By Donna Desborough
In times gone by we all enjoyed the arcade classics that were side-scroller games Pi Story brings back that classic feel in Ncony's new MMO. Story, high adventure and a homage to a by-gone era of gaming that so many of us still enjoy.
The background story is a bit of an odd one, but at least it gives you a bit
of background and some sort of reason for going out and fighting. Basically the
world was created inside and egg and things went wrong. Now you're fighting for
the world to continue to exist and fighting against the evil and negativity I a
shattered world so that the human race can continue. Not an entirely detailed
background or reason, but it is more than many games give you. Hopefully in the
future the background will be expanded upon.
Pi Story moves away from the high end 3D graphics of most MMOs and instead takes a fitting 2D view of the world. This shouldn't be seen as a bad thing though. The art and style direction of the graphics is most fitting to its arcade feel and play. While the art still follows a rather typical anime style, it has its own flare and feel. The art quality is good, well drawn and rendered well into the game. The animation for actions is exactly what you would expect to see in a side scrolling game. The quality isn't amazing, but it's as god as the art.
Overall the animation and art are cute, but nice to look at. They may not be top of the line, but they are fitting to the game. To me that is more important sometimes than something shining a lot.
Very often the ambient music of games isn't very good. Unfortunately Pi Story
hasn't broken the mold here. While I don't expect a masterpiece, it would have
been nice if they hadn't chosen a 16bit soundtrack to accompany their arcade
styled game. Once the wave of nastalga wears off the music becomes something you
don't want to listen. Luckily there is a volume control in the options.
As you begin in the Pi world you are sent through a tutorial for the gameplay. This is a simple tutorial, but it is efficient to get you going in the game. It goes through the basics of what Pi is, how to move and how to fight. During the tutorial you also get a taste of the current story.
The "dungeons" you go to for fighting are instanced side scrolling areas.
When you enter one of these areas you're given a goal in order to complete it or
you may go to one to complete a quest.
Combat is simple to figure out and is again very fitting ti the game concept and feel. Like the old arcade games you must use a series of key combos in order to execute certain moves. This is done as a combination of the arrow keys and the attack key. You can also map some special moves to a specific key. This adds to the feel of playing an arcade styled game, but if you're like me you might forget some of the key combinations. Luckily you can look up the combos in your skills window since all moves, whether combos or mapped hotkeys, are considered skills.
Once you get the hang of combat the rest is all very straight forward. You can put things like healing potions into the mapped key slots for easy use also and resting is a pre-mapped key.
A note on the key mapping though. Unfortunately you aren't able to freely map
your keys for moves or actions. Key mapping is done by the limited shortcut bar
and only gives you a few options. It would be a big improvement if you had
slightly more control over this instead of the limited options given on the
shortcut bar.
As with many MMOs it is possible to join teams and guilds. Teaming is accomplished by simply inviting someone or by double clicking the team bubble that appears above someone's head when they are looking for a team. Many quests and missions need teams from very early on and that is a bit of let down for anyone new to the game. Hopefully this will be improved in the future once the game goes live.
Currently with the game still in beta stages, the pay store isn't active.
Right now there's no indication what kind of things the pay store will hold or
how it will work. The will be totally free to play though with the Pay Store
being optional as usual with this type of game. My hope of course is that the
Pay Store won't hold game breaking items and the Free to Play aspect isn't made
pointless if you have no money.
Overall I like the concept of Pi Story. I always enjoyed the side scrolling games in the past so it was interesting to see this twist in an MMO. the game is still in beta though, so hopefully the problems with needing teams so early on and the lack if key-mapping will be amended. This could be a very good game. It isn't something that is overly serious and looks incredibly cute with some good art direction. I would certainly suggest anyone who likes the old side scrolling arcade games of the past to take a look at it when it goes live. If nothing else, Pi Story has some serious casual play potential.