The site for managing you MetaTIX is nicely done. It's basically set up like a bank website; you can view all withdraws and deposits, add virtual money to you account, or transfer money to other players.

MetaTIX is the only currency in the game. There are no NPC shops to buy or sell items. The only shop is the Consignment store, where players sell items. You can search for items by name or filter by type. You’ll get a list of what's for sale, who's selling it, and what it costs. You can also put your items up for sale.

Selling things on the Consignment store is simple. Just select your item, set a price, and set a time limit. You can list items for free, but it will only stay listed for six hours. To list it longer, you'll have to pay a fee. You then just have to wait for it to sell, but more on that later.

MetaTIX is also used for enhancing and repairing items, certain quests which reward premium items, tolls at some of the gates, creating a guild (though joining a guild is free), and entry into the higher level dungeons.

There are ample opportunities to spend the virtual currency, but it's not as nickel-and-dime as it sounds. Most fees are only a few MetaTIX, and they are all optional. I can easily imagine $10 worth of MetaTIX lasting for more than a month.

You also have opportunities to earn MetaTIX. In addition to putting items up for sale, players can own dungeons and tolls for up to a week. All the money paid during that time will go to the player.

Environment

"Monato Esprit" isn't trying to be a graphical powerhouse. While the graphics are clean and simple, the characters are very basic -- almost polygonal. There is a lot of clipping that occurs, even with minimal armor. The environments are detailed and colorful, but the draw distance is pretty short, so you can't see very far ahead.

Like many free-to-play MMORPGs, the plot of the game is as uncomplicated as it gets. "Monato Esprit" is said to have been a dream world, but it is now overrun by nightmares. It's your job, as an Archon, to destroy the nightmares. As far as I've seen, that's the beginning and end of the story.

Before starting the game, you can choose to play the tutorial, which gives a thorough introduction to it. You'll also get a full set of basic equipment, two potion recipes, and enough experience to qualify for the class-choosing quest. However, you get these regardless of your decision.

If you choose not to do the tutorial, the official website and forum has a tremendous amount of information, including full maps for every city, a list of every NPC and every quest, and a full bestiary with stats and location information.

Your first real mission in the game is choosing a class. There are currently four to choose from: Hwarang, the warrior; Templar, the paladin; Cleric, the healer; or Mage, the spell caster. Additional classes, Sheriff and Harlequin, are in the works. Once you choose a class, you start back at level 1 with no skills.

Without NPC shops, it would seem difficult to gain new weapons or armor, but it is much easier in "Monato Esprit" than other games. Everything you need is dropped from enemies. I was easily able to obtain new equipment, potions, crafting supplies, and even pouches to add extra space to my inventory just by killing things.

Gameplay

"Monato Esprit" is a by-the-numbers MMORPG. Movement is point and click. Click to select an enemy and click again to attack. You gain a skill point for every level you gain, your skills use mana, and the classes are standard fare. You know the drill.

Like other things in the game, the quests in "Monato Esprit" are standard for the genre. You will mostly be delivering items between NPCs, or defeating X number of monster Y to get item Z. However, there are enough quests to keep a new player busy without resorting to pure grinding.

To a new player, it may seem like the city is teeming with quests, but the majority of quests are simply for new recipes for alchemy, the game's crafting system. Recipe quests are tedious, because you basically have to find crafting materials in order to learn how to turn them into a different crafting material. And the materials drop less often than other items. The main source of materials is going to be decomposing equipment that your Archon can't use.

Healing in the game is more difficult than it should be, however. If you are not a Cleric, then you have three options to heal. You can sit and heal, but the rate is slower than I've seen in other games. There are potions, which you can get from drops or by crafting them yourself, but after the first few levels they aren't effective enough and they go far too quickly.

There are also Crystals located throughout the world that heal your Archon. Red crystals heal your HP, blue heal your Mana, and yellow heals both. However, the Crystals aren't located in every zone. You will often have to travel back and forth between zones every few battles. Thankfully, travel time is pretty short due to the small size of the zones. In total, there are currently only 11 zones, plus a few dungeons.

The dungeons offer a place to fight more difficult monsters, including mini-bosses. They are best tackled with a few other Archons. There is no map inside the dungeon, so it's very easy to get lost. Since you can't easily leave and return, dungeons do house Crystals. As I said earlier, the higher level dungeons require spending MetaTIX. Right now, there are five dungeons for players to explore. "Monato Esprit" isn't a large world, but it fits the state of the community at present.

While the game was in beta, I saw only a handful of people. Since the final version was announced, the game has attracted more. There are active discussions in the channel, there are parties in the dungeons, and there are more people listing items in the Consignment store. All in all, the community is growing.

Game Stability

If the game were still in beta, a few crashes here and there could be forgiven. But since this is now a final version, it has to be mentioned that the game is prone to occasional crashes. The developers seem responsive to bug reports posted in their forum, though, and from what I've gathered from the community, the game is much more stable than it once was, so that's a good sign that the developers are serious about fixing these problems.

The main draw of "Monato Esprit" is the player-driven economy. However, that may also be its biggest flaw. I don't need to buy a new weapon because I know it will eventually drop. And even if I find a decent weapon to sell, I can't be sure anyone will buy it, because they could just as easily find it themselves. In order for "Monato Esprit" to flourish, more people are going to have to spend MetaTIX and introduce more money into the economy.

It makes for an interesting experiment, especially if more games take up the MetaTIX system. Right now, it’s a fairly generic and uncomplicated MMO that, with a stronger community and continued developer support, can easily become a favorite of gamers young and old.

Review Arthur Palomo
August 6, 2009