Hero Online

Since Hero Online's release in July 2006, it has become one of the most well known free MMORPGs on the internet. It is owned and promoted by the makers of Legend of Ares, Scions of Fate and Holic.

The Quests

The story line of Hero Online is one of the most vast story lines I've seen in a free MMO. It's based on a true ancient chinese story, which is worked into the quests. As you play and complete quests, parts of the story lines come to play in the game. Most quests give great rewards, making them the best way to level up. Quests seem to be mostly grinding tasks where you must defeat 'X' amount of monsters and in return you are rewarded an item or extra EXP, while others have you deliver an item to another NPC. HO Quests don't seem to be anything new in the RPG world, therefore they mainly only appeal to the hardcore storyline gamer. However if you aren't into story time for quests, you wont find much enjoyment here.

Combat

The combat system is definitely HOs strong point. The game is filled with different weapons and armors which look like ancient chinese warrior gear. In the combat system you'll find the skills most appealing. There are some truly special moves that could even compared to the skills in games like Liniage and Guild Wars. In Hero Online there are four job classes: Pysicians who specialize in status effects and healing, Hunters that tame monsters and use them as pets, Warriors who use skills to boost their attack and defense and Assasins who employ life drain and stealth skills to defeat opponents. Each job class has it's own skills and you gain more by leveling up.

Gameplay Features
Surprisingly there are more features in Hero Online than 90% of the free MMOs out there. One of them being mounts, which are animals you ride around on to travel faster. This feature is very rare in free MMORPGs. There are two main PvP features, one of them PvP zones set aside for player vs player battles and Bounty Hunting where players can place a bounty on other players heads, paying in-game money that other players will receive if they go and kill the player with the bounty on his/her head. There are all the standard chat features that you would expect in an MMO and lots of ways to connect to your friends. You can have a House (Guild) in game where other players can join in and participate in House features.


Graphics
Unfortunately the graphics for this game are below par at best. The skills you use in battle seem really well animated and the animation is done really well, but the graphics seem to dull the action effect. The cities, caves and valleys are put togather well but again, the graphics seem to lower the enjoyment you get from it all.

Conclusion

If you like ancient chinese history, war anime, tweaking your character, LOTS of grinding and a good storyline, then this is the perfect game for you. However, if you are like todays average gamer, you most likely wont be impressed with this game. There are lot sof better MMORPGs out there that are improving quickly in this billion dollar industry such as, Silkroad Online, CABAL Online and Holic.