Massively Mundane- Ragnarok DS Review

Eight years ago, I couldn’t open a browser without my muscle memory kicking in and sending me straight to Newgrounds.com to navigate their vast library of sophomoric flash cartoons depicting Sonic the Hedgehog performing unspeakably violent, and often lewd acts to Mario in a non-Olympic setting.  It was around this time that the entire site was papered with ads for Ragnarok Online, an anime inspired, free-to-play Korean MMORPG.  Nowadays, these types of ads are commonplace and are largely ignored due to the sheer number of similar titles littering what would seem to be a very niche market, but at the time, the idea seemed novel.  After almost a decade, Ragnarok has pulled in millions of players, and earned its permanent place in the MMO space, sporting a sequel, an anime spin-off, and now a game for the Nintendo DS.

Ragnarok DS (or “Ragnarok: Ragnarok DS,” as it is written on the box) attempts to take the sprite-based Massively Multiplayer Online RPG off of your computer screen and convert it to a story-driven Japanese-style RPG, custom tailored to the DS.  You take control of a young adventurer named Ales as he sets off to become a real adventurer, like his father.  Only moments after his opening monologue, Ales stumbles across a girl in the woods named Sierra: “don’t tell me you have amnesia!” he exclaims, setting the tone and keying the player into the fact that they are in store for yet another installment of Amnesiac Princess Theater.  The game certainly dodges any chance it would have for an originality award, but I suppose it deserves some respect for being up front about it.  By the time Sierra agrees to join Ales on his quest to be the greatest adventurer in the world for no reason other than because he woke her up from a nap, one has resigned to the fact that this will not be the game that catches the attention of the Peabody Awards Committee.

The nuts-and-bolts that make up Ragnarok DS are very contradictory; it seems like everything that the game does well is balanced out by something poor, to make certain that the experience remains vanilla throughout.  The environmental textures and character sprites are very colorful and nicely drawn; however, in order to enjoy them, you need to be zoomed to the maximum level, which only allows you to see your character and anything within arms’ reach.  If you zoom out enough to see what you are doing, even by just a little bit, the game becomes a pixelated mash of jagged blobs.  The battle system is hopelessly adhered its MMORPG pratfalls: Basic attacks are performed by selecting an enemy and waiting for your character to exchange blows until the enemy dies or you need to run away to heal.  You can break up the monotony of watching two-frame animations in a loop by activating special abilities, which require you to use the DS stylus to draw lines or circles, however, until you are several hours into the game, none of these abilities will cause any more damage than your standard attack, so get used to watching your soaps while waiting for bad guys to keel over.

It isn’t all bad though; the game is relatively responsive, and the developers had the good sense to allow the player to move using the D-Pad or the stylus, so your hand rarely needs to obstruct your view.  Although the animations are extremely basic, the game never slows down, even when there are mobs of enemies on the screen.  Ragnarok DS also offers a myriad of character customization possibilities.  Each time a character levels up, they are given a set number of status points and skill points that can be used to upgrade Ales and Company any way you wish, and if you find a particular weapon that you enjoy, you can have it upgraded at the shops in town as well.  There is a multiplayer mode that allows the player to team up with 2 buddies wirelessly to conquer a randomly generated dungeon, made up of perfectly square rooms.  It’s not terribly exciting, but the option is available if you ever find yourself in the back seat of a minivan with 2 other kids, 3 DS units and 3 copies of the game.

I can’t help but think that Ragnarok DS was the result of a losing bet in the Gung Ho Online office.  How else would they get the idea to take a wildly popular multiplayer game and port it to the most anti-social system on the market?  If this were the result of an academic design project, I’d applaud them for their effort, but as a marketable game, I have to question their motives.  Still, if there is a market out there for Massively Multiplayer RPGs that are neither Massive nor Multiplayer, but still conform to all the trappings of those two M’s, then this certainly caters to it.

About Robert Allen

Since being a toddler, Robert Allen has been immersed in video games, anime, and tokusatsu. Currently, his days are spent teaching at two southern California colleges. But his evenings and weekends are filled with STGs, RPGs, and action titles and well at writing for Tech-Gaming since 2007.

33 comments

  1. Tis a sad day for RPGs.

  2. From “MMO” to “MM NO”!

  3. the screenshots look good, if a little blurry. At lest the got the cuteness.

  4. Help me understand making free to play title into a $30 game..

    Maybe they could give free carts away with ads in them. LOL.

  5. I still have not seen this at any Gamestop. Did they pull a Shirren on this one?

  6. “but the option is available if you ever find yourself in the back seat of a minivan with 2 other kids, 3 DS units and 3 copies of the game.”

    I dont want to imagine that road trip scenario.

  7. Milky Way Walker

    What are the Peabody Awards?

  8. Should have been the title.

  9. Are the monsters even wide-eyed and cute?

  10. Good review, NOLA. Youve developed quite the amusing attitude.

  11. Hows the character creation aspect of the game?

  12. Is “pixilated” the right word, or is it “pixelated”?

  13. Can you use the button instead of slashing every enemy. That seems like it could get old after a while.

  14. Level Up Gaming

    Not the interpretation I would have gone with. I would have made My Sims: Zelda Quest.

  15. When I sacrificed you in order to have Yakuza 3 localized, I never thought I’d see you posting on Tech-Gaming! Small world…

    No, you can not use the buttons to attack. You simply select a target with the stylus and the attacks happen automatically. The buttons are all mapped to menu shortcuts, which leads to some odd moments when you jam the A-Button out of frustration at a boss fight and end up bringing up the character status screen.

  16. You know what? I like that. Make it happen.

  17. bliP bliP BlooP

    You should have held out for the hostess bar and Mahjong tables! LOL.

  18. I’ll talk about this on the podcast tonight. Spoiler: I will not miss the hostess bars.

  19. is that top pic characters from the DS game or the MMO?

  20. “The awards program, established in 1940 and administered by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, is the oldest, most prestigious honor in electronic media.”

  21. D’AAAAAW! I walked right into that one!

  22. I’m looking forward to it.

  23. Knife in the Eye

    Good review, NOLA. How much is the game?

  24. I do like the MMO, sad DS game isnt at same level.

  25. I though this would be a Rogue-like.

  26. I thought you guys loved all RPGs here 😉

  27. No falcon for heroes makes this Un-ragnariffic

  28. Got this today, all I can say is WHY?

  29. Practically non-exsistant, which is the saddest part of the game. Even though I continue to play. r.r

  30. Practically nonexsistant. It can only be used in mirage tower. And I’m pretty sure only in multiplayer mode. *sigh* And still, I play.

  31. thats an awesome game. i must say that…….

  32. Thanks for providing such useful information. I really appreciate your professional approach. I would like to thank you for the efforts you made in writing this post. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well.