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NosTale

NosTale is a free-to-play fantasy MMORPG that features a variety of content, including branching classes, an in-depth pet system, and PvP/PvE modes. Level up to 20 and pick from three starting classes, then branch into more powerful and unique classes as you level.

Publisher: Gameforge
Playerbase: Medium
Type: MMORPG
Release Date: August 30, 2007
Pros: +Branching class system. +In-depth pet system. +Simple gameplay and UI.
Cons: -Outdated graphics. -Poorly translated. -Class branching requires level 20 and up.

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Overview

NosTale Overview

NosTale is a free-to-play anime-styled fantasy MMORPG that features 3D graphics in an isometric perspective, reminiscent of games such as Ragnarok Online and Secret of the Solstice. Create a character level up to 20 to choose your first class from Archer, Swordsman, and Mage, then unlock specialist cards to unleash the powers of stronger classes. Specialist classes give you new skills, weapons, and equipment on top of your main class, allowing you to specialize for challenging battles. Explore a large game world and liberate the forest from the evil monsters that arrived with the appearance of mysterious crystals. Enter the crystal worlds for timed challenge missions with awesome completion rewards, complete quests given by the game's NPCs, and team up with friends to take on challenging raids and events. Capture pets and summon them to your side in battle, storing unused pets in Miniland which acts as your home base.

NosTale Key Features:

  • Branching Class System – begin the game as an Adventurer and branch out at level 15 to multiple classes that can gain even more unique skills with the use of specialist cards.
  • Variety of Pets to Capture – capture and recruit multiple pets and NosMates to help in combat and to populate your Miniland, the player's personal home space.
  • PvP Arenas – partake in open world public PvP, or enter closed PvP matches in special areas for awesome rewards.
  • Dungeons and Raids – enter time-space stones for challenging, repeatable timed missions, fight in massive server-wide events, and take on difficult raid bosses with the help of your friends.
  • Join a Family – group up with likeminded players to join a family, the game's equivalent of guilds, and take on the game's many challenges under one family name.

NosTale Screenshots

NosTale Featured Video

Full Review

NosTale Review

Originally released in Korea back in 2006, NosTale is now available to the Western market but with a few complications. The game was available through multiple publishers in the past which are all now defunct (Serverx and Uforia). The game is currently available globally on Steam through GameForge.

Back to Basics

While NosTale is a relatively new game, its graphic style hearkens back to the good old days of 2D gaming. I would of imagined a game like this having a small client but the 1160 MB download proved me wrong. Character creation is nearly nonexistent; players chose their gender and one of two hairstyles along with a few hair color options. Like many other Asian MMORPGs, players do not select a class from the beginning, instead beginning as a newbie class until reaching a certain level. That level in Nostale is 15 which is higher than usual. Its also worth mentioning that characters in NosTale have two levels; a Job level and a Combat level. Your combat level continues to increase as you hunt monsters, complete questions and so on while your job level resets every time you switch jobs. The first dozen or so levels in NosTale go by quickly but only if you follow the starting quest line. Players are taught gameplay basics and led from one area to another by a bright arrow, gaining experience as they go.

Chicken, I Choose You!

If you follow the tutorial quests, you’ll eventually be taught how to catch animals and have them serve as pets. If you already have a pet with you, all new pets caught will be automatically transported to your ‘mini-land’ which acts as a personal home base. Pets can be trained and level up just like your character, they can learn new skills but must be fed and kept loyal or they will refuse to obey your commands. Players can have a single pet out in the gameworld at a time but may also hire an NPC mercenary called a NosMate. Both NosMates and pets can be set to auto follow and defend your main character or they can be given individual commands. NosMates also level up and can even be equipped with weapons and armor. During the first few dozen levels chances are you’ll be stuck with small pets like chickens, sheep, baby foxes and so on but eventually you’ll be able to catch dragons and other interesting monsters.

Easy Mode

Combat in NosTale is straight forward – left click your opponent to take a swing. As you level you’ll learn new skills which can be assigned to hotkeys and activated in battle. None of this is very original but it generally works well. My only complaint is that while fighting near teleporters (which link areas), you’ll occasionally end up teleporting instead of attacking. This gets frustrating especially during the game’s instanced dungeon missions (called time stones) which are scattered across the game world. Time Stone missions are timed and usually tied to the ongoing quest line. They are organized into a series of rooms nearly identical rooms which makes for repetitive gameplay. Completing these Time Stones not only provides players with a reward but is also necessary to finish each ‘Act’ and move on to the next. If you happen to die during one of these missions, you can simply come back to life up to 2-3 times (depending on the mission.) Things are even better outside the dungeons. As long as you’re under level 20 death has no penalty and players can elect to respawn right where they died. If your NosMate happens to die, they too will come back to life after three minutes. All this makes for a very easy game experience which is enjoyable at first since the experience rate is steady but after level 15 things begin to slow down.

All in the Family

Upon reaching level 15, players are given a meager three class choices; Swordsman, Archer, or Sorcerer. Luckily, each of these classes has four specializations which take the form of cards that players can obtain and use. For more information on the classes and their specializations, check out the overview tab. Another unique feature in NosTale is the mini land. Mini lands act as instanced homes that players can customize with furniture, trees, flowers and so on. As mentioned earlier, the mini land is where all additional pets caught by a player are stored. NosTale also has high level raids which take up to 15 players to complete. Players form a ‘Family’ rather than a guild in Nostale which gives it a more personal touch. NosTale even has PvP, players can drink a ‘battle potion’ which leaves them open to attack by others or can head into the arena and fight it in more structured battles.

Now for the Bad

I found the graphics in NosTale to be rather attractive but that may be because I have a soft spot for 2D games. The environments are nice and brightly colored, the monsters and characters are nicely designed but are recycled for too often. Every MMORPG recycles monster designs, changes their color a bit and slaps on a new name but NosTale has taken it a step too far. You’ll be fighting the same monsters at level 40 as you’ve been fighting at level 1 except that they will be a darker shade of red. Another fault is the game’s poor translations, NPC dialogue is at times incoherent and always dull. A quest tracker tells you how many of each monster you need to kill but finding where those monsters are located means deciphering quest text.

Final Verdict: Good

NosTale is not a revolutionary game but is easy to pick up and play. There’s enough in here for everyone. Pets, customizable homes and plenty of quests will appeal to the average gamer while instanced dungeons, raids and PvP entertain the dedicated crowd.

Screenshots

NosTale Screenshots

Videos

NosTale Videos

Nostale | How to Make Money!

System Requirements

NosTale System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7
CPU: Pentium 3 500 MHz
Video Card: ATI Radeon 7000 / NVIDIA RIVA TNT2
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Disk Space: 3 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7
CPU: Pentium 3 800 MHz
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 4 GB

Music

NosTale Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Additional Info

NosTale Additional Information

Developer: Entwell
Publisher: Gameforge

Release Date (Korea): 2007

Release Date (UK): August 30, 2007

Open Beta Date (Global): March 25, 2008
Release Date (Global): 2009
Closure Date (Global): November 2010

Steam Launch: September, 2017

Development History / Background:

NosTale was developed by Entwell, a South Korean game developer known for Iron Knights and Core Online, and published by Gameforge, a game publisher and portal headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany. Gameforge is known for hosting games such as OGame, Aion, and Dropzone. The game was first released in Korea in 2006, and made it to the United Kingdom on August 30, 2007. A global version of the game was made available on March 25, 2008 in an open beta, which fully released in 2009. The global version was then shut down in November 2010, leaving only the UK version available to English-speaking players. The game launched on Steam in September, 2017.