the mouse to aim and fire at enemies.  If the player decides to enable camera rotation, they can use the Q and E keys to turn it at an angle they find comfortable.  The special ability, by default, is set on the space bar and so any player who is used to the left-hand crab style/FPS style controls will feel comfortable.  As mentioned in aesthetics, the user-interface is well designed and placed for the most effective use of the player's information without obscuring the screen with menus.  The controls can go a bit haywire and incontrollable when there's a lot going on or if full screen is used on a high resolution monitor which is troublesome in dangerous dungeons.  Buttons: 8/10

Concept & Content
The major points of the game's design is: to keep players constantly interacting with each other without having to create parties or guilds, having high risk - high rewards through its difficulty and harsh consequences, and being able to continually enjoying the games without any obstructions or slow downs.  It's common in MMORPGs to have a ton of dialog, picking up quests everywhere and running around to talk to people.  Then after grabbing a lot of quests, the player is then usually set out to fight and kill a certain number of enemies.  Realm of the Mad God touches upon those aspects of "fantasy" and "RPG" in terms of growth, cooperative play and looting; however, they skip all the towns, dialogs, running to grabs quests and such and focused on its core "combat design" which plays much like a top-down action shooter combined with a danmaku/bullethell shooter.  It's a very simple concept of killing waves of enemies and quests randomly generate to have the player fight strong boss monsters.  The arcade like feeling makes it very easy to pick up and learn how to play and isn't too complicated so that even non-gamers would be able to play should they take the chance to try it out.  The way it's set up, players can play anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 hours and have their character eventually die.  The points they gathered then becomes the currency used for their next characters.  Along the way, more classes will be unlocked for players to try out and play.  Dungeons seem to appear by chance or through items.  So much like an MMO, the world is consistently changing.  Another design within the "cooperative" play with others players I find interesting (evil to some) is that players don't receive their own loot and so items go to whoever grabs it first.  This reminds me of the old school arcade days where players work together (in a beat-em-up or top-down shooter like gauntlet) but can take food and gold from each other.  That bit of competition reminds players that they need to be aware of their surroundings and that it's still every man for themselves.  The main objective essentially for the player to survive as long as possible while fighting and looting more items.  There are many aspects to the game that certainly aren't new (online game with pixel characters, top-down shooter, MMORPG experience in a short amount of time, etc.) but the combination they put together seems to blend well and offers a new innovation to online gaming.  The one major draw back from the way it's set-up right now is that the player can touch upon all the game's content and unlock everything in a short amount of time.  From then on, it's up to the player to keep the game interesting and find the draw from the randomly generated dungeons, enemies, loot, and events to stay entertained.  There's also a cash shop (micro-transaction style business) where players can pay real money for in-game currency for certain items (but they're main cosmetic and does not alter the balance in gameplay between players).  For the most part, the developers intended design has worked and has been continually updated for more content.  Concept & Content: 9/10

Duration
This game is super fast-paced.  A player can hit their max level of 20 in 30 minutes if they go straight to the more difficult areas.  There isn't a long intro or a required grind so players can jump right in and play with everyone else.  The beauty of this game is you can play for 5 minutes and still get something out of it or play for hours and still be entertained.  For someone like me who's always busy and can't find the time to play for long durations (which is generally required for a lot of MMOs, especially RPGs), this game really does well with what I want in a online game.  It starts up quickly, I get instant action and gratification, and offers a variety of content for me to stay interested and continue to play.  I'm not sure how long this game will keep me entertained.  I'll eventually unlock everything and have seen all the levels available, but so far it's doing a great job of bringing me back to it.  Duration: 10/10

Fun
I knew I had to try the game when I saw it appear on Steam.  The first thing I noticed when starting up the game (besides how quickly it started up) was that I didn't need to make another account specifically for it just to play (something I dread doing now for every new online game).  This saved me the time of creating a new account, going through registration, verifying my e-mail, activating the account and THEN finally getting to play it.  Even if you don't play on Steam and on their official site, you can jump in as a guest and play right away to try out the game yourself.  When I started the game, the game made sense right away (WASD to move, mouse to aim and shoot).  I then configured it to run on full screen and really didn't like how unresponsive and choppy the frame rate became.  I also didn't like the music after a while but remedied that by turning it off and playing my own music (something I generally don't like doing for games).  While I was preparing to go into a dungeon, a kind player started a trade with me and gave me a strong weapon for my Wizard for free.  I thanked him/her and went into my first dungeon.  It wasn't a big deal at first.  I killed a few enemies, walked around and watched what other players did, got the quest pointer asking me to kill a boss monster and fulfilled them.  After about my 2nd boss monster, I was hooked to the game.  It was fun killing things and leveling up.  I was gaining more power, getting stronger, fighting more enemies, and finding better loot.  I kept wanting to explore and I eventually ran into some players and we started following each other.  At one point, there were 5-8 of us fighting hordes of enemies.  It's very possible to reach 85 players cooperatively fighting enemies together, and that possibility interests me.  When I decided to exit the game and finish for the day, I still felt like I wanted to play it.  Just like now, I still want to play it.  I think I genuinely like the game, a rare feeling to a lot of games I play nowadays.  Fun: 9/10

Overall
Realm of the Mad God isn't without its faults, but its core game design is solid and has plenty of room for growth.  The game is easy to get into while still being able to challenge players with unforgiving waves of enemies.  There's a lot of content and random events to keep the game interesting.  And like other online games, I think the community/players is what creates part of the experience within the game.  Sometimes there will be groups who will work flawlessly with each other while other times there might be players following around taking all the loot but not doing any fighting.  There's a lot of dynamics despite not having complex gameplay mechanics or in-depth leveling systems.  It's a fun distraction from all the main games and can very well be treated as a main game to play depending on how involved a players becomes with the game in finding more loot or reaching the highest score.  Overall: 8.8/10