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Minions of Mirth

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Developer: Prairie Games Publisher: Prairie Games Genre: RPG > General Released: Dec 12, 2005 Players: 64 Website

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With all the MMO's out there boasting this feature and that, it becomes quite difficult to distinguish which MMORPG is worth your time, and especially your money. Prairie Games, however, has designed a fully functional, affordable alternative to a lot of the other MMO games out there; most of which require players to pay an arm and a leg for monthly services. There's only one major download client, and there's no worries about having to re-download two dozen other add-ons from the website to get the game up and running.

Lately, Garage Games has managed to really imbue some quality exposure into the independent scene. With support ranging from PC to the Xbox Live Arcade, some independent developers are finally getting a taste of the limelight. Hopefully, the same success will follow for Minions of Mirth; a MMO RPG set in the medieval fantasy age and allowing for a range of interactive features. The game has a really deep set lore that would take far too many pages to explain within the confines of this review. However, I will exposit that Minions of Mirth carries the traditional good versus evil template over into an interweaving chain of alliances, factions, and character altering quests. The story arch in which your character is affected, or hence involved with the world events of Mirth, play out over the course of NPC given quests and player exploration.

Combat in Minions of Mirth is very similar to other MMORPGs...insofar that players select an enemy, and activate the attack icons for the selected party members. Thankfully, players don't have to continually click like in some MMO games. Instead, players can focus more on strategically using each team member's skills. One thing to also note, is that in the single player portion of the game players can create their own party. However, only one 3D avatar will be visible on the screen, despite being able to use every team member in combat. Magic, weapon skills, poisons, and special buffs are all available during combat. These given skills come from various classes that players can choose from.

Some of the classes are attached to races, and other classes are attached to light or dark sides. For instance, races inherit to the light side include the Titan, Elf and Halfling. While the Orge, Goblin and Orc are exclusive to the Realm of Darkness. For classes it's the same way. For instance, only Minions of Darkness can be Doom Knights. However, even if you're a Dwarf from the Dark side, you can't be a Doom Knight (but other classes are available instead). Some of the other classes include Revealers, Shamans, Paladins, Clerics, Barbarians and Tempest, just to name a few. Specific classes and races also receive special abilities. And if that's not enough, after level 5 players can dual class, and at level 15 add a tertiary class to their repertoire. There's actually a fairly steep hierarchy of player options for creating a character. Anyone who's keen on medieval fantasy games will easily find a race, class, ability, or side that suits them.

One of the more interesting aspects about the game, though, is the crafting skills. Crafting is almost a game in itself...simply by making and selling items provides a great economic alternative for many players. Whether it's crafting weapons, spells, armor, poison, etc., there's a fairly deep mechanic to it all without being too complicated. Other games like Funcom's Anarchy had a deep crafting system, but it required a lot of user feedback, help guides, and actual tutorials. In about five minutes, after gathering the appropriate supplies, I was making swords, axes and rapiers. Players also level-up the more they use the crafting skills, which in turn allow for more crafting skills to become available.

Crafting also coincides with Enchanting skills; Enchantments allow players to buff their equipment, or add enchantments to items, etc. As of course, the higher level the player the more effective and powerful the enchantment. It's even possible to craft your own weapon and armor and then craft an enchantment and put the enchantment on the available items. There's very little player interdependency, which is opposite of a lot of other MMO games out there. Players can individually make their own identity with their weapons, armor, and skills. This, at least, gives players more individuality when partying with each other or selling player-crafted items.

Pets also made it into the game; a feature that has become widely popular in MMO games, as of late. Like other MMO's, Minions of Mirth allows players to enhance and level their pets, as well as equipment them with appropriate armor and weapons. And like other command-oriented MMORPGs, players can direct or issue commands to their pet for battle, following, or carrying out other commands.

Another thing that was pretty cool, is that Minions of Mirth actually allows players to play as some of the monsters defeated on the actual quests. Template avatars of the monster become available in the create-a-player screen in the Monster section, separate from the Light and Dark side. Monster templates also start players in a different area, and allow them to play the game from a different starting point.

When players choose Light or Dark sides, they'll also start in different parts of the world of Mirth. The actual map is quite large...and that's actually an understatement. Traveling in the world of Mirth is no walk in the park. There's some amazing structures and environmental intricacies that gives the game its on individual look and feel. The skies are particularly a fascinating thing to look at while day shifts to night, and vice versa. It's also worth noting that armor, weapons, gloves, etc., all show up on the players and enemies. So anything players see the enemy wearing, is something they can take after defeating them. This certainly gives the game a sense of involvement and enemy distinction. At least, this makes training in Minions of Mirth far less repetitive in comparison to other MMORPGs currently on the market.


Graphics:
There's plenty to like when looking around in Minions of Mirth. Be warned, though, this game requires quite a bit of processing if you want the draw distance turned up. Otherwise, there's plenty of well-designed characters and environments. The lighting also provides the game with a good sense of immersion, bringing many of the towns to life.

Sound:
Hands-down, the music in this game is amazing. It plays when necessary, and it incorporates a sense of adventure that really melds into the game world seamlessly. The sound effects are also spot-on, and some of the NPCs even have voices when talking to them. Audio-wise, Minions of Mirth does everything right.

Gameplay:
It's really cool walking into and out of buildings without it loading. The non-instanced areas gives the game (and players) a sense of real involvement. Helping party members who are in a building, etc., is no longer measured by loading screens. Another huge plus is the easy-to-use fighting and skills. Players can also easily create macros to conveniently create combos for skills and magic.

Concept:
The game does some things really well, while it does one thing not so great. Caching for every loading area kept the game running smooth after an area finished loading, but it seemed to take a while for each loading area. Otherwise, the addition of the single-player and option to create your own party sort of made up for loading time.

Value:
The game comes with an encyclopedia for all the stuff that players can do, interact with, or craft in the game. With guilds, alliances, quests, a huge variances of enemies, and too many other options to list here, this game is definitely worth its price.

Recommendation:
There's a demo of this game that's free to try. Unlike other MMO games, Minions of Mirth has a real free trial that lets players get a feel for the general gameplay. If you like medieval MMORPGs, and want something different that has depth, ease-of-use, and lots of playability, Minions of Mirth certainly isn't a bad option.