Pi Story
- Area: North America
- Official Site: Pi Story
- Publisher: Aeria Games
- Developer: NCONY
- Platform: Microsoft Windows
- Area: North America
- Official Site: Pi Story
- Publisher: Aeria Games
- Developer: NCONY
- Platform: Microsoft Windows
Review
Reviewed by Mister Pi
Character creation in Pi Story is very simple. New players start as a default beginner class and must wait until level 10 before picking a specialized class (Fighter, Mage, or Cleric). There are a few hair, eye, and mouth style choices in addition to clothing color customization options. New players start in a small house and must talk to several NPCs before being taken to the main town where additional quests will introduce the player to every NPC in town. The tutorial quests in Pi Story are generally boring but are worth completing for the experience and equipment they provide. One quest will have you talk to 14 NPCs, one at a time. Almost every NPC in town will have a quest or two for you but oddly players cannot have more than five quest sin their journal at a time.
The combat system is one of Pi Story's best features. Game controls are handled with the keyboard and several keys are put to use. Players can do various special attacks which are all described in a short tutorial stage. Besides swinging rapidly (f key) players can preform dash attacks, jumping attacks, upper cuts, and throwing attacks. For the first few levels none of this will matter much since the monsters are so weak that just mashing 'f.' Like many other recent games, Pi Story uses a skill tree system where players are rewarded 1 skill point per level to distribute on their skill tree. This system is not original but works well. Most early stages can be completed alone but most of the higher levels require a party to finish. In order to access a stage, players will need that stage's specific Pi Stone. These stones can be purchased at town or after completing earlier stages. After completing a stage players will receive mission points which can be used to purchase pi stones to higher stages and healing items. The amount of points received depends on how fast the stage was completed and how much damage the player took, amount other factors.
The early levels go by fast in Pi Story but players will soon find it necessary to grind the same stage several times to build their characters up enough to take on the more difficult areas. Quests keep stages interesting for a while but there are only a few quests per stage. Currently there are three classes in Pi Story though a fourth one (thief) is in the works. Another draw back is that there is no PvP element to speak of. Pi Story does have some interesting features to keep players occupied such as a crafting system and a simple player housing feature. Pi Story is a simple, casual friendly game but I question whether there is enough content to keep dedicated players hooked for long. Pi Story is worth trying if the graphic style and casual real time combat are of interest to you.
