Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

Runes of Magic has turned out to be a big success in the free-to-play MMO marketplace. Once I got word that this week would be full of birthday celebrations in-game I re-downloaded the client and logged back into my characters to see what had changed. To my surprise I found the game had finally gotten several little kinks ironed out and a bit of polishing had been done.

For starters the game still looks the same, but it definitely sounds better. Footsteps sound better, combat sounds better, and skills that were formerly performed in a vacuum and generated no sounds — things like gathering herbs, chopping wood, or chipping away at ore — now do so. Leveling up also has a nice little musical accompaniment as well.

I wasn’t able to spend too much time in-game before my old fantasy game malaise returned, but I have to admit if you want that World of Warcraft crafting, grinding, and questing type of game you could do a lot worse than Runes of Magic. It still shamelessly rips off of WOW, but as a free to play MMO that makes its money on microtransaction purchases of Diamonds to buy consumables and other things like mounts and house furnishings, it’s entirely optional whether to spend real money on the game or not.

Back when I plowed some serious time into it — Xfire tells me I’ve put in 131 hours including the two hours I put in earlier this week — I found the player base to be relatively helpful when I needed a hand in a pinch, but in the end it’s your friends that dictate whether you keep playing these kinds of games. But since it’s free and easy to start playing, getting friends to give it a try could be easier than you think.

For more information on the birthday festivities, hit their birthday page here.