Grand Fantasia: Fun anime style game to keep you playing!

 Grand Fantasia is a anime themed fantasy mmorpg that is published by Aeria Games.Now I reached level 50 with my berserker and had my talents maxed so I am doing this review based on what I saw during my time playing and what I think about the game.Please be advised this is my opinion and some of you may not agree on certain aspects.If anything you see isn't true or is false please comment below.Now on with the review.

  After logging in and reaching the character creation you will see a fair amount of character customization from eyes,hair,hair color,eye shape,and eye color.Also you will be able to customize your sprite.You can choose what its gathering and crafting skill is,color,and hair as well as the name.You will also be able to preview the advanced classes and what they look like.But you start off as a novice until level 10!After choosing your class and getting into the game world you are going to spend levels 1-10 on a newbie island that will give you sprite items,equipment,beginner skills,and your first class advancement.During my time here I saw many players running around doing quests and murdering innocent bunnies so the game has a nice community for beginners.

  I said earlier in the review that your sprite can be assigned certain crafting and gathering skills.Well your sprite is going to be doing ALL of your crafting!On occasion you will have to gather certain ingredients that drop from monsters but other than that it will get the rest on it's own for the beginner equipment.Now the most important thing to remember is this: A happy sprite works more efficiently than a normal or upset sprite.

The sprites mood will affect the outcome of gathering rare ingredients and also if it fails or succeeds at crafting equipment!So keep that sprite fed and happy!You can also add furniture to the room it lives in to increase certain attributes like gathering time,success rate,and increasing the amount of items it gathers.Also you can equip it with gear to give you bonuses when you summon it.My time overall with the sprite was relatively painless and it was nice to have something to do other than level and run instances all day.So for those of you that want more to an mmorpg you should try this out.

Now the first 30 levels were a snap and at this point you should have advanced class and gotten new shiny skills.But after a while you begin to notice you are running out of the main quests and are left wondering what to do next.Well you have two choices!Either do bounty quests and run instances to get exp OR do rep quests for money and exp.The rep quests will always be the same.Kill x monster and collect x amount of item from them.Though the payout is good you may find yourself bored of doing the same thing over and over.And it won't change as you hit higher levels.There is always a rep quest to be done!This may be a turn off for most people but it's easy money and exp and you can farm the quest items until you feel you have enough.
  Through most of my levels never once did I encounter a world boss much less know of one.During a normal instance run I was asked by a fellow guild member to help him with a guild quest involving the killing of a monster called Xerxes a.k.a "Mr.Whiskers".I said yes and after the instance I went straight to him and asked where this monster was?It was a stupid question of course seeing as the lumbering beast was twice the size of a player and it looked like the type of monster anyone would need help killing.After a long battle with the beast I managed to kill it and got a blue named item for it!But these world bosses are not pushovers and even though they reward greatly...are a pain in the ass!
 Grand Fantasia has introduced me to many things I enjoyed...but it's cash shop was not one of them!Yes this is the thorn on the beautiful rose.Even though cash shop items can be bought with gold the useful ones will range anywhere from 100g-2000g or more depending on the items.Legacy sets are very useful and cost 2000g or around 10 bucks in the cash shop.These sets level with you and gain more stats the higher level you are.The best players have these sets and they also sell items that guarantee an upgrade from +1-+9.At a point of view this game is very much pay to win and no matter how you look at it...it will still be the same.If you can look past this or are determined to be the best then good luck.

UPDATE:Level cap has been increased as well as new class advancements!Check it out if you are interested!

Final Review:
Graphics:10/10
Combat:8/10
Crafting:9/10
Population:9/10
Cash Shop:1/10