Game Classification

Iris Livier is an offspring of a Derr, member of a race of demigods with superior power, and a human. While all the children of such relationships normally are born human, Iris was different, as she was born a Derr. This special heritage has enabled her to become the premier hero of her clan, and the only one strong enough to engage the king of the Agasura demons in battle. The player's alter ego dreams about Iris every night, thus reliving her painful journey to become the strong heroine she is now, and her final battle to rid the world of Jiendia of the demon pest. The battle ends with Iris being surprised by the king of the demons and disappearing. In a last attempt of magic she summons the player's character to her world to walk in her shoes, find her and, finally, free the world of the evil Agasura.

La Tale is a massively multi-player online RPG with a twist not often seen in this gaming segment: It has 2D side-scrolling game play that can best be described as an old-school platformer. The player cruises through bite-sized levels with big sprites while everything is colorfully hand-drawn and strongly reminding of the peak of the 16-bit era, only in a Manga kind of style that wildly mixes up magic and technology. After creating up to three characters out of four base classes available (Warrior, Knight, Wizard, Explorer), and adjusting the look of it choosing from numerous outfit options, the player can traverse a tutorial that will teach the basic movement and battle options, namely fast and heavy attack, running and jumping, climbing and brachiating, and last but not least resting and looting.

Having learned that the player will enter the typical MMORPG game play, like:

1) Killing hordes of monsters for experience, items and gold while progressing in the game world and advancing the story in the process. In the beginner levels the monsters won't react hostile until the player does the first strike. This changes in later levels and dungeons where the monsters will attack immediately. Of course, the numerous NPCs of the game world will gladly offer a wild mingle-mangle of different quests to the player, thus advancing the story, or just plain giving the battles and progressing some kind of background.

2) Upgrading the character and investing the loot in superior and/or better looking equipment. Every level-up will improve the player's statistics and earn skill points that can be spent for new feats/spells in a kind of tech tree. Furthermore, there's lots of merchants that offer a myriad of different things, pets included. Players can buy an egg and hatch it (level it up), just to see it turn into a baby monster and grow up, developing very useful skills along the way. This little companion will exemplary gather loot or fight the enemy autonomously.

3) Enjoying the social side of the game. La Tale offers several options for social activities. Players can chat and make friends with other players, later on creating parties to adventure together and solve very hard levels with cooperative game play. Of course, two willing players can make the cooperative game play even more cooperative, with special dating rooms available for private chats, the possibility to affiance and, of course, marry the beloved one using even more special places for marriage. Competitive game play is also possible as there are cities that own a player-versus-player arena with special rules. Here, two players or two groups of players can frag it out for a certain amount of time, determining the winner(s) by the number of kills. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/la-tale/