Bumblejinks Reviews: Toram ONLINE
Asobimo's pinnacle mobile MMORPG?
Anyone who's played mobile MMORPG's in the last 5 years definitely knows Asobimo Inc., makers of some of the most beloved MMO's in the mobile scene. Many people knew about Avabel Online, even if it has mostly fallen from grace in recent years.
While I know that developing games for mobile is easier then consoles or PC's ( usually ), Asobimo has apparently learned how to multi-manage almost half a dozen MMORPG's on the mobile scene. Looking through the Google Play Store, I've seen at least 6 MMO's developed and published by Asobimo. Even the creators of World of Warcraft don't have a level a creativity like this!
Toram Online, being the most recent one in the lineup, carries over almost nothing from the previous games they had released. Even Iruna Online, which is somehow directly tied in with this game ( it IS in the title, after all ).
So, how does this game hold up on it's own, and how does it compare to it's many predecessors? It's time to put Toram Online under the "Bumblejinks Reviews" microscope and find out.
Now, I should probably say: I have NOT played EVERY SINGLE ONE of Asobimo's games before going into this review. I've only played Avabel Online and Aurcus Online to length before jumping into Toram, and I remember liking both of those games fairly well, though only about as much as, say, Pirate101. So I had some fairly good expectations for this game going into it. I will be discussing how this game's various gameplay aspects compare to all it's predecessors that I've played. In some cases, it beats out the past games, but in some other cases, it falls short of being great.
One more thing I should tell you about: This is the most story-driven game in Asobimo's lineup, and I will be spoiling the game's story rotten throughout this review, so the SPOILER ALERT warnings are at omega level here. If you want to play this game spoil-free, now's the time to click away.
Let's begin, as usual, with The Plot.
It's been hundreds of years since a terrible cataclysm happened, splitting the earth apart and forcing 12 powerful gods to join the earth back together, although this has changed the very face of the planet forever. The worlds many nations were also utterly wiped out during the cataclysm, and in their place, 4 tribes have formed.
One day, your character comes into this world, possessing unique characteristics.
As this young adventurer, your charged with traveling through the many lands of this world and beyond, communicating with the residents of every tribe, battling a wide assortment of crazy baddies, and going on all kinds of wacky adventures.
Along the way, you meet up with a wide assortment of different characters, some major, others minor.
On the surface, the plot isn't that complicated, and is similar to Wizard101 in more ways then one. You find out how as the game goes on, but that's nonetheless how I feel about the plot as a whole. It's entertaining and does the job well, but it's nothing completely new and unique.
That said, there is some entertaining dialog here that made me laugh on my first playthrough, and thankfully, unlike Aurcus, the English translation DIDN'T end up ruining the bulk of the cutscenes with broken, barely legible dialog! And if you don't care for the cutscenes, you are allowed to skip them if you so desire. Thank goodness.
Overall, the games story presentation and plot isn't top notch even for mobile standards, but it does a good job in doing what it needs to do to sell the story. And it's still better then Aurcus, which had a mosly forgettable story, and Avabel, which didn't have a story at all, so that deserves kudos.
Now we come to The Graphics.
As someone who's played Avabel and Aurcus before jumping into Toram, I can say without a doubt that Toram Online is Asobimo's best-looking MMO, no questions asked. The characters look and animate excellently, and the wider variety of emotions for them to perform just fits perfectly. And it's not just the characters. The weapons, armor, and even avatar ( cosmetic ) items all look FANTASTIC.
The fact that there exists a mobile MMORPG that not only looks as good as Wizard101, but can maintain a consistent 30 Frames Per Second ( FPS ) with said graphics, warms the depths of my COLD-blooded heart.
I swear, every single sword, dress, hat, and even pair of shoes in this game, all look amazing for mobile standards, and vastly beats out all of it's predecessors, and even most other MMORPG's on mobile.
One of this games biggest selling points was the fact that the game has over 80 million uniquely designed pieces of equipment in it, which means there's TONS of different combinations you can put together to make the perfect outfit for your character. Add in the fact that the bulk of them can be dyed with various colors to change their appearance, and you've got one of the widest varieties of potential outfits available in an MMO to date. And that's not even taking avatars into account.
There was the occasional instance where the graphics would screw up on me, but it wasn't anything I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been looking for it.
As for the battle effects, it's on par with Wizard101. Many of them look nice, while a select few look questionable. It's nothing that can bring down the entire game, but those battle animations and effects that are relatively lackluster can be very distracting when they do come up.
Overall, the graphics stumble every once in a while, but at the end of the day, they still get two thumbs up from me.
Next up, The Sound.
It's no surprise that Asobimo MMORPG's have some truly fantastic music in them. I still get chills when I listen to Avabel Online's title screen music. That's the kind of stuff that makes a lasting impression, something many other MMO's seem to forget about.
Well, Toram sought to top all it's predecessors in terms of it's soundtrack, and it succeeds with flying colors. There are so many memorable tracks in this game that to list them all off would take all day. Though the game is lacking any sort of title screen theme, I don't necessarily need this kind of thing to enjoy a good MMO.
Of course, there are a handful of musical tracks that leave a lot to be desired, either because they're incredibly lackluster, or just used in the wrong map and setting. Nevertheless, you will certainly enjoy this games soundtrack.
How about the sound effects? Well, I won't mince words when I say I was expecting something more from this game. The sound effects were awfully lacking in the past two games, and this game carries over the one big reason why I disliked the sound effects in those games.
What IS that reason, you may ask? Many of the attacks and animations in those two games were lacking the correct sound effects needed to make the player feel satisfied with using these abilities, such as the sound of a sword being driven into the ground with a certain "Sword-Thrust-Explosion" skill in Avabel. That game came out 5 years ago, when Asobimo was still trying to get their footing with mobile MMORPG's, so five years later, what the heck was this games excuse?
When you swing a sword, I fully expect to hear the sound of the sword cutting through the air, and the sword striking the target. Often times in Asobimo MMORPG's, you don't get the sound of the weapon swinging through the air, making it feel really awkward. Maybe I've been spoiled by most PC MMORPG's like Lord of the Rings Online, but I can't help but be distracted by it overall.
I barely acknowledged this flaw in Aurcus when I played that game back in 2016, mainly because I was starting to fall out of the MMO craze at around that time, and wouldn't pick that craze back up until early 2017, so I was somewhat blinded to Aurcus' flaws at that time. But in today's day and age, I can't help but raise both eyebrows at this sound effect problem. And for one reason or another, it came back AGAIN in Toram. Good grief, why?
Overall, the music is great, as expected from Asobimo MMO's, but if you weren't a fan of the sound effects in either Avabel or Aurcus Online, I don't think this game will really change your mind.
Now we move onto The Gameplay. And oh boy, we got a LOT to talk about, so please don't kill me if I neglect to mention something.
As with all of Asobimo's games, Toram plays drastically different from it's predecessors. Both Avabel and Aurcus had a dedicated class system where you picked a class and rolled with the skills it came with, developing these skills with skill points and building your stats with stat points as you went.
Well, Toram still retains the stat and skill points of the past 2 games, but drops the class system altogether. Instead, you now pick a weapon for your character to specialize in, and skills are chosen freely by buying them at the library. This gives you the freedom to grow your character however you see fit. Do you want to be a heavy armor wearing tank with defensive magic? Go ahead. How about a swordsman who can launch fireballs at enemies? By all means. There's even some hidden skills you can find that will further boost your power.
Your characters can become whatever you want them to be. They can be one thing. They could be multiple things. They can quite possibly be EVERYTHING. You have that freedom.
This is only hindered by your ability to grind for levelups, or complete specific missions within the game itself, to get more stat or skill points, as well as farming for Spina to buy these skills. You also must advance a skill to Level 5 in order to use the next skill in the lineup, which sort of doesn't make sense to me. In, say, Diablo, you only have to invest ONE skill point in a skill to open up the next skill in the list, meaning you could safely ignore skills you don't care for.
And the cost to reset your stat and skill points is quite steep, so you better make sure you know what you want BEFORE you commit the points.
Sadly, this does come with it's pitfalls. Newer players may end up putting points into the wrong stats or skills because they don't understand what everything means ( It IS a lot to digest right off the bat ). And because it's so penalizing to make mistakes like this, almost every player is going to delete their first character in favor of a new one as soon as a second character slot opens up.
One thing I absolutely love is that if you have 2 characters on the same account, you can have one accompany your current character. I choose to play the game with my main damage dealer/healer hybrid in the lead, with my other supporting character being a heavily armored tank. And you'd be shocked, but I made it through a HUGE chunk of the game that way. Add in the fact you can bring in a friends character as a hire-able mercenary, and even a pet to provide you with backup, and you can form a full party of 4 without ever having to team up with other players.
...Problem is, there are some instances where you are forced to team up with other players, and there's never any rime or reason as to why you have to do this. Is there really no explanation whatsoever WHY I can't simply bring in my NPC crew to take on the Guild Maze? It kinda feels like the feature was just shoehorned into the game with no real thought as to when it should be used. Not to mention if your able to build a full party of just NPC characters, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of the "massively MULTIPLAYER online" game. What's the point of making it a multiplayer game if you can ignore the rest of the community for up to %95 of the total game?
That's another thing I'd like to mention: The difficulty. Asobimo games are notorious for having unbalanced difficulty curves that often fly in either direction between each map. And Toram is no exception.
For example, on one map, the enemies are on-level with you, and you can take them out pretty easily. On another, they're 2-3 levels higher then you, and they might give you a bit of a hard time. On another connecting map, however, your suddenly ambushed by enemies who are 10-15 levels above you, whom you have absolutely NO CHANCE of fighting back against! What the HECK is up with that!? That kind of garbage NEVER happened in Lord of the Rings Online! The enemies levels gradually went up in increments of 3-5 with each new area you visited. They never, EVER, jumped up by about 10-15 levels out of nowhere! That's just bad game design! It adds nothing worthwhile to the experience and dumps all over the pace, as well as the exploration factor!
Now, if you pull up your map, it will tell you if the area your about to go to is higher in level then what your prepared to handle, so you'll know to stay out of these areas. But that still doesn't excuse the bad game design!
One more thing I haven't mentioned is that the game sometimes puts high level bosses in middle level areas that you have absolutely no chance of defeating, AND who sometimes decide to randomly attack you while your just walking by! This is awkward, frustrating game design that will cost players revive droplets and kick them back to the main town, 10 MAPS AWAY! Just... WHY!?
Sure, LOTRO did that kind of stuff, too, but those enemies were few and far between, and you could always see them coming thanks to your radar! In Toram? Not so much.
And of course, we come to the controls. To be honest, I never ran into too many control problems while playing Toram. Sure, there were a few instances where the touch controls would screw me over when a skill failed to activate when I need it to, but the amount of problems I encountered with the controls pale in comparison to Minecraft: Pocket Edition. And that's saying something, considering that game was made with a considerably bigger budget then Toram. And that's coming from someone who's played both Avabel and Aurcus before jumping into Toram.
Fully customizable player housing is in the game, although it's still awfully limited in terms of what you can do, and LITTERED with paywalls you have to grind to overcome. But I can honestly get over that, seeing as how this is a mobile game.
As I mentioned earlier in this section, pets are in the game. However, there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through in order to get just the pet you want, and not all of them are useful. Pets with the "Gentle" nature won't even fight enemies, so they're useless by default.
There's 2 ways of obtaining a pet: Either trap one yourself, which can take a while, since you have to both BUY and improve the trapping skill required to catch them, or grind a ton of Spina and buy one off the Consignment Board.
Honestly, catching critters to use as pets is nowhere near as engaging as Pokemon, and it's such a chore to do when you just want to get a good pet to train up.
You also have to keep an eye on their maximum level. All pets have a preset level cap you cannot raise, and the only pets worth having are the ones closer to the players level cap. And these pets can cost a FORTUNE to obtain! This is one reason why many players often stave off getting a pet for the endgame.
Once you've got the pet you want, you have to take it back to your home ( which you HAVE to buy, by the way, just to even train these guys ) and begin training it. You do this by picking a stat, picking a difficulty, and going for it. And your pets actual stat development is ENTIRELY luck based. Sometimes, they get nice stats, other times, if your unlucky, you'll get diddly squat. And it's always the worst when this happens. Why couldn't it have been minigame and skill based, like Wizard101?
Skill training is even worse. You pick a skill to develop, and then your pet can develop more with increased training. Problem is, past the first skill, you have NO CONTROL WHATSOEVER of which of the other skills your pet is going to get! And they're only allowed to learn up to 3 skills with training, so this may very well end up causing you to rage quit when you miss out on the pet skill you wanted for the 5TH TIME!
But that doesn't even come close to approaching the pet systems most fatal flaw. The complete and utter nail in the coffin that lowers the experience beyond redemption.
As your train your pet, their "Discipline" counter rises, regardless if they succeeded or failed in the training. And one thing I haven't mentioned is that what your actually training is your pets maximum stat limits. And you'd think the Discipline counter would be nice and high to allow you to nicely develop all your pets stats, but it's pretty darn tight! You just BARELY have enough Discipline to get TWO of your pets stats up to 110, which isn't considered very high by the games standards, and once you reach %100 Discipline, you can't train their stats anymore!
Oh, and after every 10 trainings or so, your pet tires out and you have to either wait for it to recover it's stamina, which can take forever, or spend orbs, purchased with real money, to buy potions to get them up and going again.
But even once you've got your pet ready to go, you still have to go and grind enemy battles in order to level them up. And you can't cheat by just obliterating everything on your max level character to level them, either. They HAVE to get an attack in on the enemy, or they won't get any XP towards a level up. And they take just as long to level up as you do.
Why is all this a problem? Eventually, you have the option to fuse two pets together to create one pet that has many of the same stats and skills as both parents. But here's the thing: Unless BOTH PETS levels are close to their cap, you run the risk of the new pets level cap dropping to roughly a third of what it used to be, with no way to ever get it to rise back up again, effectively RUINING that pet you've spent so much time, energy and money building up!
But because it takes SO DANG LONG to level these guys up, you'll often end up setting for a subpar pet because you just can't be bothered to level them up high enough to be worth fusing! And combined with the limited stamina problem, this single feature turns Toram from what was once a pretty fun and enjoyable game to an irritating slog!
Eventually, you have to farm for the resources you need. It's just a requirement. And I found myself having to do this TWENTY TIMES!! All because Asobimo neglected to do what Wizard101 did when it came to pet development, which was handled so much better!
Overall, the gameplay is better then Avabel or Aurcus Online, but not by a huge margin. There are a few things I'd love to see addressed in a future update to make the game less cumbersome to revisit, but with a few exceptions, I think I can live without it. And the entire pet system is just utterly broken and annoying. Seriously, unless you have hundreds of hours, AND DOLLARS, to burn, don't bother trying to get a pet in this game. It really is just a waste of time.
And that brings us to our conclusion, The Appeal. How does this game hold up on it's own merits compared to it's predecessors?
The first time I played Toram Online, it blew me away. I loved it so much, I was prepared to call it one of my favorite games of all time.
However, with each playthrough of a new character that I do, especially with the full playthrough on my main character I did for this review, I can't help but feel like my impressions of the game has just weakened.
The graphics are remarkable for mobile standards, the music is excellent, and the dialog isn't NEARLY as bad as it was in Avabel or Aurcus, which makes the plot easier to digest.
However, Toram doesn't get much more then a passing grade when it comes to the most important thing of all: The Gameplay.
For a game that seems to bill itself as a massively MULTIPLAYER online game, the amount of actual interaction with that multiplayer can be as minimalistic as a Diablo game.
The game suffers from some difficulty issues not unlike that of Age of Conan, the sound effects can leave longtime Asobimo fans disappointed, it takes forever to grind enough levelups to be able to do anything past the midway mark, and the process of raising the perfect pet is difficult to go back to and actually do, even as a max level player, and dominates the last fourth of the game.
While the rest of the game is pretty enjoyable, I can't help but raise both eyebrows when I hear people call it a "Perfect mobile MMORPG". I can't look at something like this, with all the problems it has with it's pet system, and think it's the best mobile game ever made.
Frankly, if it wasn't for the story, and the long-time fandom for Asobimo, I really don't think this game would have become the mega hit it is today. On a first playthrough, your not really thinking about it's flaws all that much because your more focused on the story and trying to build up your characters, so your pretty much just going along for the ride.
The problem with these kinds of games is that they have a rather nasty tendency to blow their load on the first go-around, and after that, your just left with sloppy seconds.
Maybe, just MAYBE, I would have been willing to swing for a very generous "It's pretty replayable, despite the flaws", but Toram Online seals it's fate by forcing me to waste more time developing the ideal pet then I spent just leveling my characters and going through the main story. If I wasn't doing it as part of a review on this segment, there's no way I could have been bothered to finish it all the way through. I can't imagine what it must be like for people to spend full retail price on this dumpster fire.
While I do think this is Asobimo's best MMORPG to date, it's riddled with a few rotten design quirks that make it extremely disappointing to revisit. If there was a dictionary definition of a "One-and-done" type of game, this would be it.
** WHAT'S THE SCORE? **
PLOT: The game's plot isn't A-plus by any stretch, but it's definitely better then the last few games made by Asobimo. ( 7.9 )
GRAPHICS: Easily the best looking mobile MMORPG ever made. It's visuals rival that of Wizard101 and even Free Realms! There are a few quirks here and there that make it less then perfect, but it's still amazing. ( 8.9 )
SOUND: The music is top notch and very memorable, but long time fans of Asobimo's work may be disappointed by the sound effects, which have seen no improvements from Aurcus Online. ( 6.7 )
GAMEPLAY: While the character customization is fantastic and the actual combat fast-paced and enjoyable, and the controls fairly solid, the difficulty balancing is easily the worst of Asobimo's lineup, and the entire pet system is utterly broken, and sinks the entire experience beyond redemption. No respect whatsoever. ( 4.5 )
APPEAL: The game has flaws, lots of them. But this is still Asobimo's best MMO to date. Play it and enjoy it as you wish, but don't expect the game to outdo any computer MMORPG's you may be playing. ( 6.8 )
FINAL SCORE: 34.8/50