Dungeon Fighter Online is the American version of a reasonably long-standing game known as Dungeon & Fighter or Arad Senki. Developed by a company that had, up until that point, focused on casual games, Dungeon Fighter Online was a big departure and a much more addicting game. It draws inspiration from many different sources, but many of the game mechanics, such as the class change system, are distinctly MMO-ish. The story is your regular fantasy nonsense, as it's not the story on display here, but the fantastic gameplay.

Those that love retro-styled art will definitely enjoy Dungeon Fighter Online, if only for the graphics and sound. All of the characters are rendered in hand-drawn pixel art, and the animations are relatively smooth. Actions are very kinetic and appropriate, and the sounds only add to this. The music in kind of irritating, but the cries of enemies and the thwacks of your hits merge together oh so well. Simply set your own background music and brawl away. It's what we did. The one complaint we have is that you can not change your resolution, and playing at 640 x 480 is downright ugly sometimes!

Gameplay in Dungeon Fighter Online is divided into the two popular and distinct realms of PvP and PvE. Joining the two is the town, which offers the standard MMO services such as shopping, skill training, and player meeting. However, there is one massive problem with towns, and that is the fact that they are overrun with gold farmers looking to sell their wares. Don't expect to find a random pick-up group with all of the spam noise, especially since blocking them seems to have little effect on whether or not you hear them in general chat.

Your character growth is automatic depending on your class, but your skill growth is not. You learn skills from any trainer, and you buy them with skill points earned from beating up monsters or completing epic quest lines. Skill point growth seems to be independent of level growth, so you can go back to old instances where you get less experience and grind for skill points if you want. If you are progressing straight through the game, it is a little difficult to buy all of your skills, so you will have to pick and choose which ones sound the best to you.

There are a total of five character classes to choose from, each of which divides into four similar subclasses. They are: the Fighter, a female hand-to-hand combatant; the Slayer, a male swordsman who has a demon bound in his right hand; the Priest, a male magic user that focuses on the powers of light and darkness; the Mage, a female magic user who utilizes the powers of the elements; and the Gunner, a male bandito who uses guns and various other gadgets to great effect. Each class is accessible and fun, but the easiest and most straightforward is probably the Slayer.

Much like Aion, Dungeon Fighter Online has two types of quests. First are the normal quests, which you can get from anybody with a scroll above their head as long as you are the right level for it. Then comes epic quests, which are quest lines that reward you with good gear, more skill points, and large amounts of cash and experience. Epic quests can be started or completed anywhere and anytime in town, whereas normal quests can only be completed while anywhere in town. Epic quests tell the story of your character, and while they are fairly bland, they help you level up insanely fast. Most dungeons have around four quests associated with themselves, with the average being one epic quest and three normal quests. You can only carry a limited amount of quests, so it is best to drop some if you need one for a dungeon you are going to and picking it up later.

The dungeons themselves play much like a game such as Final Fight. However, instead of being strictly linear, each dungeon is broken into rooms, with each room containing many enemies to defeat. Once you enter a room, you can not leave it until every monster is dead, and there are a lot of monsters in each room. As you progress through the dungeon, you are also fatigued, which forces you to stop playing that character until the following day. It's a great way to promote both alternate characters as well as going out and doing other things, although it might irritate veteran MMO players.

The PvP in Dungeon Fighter Online is passable, if rather unbalanced. It functions much like a duel, with players being divided into team or being left to a free-for-all. It is unbalanced because classes like the Gunner or Slayer are incredibly overpowered in PvP at the moment thanks to high speed and decent damage, but this is hopefully an issue that will be fixed in future updates to the game.

Dungeon Fighter Online is a great example of how your average MMO can move forward. It mixes together MMO concepts, RPG growth, and brawler basics into one lovable package. Like the rest of Nexon's games, Dungeon Fighter Online is supported through microtransactions, but is available for free from the official website. Requires a valid NexonID to play, and starts from your browser.