Discarded Online

Discarded Online Review

The Open Beta for Discarded Online was released in mid August 2008 and it styles it self as the first ‘massively multiplayer online collectible card beat em up’. In reality, Discarded is a simple 2d beat ‘em up with cards acting as equipment. Many MMOs that use the casual side scrolling beat ‘em style have been released recently. Two examples include Grand Chase and tcrew but while these are full fledged games, Discarded Online is a simple web game.

Character creation offers many customization options, especially for a 2d browser game. Players can select several hair, nose, mouth, and clothing options along with the usual gender options. It is important to note that your account name acts as your character’s name as well. After character creation, players must select one of three schools; Athletics Club, Academy of Science, or Mischief Outfit. The school you chose effects your starting equipment but does not permanently effect your character’s stats or future growth.

All equipment and cloths in Discarded Online are in the form of cards which can be earned by completing stages or by purchasing them at the store. Each card will have different point requirements in three factors; Athletics, Science, and Mischief. A players original school choice will effect his point distribution but this can be changed at any time. The three main stats that effect characters are: Attack, HP, and Flinch. (recovery rate after getting hit)

Players can choose to play alone or as part of a group though it is difficult to find a group because of the game’s low population. Controls are keyboard based, use the arrow keys to move and W, A, D to attack. The gameplay in Discarded Online has potential but is handled poorly. Characters seem to move sluggishly and most of the enemies in the first few levels are boring and repetitive. There are currently a total of 15 stages which ask players to either clear all monsters, defeat a boss, or survive for a certain amount of time. Players can compare high scores for individual stages and collect achievements which adds some competitive spirit and a reason to repeat levels. Additionally, each stage can be played on three difficulty levels; Normal, Hard, or Very Hard.

Discarded Online has the potential to be an entertaining casual web game if it can fix two major problems. The first is that starting a game with other players often does not work. I’ve gotten stuck on the loading screen several times and experienced other bugs. The other problem is the small game community. There are rarely more than a few people in the game lobby and since getting a multiplayer game working is so difficult, most people simply play alone.

Discarded Online Screenshots

Discarded Online Video

Discarded Online Links

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