Asda Story Overview (01/29/2010)

Most players start Asda Story by crafting their character, which lets you choose from an assortment of hairstyles and initial clothing options. You then pick your profession, which can either be a warrior, archer, or mage. After all of that is decided upon you're done and then thrust into the game. From the start, the thing I was most disappointed with was the lack of professions; you get the most common and basic three. The professions do splinter off into separate skill trees, but it's not enough to make me feel special. For instance, if you chose to go with the mage profession, you can further tailor your character by engaging in skill trees that lean more to the destructive magic, healing magic, buff/debuffs, or either mix and match to a degree.

Despite the game playing like most games out there, Asda Story does feature a few new additions or tweaks. First up, each character comes with a special guardian, which activates once you've performed enough special attacks. After you've done the required amount, a guardian will hover over your head and help in combat as long as you keep using abilities to keep their meter filled up enough. As a warrior, I had a guardian that looked like a lion in a knight's armor he used his big sword buy Asda Story gold to do extra melee damage with me. Another neat idea is the dig system, which allows you to take a shovel, get digging, and seeing if you can manage to find anything. Besides digging for items, you can also receive crafting supplies and experience too. While it might feel like a bother most of the time, I ended up purchasing an automatic shovel, which is scheduled to work until I either stop it or my bag is full. The automatic shovel is an item mall exclusive, but I found it a nice way to gain items and a little experience while I was away doing something else for a short time; it's certainly better than having your character simply stand around in the game and do nothing.

The most interesting addition to the game is the soul mate system, which allows you to partner up with someone for a special cause; think the marriage system of other games, though this one freely open to any type of relationship. The system works by having two people decide on being each other's soul mate. Once you have a soul mate tied to your character, the two of you benefit off each other by working together as much as you can. When you're in close proximity, for instance, you can do increased damage, have special resurrection and healing skills, and when you're far apart, you can instantly warp to where your soul mate is in the game. If you and your soul mate find yourselves playing at two different times, however, you're still going to be benefiting off each other, as you can still help gain them experience just for playing the game by yourself. While I found it hard to jump into the game and find some random stranger to become soul mates with, I could easily see this being a great feature for friends wanting to play the game together, or a way for you and a significant other to play the game and help each other too.

The game's crafting system broken into two phases isn't too engaging or difficult, but I found it somewhat fun to dabble in. First up, you can dissemble weapons and armor you don't need, which can help you gather materials you need for actually creating items. After you've got the required items to make the goods, you Asda Story gold simply click a button and the game does the rest instant weapon (armor and items too). Furthermore, as you make more items, you'll level up your crafting ability, and thus be able to make different items. You can even use things like upgrade scrolls to improve an existing item and socket in Sowels, which are special items that can improve things like attack power, defensive power, dexterity, stamina, and energy.

Asda Story is a fun game and could really be a blast if you've got a friend to join you and team with as your soul mate. For someone like me who is more into solo play, Asda Story didn't have me foaming at the mouth until I could jump into the game again to play, nor did it have enough to keep me around for long. It's got a lot of levels to earn, but the grinding nature of it left a lot to be desired. It won't satisfy all the gamers out there, but it does enough right to at least warrant a checking out.