When I first laid eyes upon Dekaron (also known as "2Moons")
Graphics
If you are one of those people who constantly are adding forced anti-aliasing to every single game, you will not be disappointed with Dekaron's graphics. While environments are somewhat lacking, there is plenty of detail to be seen. From the bloody, chopped-up corpses of your enemies to the exquisite detail of the Segetia Hunter's armor, the game just looks pretty in general.
Low-end computer users fear not, for you can simply set everything to low and turn off most of the effects, like in most games. One of the effects that everyone might turn off (high-end users included) is the bloom filter. I have reason to believe the Dekaron world takes place very close to the sun, otherwise they wouldn't be glowing with vibrant light most of the time, even at night.
I really can't stress how much this game puts maturity as one of its main themes. Blood will spew from every enemy, every woman will have a large chest and you will see naughty words in the NPC dialog. It can be nice every now and then, but seriously, it can really get tiring when I kill a bug and it spews forth a geyser of blood.
General Gameplay
Wondering if the food on that silver platter tastes as good as it looks? Allow me to share my experience of the gameplay and tactics.
When you first begin attacking an enemy, you'll notice that the game has a sense of action to everything you do. For example: attacking an enemy will make you take an inch forward with every whack, and it will make them recoil. That is a nice touch to the game, allowing for better immersion to take place. This system works well with the various skills you'll receive, such as skills that teleport you or skills that force your enemy back.
You do have a standard "damage dealer and healer" setup, with pretty much everyone being a damage dealer (even the healer) and the healer being a healer. Don't expect a lot of group play outside of dungeons. There is no "class advance" or anything such as that. You simply pick a skill tree for your class and go with it. Flexible? Yes. Diverse? Definitely not.
For those of you wondering: yes, this game does put plenty of emphasis on skills. You will be pressing 1, 2, 3 and 4 more than ever, but don't shrug away from me now.
Player Versus Enviorment
During most of the time I played Dekaron, I was either doing dungeons with friends or doing pvp. While you won't exactly be overwhelmed during your first couple of levels, you will start to notice a slight grind after a while, to which point you will most likely want to quit the game for being a generic grinder with nothing else to offer but pretty graphics. Go ahead if you want to, but if you stick around you might find some neat stuff.
The grind will start to go away as you gain access to several dungeons they have. Their dungeon system is instance-based, creating easy, manageable ways people can level. While this doesn't really focus much on the "MMO" part of Dekaron, you'll find that it does allow you to explore more of the game and give you time to play with your friends.
Player Versus Player
While Dekaron may seem like it has a very large focus on player versus player, there really isn't. You can simply kill other players, yet you will get a penalty for it. There is also a special event that happens every so often in Dekaron called "Deadfront" which is a competition between players to see who exactly can be the best of their level range. 1 vs.1 duels are also very common and guild wars also occur maybe every now and then.
All of these things do not offer rewards that are worth the effort, but they can be fun if you want to just fool around for a while. It is probably the most amount of "endgame" material this game has, meaning you don't want to just grind your heart out to level 120 just to have all this cool armor and skills just to beat some level 20 up.
Other information
There's plenty of miscellaneous little things about Dekaron which don't really fit into other categories.
For one, there is no character customization. Sorry if you've been following this entire review up unto this point and just found that out. While this is a very big issue with some people, I hope you can overlook it just to at least try this game for a little bit. I hardly noticed it a bit, due to the fact that I usually see players as individual people and not just a character in an online game.
There is also a cash shop in Dekaron, however, it is not bad at all. It offers plenty of little things like costumes which you can mask over your character and a fishing rod which gives access to the most potent fishing available. I looked into it plenty of times over and there doesn't seem to be anything completely game-breaking.
Summary
Dekaron can definitely fill plenty of MMORPG enthusiast's needs for a while. Great graphics with solid gameplay is what this game is all about, so don't expect anything different than the standard MMORPG delivery package. Compliments to the chef.
Pros
- Great graphics (compared to current graphics)
- A break from "cutesy" MMORPGs
- Solid gameplay
Cons
- No character customization
- "Mature" themes can be tiring
- Nothing different other than the usual