Ragnarok Mobile Mage

Ragnarok Mobile Mage

Today, I'm here to tell you all about a wonderful new mobile game that connects to a PC MMO. And by wonderful, I mean terrible. The MMO is Ragnarok Online and the mobile game is Ragnarok Mobile Mage. Mobile Mage is the first in a series of single-player games you can play on your phone. It was developed by Gravity Corporation and published by SkyZone Entertainment in the US. The gimmick is that you can earn money in the mobile game that you can transfer to your Ragnarok Online account. Not a bad concept -- even though you might be away from your PC, you can still make progress in the game. However, Mobile Mage does so many things wrong that the only entertainment I got from it was uncovering its flaws and thinking of how I would have designed it differently.

First of all, the character you play in Mobile Mage is not your own. She is female, a mage, and in no way customizable. Actually, you can customize her by focusing her skill increases on something else like melee combat every time you level up. However, focusing on anything other than becoming a better mage would be a mistake. The game is so unbalanced that only one character progression path makes sense. Because you can't customize your character, you probably won't become very attached to her. In fact, I found myself actively resenting her when she said things like, "I have never seen a whisper before. I am nervous." She says this at one of the easiest points in the game when I was starting to get bored with the lack of challenge. Maybe some people consider irrational fear an attractive attitude, but I struggled to sympathize with her.

Second, the gameplay is terrible. It consists only of combat, which involves almost no skill. The pathfinding algorithm the enemy AI uses is not sufficiently sophisticated to walk around obstacles. So, when you come within sight of an enemy, the enemy will frequently get stuck on a rock. At the lower levels, their incompetence made me laugh. At higher levels, I used it for survival, and then still laughed.

Third, the game is broken into two sections, which are both unbalanced. The first section, a training field, is too easy. When you conquer this section, the game directs you to the second section, a dungeon, which is too hard. At this point, you can no longer return to the first section. I had almost no success surviving attacks from enemies in the second section. So, I evolved a strategy of attacking from behind a rock. This was honestly the extent of my combat strategy. The rest consisted of repeatedly hitting the attack button and complaining as my thumb got more sore. I realized that all of the skill points I had invested in my defense ability were wasted, because I couldn't withstand attacks anyway. There was no way to undo this mistake, other than to start over.

Fourth, starting over requires abandoning your first character, since the game will not allow you to maintain two characters. It discouraged me from experimenting with different ways of specializing my character. However, I took the plunge, deleted my character, and started fresh.

Fifth, now that I had my new character and was back in the first section of the game, I realized something interesting. I made more money more quickly in the first section of the game than in the second. In other words, the game penalized me for leveling up, completing the quests, and graduating to the second section. There was absolutely no challenge in the first section, especially since my new specialization on magic power made me significantly stronger. So, out of boredom, I took the irreversible step into the second section of the game for the second time. There, I confirmed that my monetary income dropped significantly, despite my new power, undercutting the whole point of the game in terms of its connection to Ragnarok Online.

As nice as it felt to transfer Zeny, the game currency, from Mobile Mage to Ragnarok Online, I found myself so frustrated and bored that I stopped playing.

As you all know, I love the concept of connecting mobile games to online MMOs. In that context, Mobile Mage represents a step forward. I would love to see the mobile game incorporate its own multiplayer aspects, allowing for socializing, PvP combat, and trade. I would love to see more character customization, even allowing players to play the same character on mobile and online (complete with linked experience gains). I would love to see meaningful challenges, an interesting story, and balanced gameplay. Until then, I'd rather not play than play this.