La Tale is a free-to-play MMORPG from Korea that's pretty obviously capitalizing on the success of Ghost Online, Wind Slayer, and MapleStory. Like Ghost Online, Wind Slayer, and Maple Story, La Tale has sidescrolling gameplay and 2D sprites on painted backgrounds. Unlike one of its predecessors, however, it did away with god-awful grinding in favor of decent quests that give more XP and are generally easier to do. It also has a generally pleasant community.The story is mostly cliche filler, with a mysterious girl named Iris who fought a great evil and vanished. Upon entering the world of La Tale, you must seek out the truth of her quest and companions via speaking with NPCs and completing various scenario dungeons.Almost everyone ignores this unless the scenario dungeon also has a quest.The American version of the game is hosted by OGPlanet, while the European version was hosted by Aeria Games.There are five available base job classes, each of which can be upgraded to one of two master job classes.
Warrior - halfway between a Glass Cannon and a Lightning Bruiser, Warriors dish out huge amounts of damage, but have only average defense. They learn buffs that increase offense, critical hit chance, and accuracy. Warriors can use spears, two-handed swords, or knuckles. They can become Warlords, who wield spears or two-handed swords and use upgraded versions of the warrior skills, or Bladers, who use dual blades and gain long basic attack combos in place of skills. Their new subclasses are the Highlander, who wield "Spiral Swords", and the Sword Dancer, who wields Psionic Blades via telekinesis.
Explorer - the Fragile Speedster, and also a buffer. Explorers are the only class that has long-ranged attacks, and they have many out-of-battle skills (such as picking locked chests) and buffs that increase evasion. They are generally considered the DPSer of the La Tale classes thanks to the speed of their attacks and combos, although each individual attack does less than a Warrior's. Explorers can use bows, crossbows, or daggers. They can be upgraded to Treasure Hunters (bows, crossbows or daggers) or Gunslingers (dual guns). Their new subclasses are the Rogue Master, who dual wields daggers and uses several ninja-esque techniques, and the Judgement/Bladeslinger, that wields a sword-gun.
Knight - Knights are the tanks of the La Tale world. Their defense is by far the highest of any class, but their attacks are slow and weaker than an Explorer's. Knights also learn buffs that increase physical and magical defense. They use one-handed swords, clubs, and knuckles. At level 80, they can change class to Templar/Temple Knight, who wields a one-handed sword or club and specializes in being a Stone Wall supreme, or a Guardian who wields knucklers and sacrifices a portion of the knight's tanking ability for more firepower behind their attacks. Their new subclasses are the Terror Knights, who wield gauntlets and generally make up for their lack of firepower from when they were temple knights, and the Psykicker, who wields "Psionic Fists".
Wizard - Wizards are the obligatory Squishy Wizard/Healer. Perhaps the most versatile class, they can learn offensive magic, defensive magic, healing magic, or a combination of the three. Wizards can use staves or daggers. Their class upgrades are Sorcerer which uses staves and orbs, and abandons healing magic in favor of improved versions of the same elemental spells they were already using, or Bards which use musical instruments, and give up access to earth, air, and fire spells in exchange for all the Sorcerer's improved water spells, as well as new healing spells, buffs, and special song attacks. Their new subclasses are the Phantom Mage, who sports fairy wings and uses Battle Staffs, and the Maestro, who wields a conductor's baton and fights by summoning orchestra players to attack. Maestros look silly, but are considered extremely powerful.
Engineer - A new class, they fight entirely with toolboxes, and don't specialize in any one stat, though have skills that boost damage output and max HP. They can only promote to Meisters, who ride mechas, though are also the only class that can function perfectly well unpromoted. Their new subclass is the Star Seeker, who trades the mecha for several robot summons.
Awesome, but Impractical: The special weapons have unique enhancements, but are nothing compared to an ordinary weapon with good enchantments.
Averted in a handful of cases however. Certain stats, such as critical rate and target defense decrease can't be enchanted on a anything, and tend to be more coveted than even a well enchanted mundane piece of equipment. Or you could get a unique piece of equipment with good enchantments.
Bag of Sharing: All items stored in the bank or the astro store are shared between all characters on that account.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Seen in the longest tree, which tops out at around the strastosphere, and Valhalla, which takes place on (not in) an orbiting satellite as well as Xenadia, a giant pyramid...thing which also tops out in space.
BFS: Some of the two-handed swords are larger than the characters wielding them.
Black Mage: The Sorcerer class abandons all healing for damage.
"Blind Idiot" Translation: Most of the translation is decent, but awkward. There are one or two gems like the soul urn and shield from the Mouth Peach being translated as "Mouse Pitch," as well.
There's also a certain npc who greets you with "What is up today!".
Boss Rush: Hardcore Coliseum, filled with previous bosses and minibosses that are both at a higher level and have special effects added to their attacks.
Bribing Your Way to Victory: For cash, you can get items that increase your XP or ely gain, increase the monster item drop rate, pick up items for you, heal you better and faster than the in-game items, Fashion equipments with stats along with event items to get even rarer items. etc.
You can even buy access to a spa which just gives you exp as you sit in it.
Eagleland: There's a city called "Big Apple" that looks like the USA, specifically New York City.
The island the city is on looks like the USA, too.
Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Fighting a 'level appropriate' boss, especially early on, is a good way to get curb stomped. That is, if you even make it to the boss in the first place.
Enemy Chatter: Some of the enemies talk. They don't have anything interesting to say.
Everything Trying to Kill You: Any and every enemy after the new player area IS aggressive, and WILL mob you to death. And let's not forget the variety of enemies that range from malevolent dolls to sentient, ambulatory food.
Exclusive Enemy Equipment: Any crafted weapon or armor can only be made from a soul urn from an appropriate enemy. It can also only be upgraded with another soul urn.
Fake Difficulty: It's probably not intentional, but the game has been known to lag. A lot. To the point that players often die while their character is standing in for a pin-cushion.
Fake Longevity: Most quests can be completed three times. Each DotNuri stage has to be finished 20 times for its real prize. The Christmas event had to be completed 50 times to get its best title.
Fan Nickname: LagNuri for DotNuri. For reasons that should be obvious if one thinks about it.
Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Aioch (Japan), Elfa (Egypt), Young Gyoung (China), Belos (Russia—at least judging by the fashions offered there), City of Iron/ Big Apple (USA)
Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Many of the areas are based on a story, like Jack and the Beanstalk, or Sherlock Holmes. Since they aren't all from the same country, it's pretty much inevitable. You'll also find monsters from nearly every mythology hanging out somewhere, including minotaurs (Greek), gumiho (Korean), mummies (Egyptian, sorta), and western dragons.
Infinity–1 Sword: Regular Coliseum weapons, which have the highest base stats out of any weapons besides their advanced counterparts, and can be upgraded up to the level cap.
Infinity+1 Sword: Advanced Coliseum weapons, which can be upgraded up to twenty times. Unfortunately, a normal coliseum weapon quickly outpaces it until it reaches about +15, and they are so difficult to upgrade the cumulative success rate for a +20 is best written in scientific notation. Unless of course, you win a Coliseum's Desire Coupon.
King Mook: The aptly named Goblin King and the Demon Goblin
Ladder Physics: Apparently, you can climb ladders without actually putting your feet on the rungs.
Leaked Experience: As long as the party member is no more than 10 levels behind the other party members, he or she will always get XP from a kill even if they don't fight.
Luck Stat: An amusing example, players already know that luck increases critical rate and ely gain. Exactly how much it increases it, or if there is a cap, is still a subject of debate.
Mascot Mook: The prirings, who were so popular that they were added as a pet.
Mass Monster Slaughter Sidequest: The most common type of quest, bar none. Annoyingly, quests to kill X Monster A always comes before the Twenty Bear Asses quest for Monster A. That is, after you've sold the Vendor Trash you're supposed to collect.
Nigh Invulnerable: Certain items or skills give you immunity to physical or magical damage. Templar classes in particular get one that gives both.
No Export for You: All updates come to Korea first, Japan second, and out in English only many, many months later. Played straight with every Japan only collaboration.
Noob Cave: Subverted with the Belos Underground. While its entrance exists inside the First Town, woe betide any new players who DO venture into it...
One Stat to Rule Them All: Besides shoes and gloves, the only thing you'll be putting on your armor is stamina and luck.
Gloves can be enchanted with critical hit damage. If somebody has the resources to enchant a pair of gloves so that their critical hits do, let's say, 90% more damage than usual, the owner of said gloves becomes a force to be reckoned with. Especially if the owner of these gloves is an Explorer, whose main strength is their high luck and critical hit rate.
Palette Swap: Many enemies are reused with only minor changes
Peninsula of Power Leveling: Toad Island, Spooky Village, and Coliseum. Spooky Village in particular has no items or quests besides a rare drop from its boss.
Platform Hell: The DotNuri mini-game, which is fashioned aesthetically after the original Super Mario Bros.. It does, however, give very good rewards to those who beat it.
Purely Aesthetic Gender: Both genders can do any class with no stat differences. There are two areas of the game where only males or females can enter, but they have no plot or quest relevant events within.
Randomly Drops: The soul urns are the worst offender. So rare you can farm a monster for days and kill thousands and still not get one.
Smash Mook: A player version, the Blader subclass has no other abilities other than focusing their energy into a certain organ and slashing.
Space Elevator: The fairly high level Bifrost map. At least it's called a space elevator, though you have to climb it the hard way.
Spikes of Doom: Every map that doesn't have a worse trap will have at least one spike trap on it. Who is building spike traps in the middle of forests, anyway?
Stone Wall: The Knight class. Guardians forgo most of their defense for attack power, and Templers become even better tanks, being able to solo bosses, as long as the player's patience lasts.
Sword of Plot Advancement: You receive Durendal in your fourth scenario quest. The only thing it can actually hurt is the Ocean King, and that's after he's already beaten.
Tomorrowland: Steel City, Atlantis, and Midgard are all far more advanced than the rest of the world. Atlantis actually sells their technology for food, since it is rather hard to farm on the bottom of the ocean.
Played with in concerns to Asgard, which is by far the most advanced area seen so far. The NPCs mention, however that the technology is rather antiquated compared to what they've seen before.
Twenty Bear Asses: At least half the quests fall under this. Annoyingly, the quest for the item will often pop up after you just did a quest that involved killing X number of those enemies and already sold the item as Vendor Trash.
Unbreakable Weapons: No matter what you do to them they won't break... Except when you try to enchant them. Then they can break and be lost forever. Apparently enchanting a sword is much harder on it than smashing crates or killing armored foes.
version of the game is hosted by OGPlanet, while the European
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