Rusty Hearts - A Review

So along with other fans of the newly released 'Rusty Hearts' MMORPG I sat in my chair at work, watching and reading the fourms, reading the reactions and rage that was building up for the release. I had hoped that the game would be available when I got home from work, and damned me lucky if at 2:30'ish central the server was finally open to the closed beta testers. (At one point before the server opened offically, the developers tested the server one time for 4-5 minutes. People got really excited, creating their toons and trying out the tutorial. At this point the server shut down again and those who got in were rolled.) Personally I would've either waited on releasing the client to avoid people's continued attempts at logging in or just not be able to access the login screen all together. This created un-needed hype and literaly thousands of post of "I can't get in" even though most of the population knew the servers were not open as of yet.

OK...so i'll skip the rest of the forums and get to the review.
(Bit of spoilers here so watch out)

What is Rusty Hearts?

Rusty Hearts is the new MMORPG on the block, being published by Perfect World Entertianment (PWE, which I learned about Rusty Hearts from being a rather big deal in Battle of the Immortals, which is managed by the same company). While it is like battle of the immortals and every other MMO that i've played thus far, Rusty Hearts does not fancy itself on being a cute Hello Kitty Island Adventure game. It is a hack-n-slash game that gives you rewards on perfecting combos and doing as much damage as possible whilst avoid taking damage yourself. RH also has a leveling system, meaning expirence points will build and mold your character from weakling to a beast on wheels. Leveling up also opens your equipment for upgrades, getting bigger and better stuff as you progress.

Assuming you applied for/found a good chap with a spare beta key, you'd by now have download the client and have an account at the RH website http://rustyhearts.perfectworld.com/ (also through there you will need to register your key). When you meet both criteria, you are ready to play.

After the login screen, you were presented with a rather impressive character select screen. You can see the three selectable heros walking down a path of nowhere, piano softly playing in the background; if you look hard enough you can see the outline of the 4th hero, Natasha. As of yet she is not available to be played yet. (You can even click on Natasha and get a character selection. But that's as far as it goes.) So you get to choose between Tude, Franz and Angela. Seeing as most guys wanted Franz for his cool looks, I went with Tude. Tude has a gauntlet glove or claws that he uses to attack his foes. And he looks like a pirate. 'Nuff said.

So players are given the option to go through a tutorial level to familiarize yourself with the game a bit and provides a bit of a prelude to the start of the game. Unfortunetly the game was not 100% stable when me and Crash played it, so the game crash'd to desktop at the beginning of my tutorial, which means it was no longer available to me. Crash made it though with no problems on her side.

Logging back in and being able to control my toon for the first time, I was supried to see that I could not move my toon at all. Hitting keys that worked for movement in other games (the a/s/d/w keys, which work in about all the other games) did not budge my Tude. Using the mouse to find the options, I found that the arrow keys were used to move toons by default. This may be useful for new players, but I refused to learn new tricks. Thankfully, RH comes with a customized keyboard mapping, which you can set keys to different functions. Now using the a/s/d/w keys, I was able to run and jump around the screen with ease. Crash had some difficulty finding settings to suit her, but with time was able to get them straightened around.

The game has two different map layouts. The first is in town, where you'll be interacting with computer controlled toons (npc's for short) and where other human players hang out. In the town you'll pick up quest from different npcs and can buy weapons/armor/food/etc. Combat is disabled so you won't be able to punch or kick anything (think Guild wars. Actually RH is identical to Guild Wars in open towns and instanced dungeons.)

Alright...the meat of RH is not in the towns, but in the various instances where combat take place. Here you can go solo or get into a group of 4. Taking Crash into my party, we set off to battle the first area of the instance (the starter instance, the 'sewers' consisted of 4 areas to enter, each one consisting of different content and difficulty.) At this point RH plays like an arcade game; in order to progress to the next section of battlefield, all mobs must be cleared off the current section. Only when it displays 'area clear' can you progress. Scoring is based on hitting mobs, building combos (hitting one or more mobs in sucession), and the times you or your team has been hit. Assuming you did well (high style points vs. times hit), you get a letter grade, F being 'you suck' to 'SSS' 'you did awesome'. The first go we did we got a B, only because we weren't use to the new controls. Later we attempted the same level again and got the SSS rank.

One crazy thing that presented itself was the ability to grab a foe and pick them off the ground. This created a function for combos, and I found myself smiling time after time, picking up a zombie by the neck and punching it repeatly in the face, afterwards throwing it across the screen.

At the end of each level you are presented with your time, score and other details of how you did. Afterwords you get to choose a card with a random reward, ranging from coins or equipment.

How it played?

Pros:

The graphics and artwork are amazing. The soundtrack is also well played (I enjoy listening to the repeative tunes, some may not.) The developers took alot of time to make this a masterpiece, and it makes a good game awesome when you can put it all together in sync. While a good system will perform well older systems will also suffice when playing.

With the party system, equipment and hp/mp potions will be rolled to a random member of the team. While it was random, I found myself on the reciving end of the mp potions and stuff Crash needed and Crash was picking up things I needed. Don't worry, you can trade stuff afterwards.

Maybe it's just me, but I like movies. They come in at the right time and usually present some useful fact or information that will help you out.

Keyboard mapping: yay. I was able to set the keyboard layout to exactly where I wanted it.

Cons:

Default keyboard mapping: True, RH was made for use either by keyboard or game controller (assuming using the controller would make executing some combos easier to pull off), but the default keyboard settings were less than usable by either me or Crash. It took a few minutes to get things operational. Even then I may adjust an attack key or two. Wish there was also a way to map attacks to a mouse button.

During some of the cut scenes the dialog boxes automatically move quickly with the scene, which means you could miss some of what the characters are saying. Most people will skip it anyway, but there are some humor mixed into the story as well.

Stamina System: Being F2P has its usual limits in RH, that in being it's Stamina System. Each toon is equiped with 1,000 staminia, and a little is consumed when entering an instance. When it runs out, you can still enter but will not get exp or bonuses. Which I find this early on not yet troublesome (we got down to about 410 Stamina). Stamina returns to full after each real day passes, so you can adventure in again and do stuff. Im guessing sometime in the future the cash shop will have an item to either extend or replace lost stamina.

Your looks: You can choose the name for your hero, but that's about as much as you get to do your character for. So yes, you will see about a dozen of the same looking Tude's, Franz's and Angela's all running about. There are certian costume pieces you can pick up in the game later on to give them a different look. Tude has an afro. WIN. That should be in the Pro section.


Bottom line...Should you play it

If you are willing to put up with the fact that your toon will look like a hundred others for awhile and can change the key mapping to your liking, you will enjoy Rusty Hearts. If you are a fan of MMORPGs/hack and slash, you will like Rusty Hearts. Not to say it will be a hit to everyone, but considering it's free its worth checking out at the least.