Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu [Review]

2009-07-15_luminary

I have returned with another game review! Today I will be reviewing Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu hosted by the good folks of Aeria Games. It’s all thanks to Aeria that I’ve discovered alternative choices from the market standards with titles such as Final Fantasy XI or Ragnarok Online. The best of it all is that it’s free! ^_^

Luminary is an Anime-style MMORPG, originally developed in Korea by NDOORS Corp., featuring a vast array of features from running your own town community, including investments in the Stock Market, PvP/War, Pets, many economy opportunities, and much, much more! But how much is “much more”?

Gameplay

As many MMORPGs, you can deeply customize your character to whoever you want him/her to look like. But in Luminary, you are given a choice of 4 pre-made characters: 2 males and 2 females. Of course, you can change his/her appearance later with armor, weapons, and the like, but other features such as haircuts have yet (at least for now) to be implemented. In Luminary, you can be any class you want to become without having to stick with one job. You can use Archery skills, even use Rifles, Axes, Swords, and many more!

As mentioned in the preview, Luminary is a MMORPG that requires deep social interaction, from running towns (and servers), as well as the usual Guild, Grouping, and PvP features. Meeting the requirements, you can run your very own town Luminary has to offer. A few towns can have requirements to join a town ranging from a player’s minimum level and/or your commitment to the game.

Aside from running your own towns, you can also become a mentor at Level 50. A mentor helps out a new player with how the games works. (After all, this is a very big game in terms of features). While Mentoring is an excellent feature to Luminary, I do have a few Pros and Cons about the system.

The Pros: It is an excellent way to ask for help from a member of the server’s community without asking in the /shout channel, only to get a trolled response, or no response at all.

The Cons: The players who offer their Mentoring services while their “offline”; the player will leave up a chat box advertising their services while Away From Keyboard (AFK). While I admire their efforts of helping others in this way, I find it frustrating when the player isn’t available to help right away when you need it.

To add to the list of Cons, the other is the fact that getting a mentor is required for the Beginner’s Quest line in the early stages of leveling a character, which can be difficult if depending on the time of the day. The good thing is that you don’t need to keep a Mentor forever: if the Mentor’s help doesn’t help you or for another reason, there are always others to help you when you really need it.

Aside from Mentors, there are tons of social opportunities in Luminary, such as running for “Goonzu”, which is just like running for Political Office in real life: when elected Goonzu, you can control the server’s overall economy. A Goonzu can also appoint 5 ministers who look over aspects of the server’s environments, such as appointing policemen (portable versions of Game Masters when one isn’t around), setting the length of events times (including crafting bonuses), and many, many more.

Audio

The music in Luminary is cute and calming as in Ragnarok Online. Unlike Ragnarok, the music changes randomly everytime you zone into the field–this is something that a lot of reviews of MMORPGs point out when it comes to repetitive BGM—and its gameplay counterparts. Unlike the reviews, I seldom get tired of listening to the same thing over and over again (It’s how I became a fan of the Ragnarok soundtrack!), but this is a change if you don’t want to hear the same thing again.

Graphics

When people say the game is a pimped version of Ragnarok Online, they’re just about right. While the former has 2D graphics–dating back to 2002, Luminary features 3D sprites similar to the Harvest Moon game series back during days of Harvest Moon 64. The NPC designs are cute, but a few of them do look a little cheesy, but it’s not a big deal. But when the NPCs are actually interacted with, there have Manga-style counterparts that is suspiciously similar to Ragnarok Online’s Manhwa-ka, Myung-jin Lee..

Replay Value

With the features mentioned above, Luminary will keep you very busy. A plus with Luminary is that it features an Endless Quest system; once you complete a quest, you can do the next one. You will be rewarded with Experience Points, as well as Marbles (the currency of Luminary). Once you reach the maximum level of 100, there’s so much you can do—you could try your hand in running a town (or server), set up shop and sell your own manufactured items. The possibilities are endless!

Overall Rating

I recommend downloading and checking out Luminary if you’re looking for a free MMORPG after putting up with Pay-to-Play games. The vast features Luminary has to offer is similar to what you can find in World of Warcraft—but for free, and it’s a plus if you love Anime-style graphics! Also, be sure to check out the Luminary forums for more information and help on the game.