12 Tails Online is a free-to-play action MMORPG originating from Thailand. As the title suggests, players choose one of 12 "tail animals" to play as, working their way through missions within chapters of the main story. Zones are largely instanced, with missions mostly limiting the party to four players (up to 12 for larger raids), comparable to Dragon Nest.
The game was a "surprise hit" in its country, and has a (very limited) English translation. And while a significant barrier prevents international players from entering, Thai fans have managed to find ways through.
The game was created by Big Bug Studio's full staff of four people, programmed in Unity. It appeared on Steam Greenlight and was called up to the majors in October. No further details of an international release are known.
This game provides examples of:
- Action Bomb: The Ja are orange, balloon-like jellyfish creatures that will self-destruct on any enemy they see.
- Anthropomorphic Food: Every new area in the game tends to introduce a weak fruit or vegetable mob native to it, which drops the food that they're based on. Carrons, Peppons, Cactons, Cocons, the list goes on.
- Artificial Stupidity: In early parts of the game, there's usually fences that can be used to hide behind. Enemies will just keep on walking towards the player without any success, completely vulnerable to ranged attacks.
- Awesome, but Impractical: A merchant rabbit's skills can inflict insane amounts of damage, but require the player to pay a sum of gold in order to execute.
- Big Eater: Whales. The NPC whale Jamon is the chef in charge of the cooking system. Meanwhile, playable whales have skills that increase the benefits added by cooked foods, as well as being able to swallow other players or enemies whole. On top of this, comments about food are made by playable whales when interacting with objects such as the storage chest and mailbox.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Sun-Sun, who is more interested in playing hide-and-seek while a great war is incoming.
- Dark Is Not Evil: It is emphasized by NPC dialogue that the cult of tail animals worshipping Shadow God Zera aren't inherently bad.
- Dowsing Device: Cat's Awareness skill, which reveals hidden treasure chests on the map.
- Fun Size: Sun-Sun is the smallest, and most whimsical of the six gods.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Mission 2/6 has the heroes chasing a giant worm that's run away with an NPC's cattle.
- First-Person Shooter: Rabbit's charge attack involves looking through its scope, where the player must aim at the enemy's head in order to do maximum damage.
- Flash Step: Penguins are capable of using "blink", moving them forward a certain amount of space and releasing them from movement locks.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: Shadow God Zera is the only one of the six gods who decided not to help fight against the foretold apocalypse and instead declaring war on the other five. However, his motives still remain unclear for the entirety of the game.
- Holy Is Not Safe: As the healer class, most of the Sheep's Heirophant skills don't do damage. The only exception is her ultimate skill, Holy Light, which causes all enemies within a large radius to rapidly lose around a hundred HP every second of its channeling. A high-level Sheep can clear early missions in seconds without having to move anywhere.
- Invulnerable Attack: Chameleon's Mass Shot has him leap up, and fire a spray of arrows downwards. Rabbits can also leave the playing field with Bunny Bounce, and shoot from the above with the right skill.
- Magic Missile Storm: One of the Penguin's earliest attacks. It has a very low cooldown and cast time, combined with the fact that it can be triple-casted.
- Mana Burn: A basic attack belonging to the penguin. They can also summon a Mana Vortex, which acts as a separate entity and absorbs mana from everything near it.
- Marathon Boss: 9/6: Shadow God Zera. Players are required to run around on a small stage while being bombarded with heavy damage attacks and HP to One, while making sure they destroy three tough crystals. When that's done, they reload numerous times, each depleting the boss's health slightly, before the boss finally goes down on the sixteenth round.
- Mighty Glacier: Bisons pack a wallop, but they're easy to kite and outrun in PVP battles. At least until they get Instant Rush.
- Mook Maker: Dr. Zappa, the cyborg mole, can constantly create turrets and robots to fight in his boss battle. Playable moles can do this too. Rabbits can do it to a lesser degree by summoning mercenaries one at a time.
- One Curse Limit: Averted to the fullest extent, as not only are there situations a single character can take on four or six statuses at once, certain conditions can cause one to take on two of the same status at once.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: Some particularly enemy-crowded missions, such as mission 2/4, attract people for their experience. Often, the level is unfeasible to do alone, but the players usually find someone to tag along with anyway.
- Poison Mushroom: Rabbit's Miracle Blend will scatter potions that offer many different kinds of power-ups. However, sometimes she'll create a poison bottle, so players can't just blindly pick up every potion they see.
- Power Copying: Bat's ultimate skill, Mimic, can change her into any enemy below a certain level. She can also create duplicate copies for which Mimic applies to...
- Precursors: The "No-Tail tribe", which existed before a calamity 5000 years before the story took place.
- Recurring Riff: The main theme for 12 Tails Online can be found in many level variations.
- Rummage Fail: Late-game rabbits are able to scatter potions on the battlefield with varying effects without any cool-down. This trope comes into play when you take into account the fact that a rare golden potion will occasionally pop out when the skill is used.
- Some Dexterity Required: It is possible to completely dodge many attacks, provided your character has sufficient movement speed, and you pay attention to the enemy's movements.
- Spam Attack: The Chameleon's skills all involve or depend on his capacity to rapid-fire arrows.
- Switch-Out Move: Bats can switch their positions with their mimics (to confuse enemies) or any enemy or ally.
- Taken for Granite: One of the Rabbit's ultimate skills is the Gorgon Shot, firing a laser that petrifies all foes it hits.
