With the recent teaser trailers and the debut of Mabinogi 2 Arena, fans have been going crazy for the latest Mabinogi news! Before the world starts branding this game with Diablonogi, I am here to give you guys a detailed explanation on the gameplay and combat mechanics of Mabinogi 2 Arena Online. THISISGAME.COM also just posted four new gameplay videos of the live demo of Mabinogi 2 Arena Online at GStar 2012 that is also available for your viewing pleasure right below.

Dark Colossus

The live demo put players in a dungeon right away, so it's still unclear on the whether or not this will be an Open World game. Right before you enter a dungeon, there is a system message on the screen that says, "You have entered another God's territory." Dungeons in Mabinogi 2 Arena is exactly like the original game, players can only progress through the next room after they have killed all of the monsters or objectives in that room.

The Controls and Combat

The developers say that Mabinogi 2's combat is kind of like rock, paper, and scissors. As an original Mabinogi player, the first thing that came to my mind was that "Smash" beats "Defend". To prevent confusion let me go over the basic controls of the game.

X key = Melee/Weapon Attack
Z key = Combat
C key = Grab

1,2,3,4 key = Skills / Smashes / Etc

Q key = Chugging yo pots! (Potions)

As you can see, the controls are very simple which makes Mabinogi 2 Arena a much more user friendly game, or is it? Now to get back to the confusing part of the game! The combat is a little bit different compared to Mabinogi. The controls can be very confusing for players who played the original Mabi series. The Mabinogi 2 Arena, the live demo shows that the Goblin is readying a skill or countering and becomes highlighted in Red. So the tutorial shows the player using the Z key to counter the goblins X key which is huh? Anyway, just like the original Mabinogi game monsters will glow a certain color like Red, Blue, and etc which indicates that the mob is using a certain skill or action.

Warrior

There are certain actions in the game that can only be performed within a small window, like countering and team attacks. For example, a player can perform a counter skill if they are about to get hit by a monster just as long as they execute it within the small window for counter, which is obviously before the monster lands it's attack on you.

Combat beats Weapon Attack | Z > X
Weapon Attack beats Grab | X > C
Grab Beats Combat | C > Z

The Class System

In previous article, I said that players will be able to customize their own character by mixing up the five classes, five combat styles, and five body types. Unfortunately, the demo only had four presets so not much information to go from there. For example, the Archer video below is called a Sparrow because it had the following features. Combat Style - Technician, Body Type - Slender, and lastly the Class - Archer. I wonder what would happen if players picked a very big body type for Archer!?

Sparrow

Unique Features

One of the unique features about the combat system of Mabinogi 2 Arena is that a players attack animation changes depending on the condition and location of the enemy. Like when the monster is on the floor, next to a wall, near a box, in a groggy state, stunned, and stuff. Kind of a nifty feature and should be less repetitive than before right? That's all the good stuff I have for now, more to come later depending on how busy I become! How do you guys feel about the combat and gameplay so far?

Bard

Developer: devCAT | Nexon Korea | NC Soft Korea
Publisher: Nexon Korea | NC Soft Korea
Game Site: N/A