Much like Ragnarok Online of last week, DFO is a mess from another era, a Korean MMO that got brought back more or less into the future that I've played for quite a while. Unlike RO though, DFO is fun to play and while it's quite obtuse with it's mechanics and systems, the core beat-them-up merged with RPG and the straightforwardness of most quests made it a fun - albeit mindless - experience that I would recommend if you have some time to burn away.
I've decide to create a Creator, a class that works mostly using the mouse, you click on enemies to attack them, drag the mouse around to create fire walls, etc. Most character classes in DFO don't work like that, they have special moves mapped to some letter keys and you play them like most beat-em-ups. The Creator however, played quite differently, and it was fun to move around while independently attacking enemies, it allowed me for more concentration spent on dodging their attacks. That being said, like some other classes, the creator doesn't have much in terms of actual customization. There are a few good moves and a few things you could spend Skill Points into without ever using it, and you don't have choices in most cases. I had to use the fire attack and the ice spells and later on the wind one, because everything else wasn't appealing to me.
Most of the stats are also pretty opaque even if a basic description for everything is provided. Same thing with gear, actually, this is a kind of game where you just equip the higher level stuff with the bigger number, but you don't actually see what changes when you have more of one stat or less of another. It lowers complexity and streamlines the game a bit, but it also cuts down on customization, which is a inconvenient downside. The quests are a bit designed for grind - vastly so. You might have to run the same dungeon tens of times because you can only get the related quests one after another. It's not a big deal since the action stays mostly fun, but the fatigue system might stonewall you. You have a certain number of fatigue points and they go down whenever you visit a new room, when you're out of them, you can't play for that day. It's like the energy system in free to play iOS games, sometimes it hurts you, sometimes it doesn't.
Besides that, the gameplay is fine. The early dungeons are easy, but as you progress along, enemies get more attacks and get tougher to knock down - especially as you go into the advanced difficulty levels - but I didn't die more than once or twice during my ascent to level 50. There is a crafting system but you'll either need to buy things from other players or make multiple characters to get anything from it, since resources for one profession are needed by another to make stuff. I played briefly with the job that creates allies to help you fight, it was interesting, but I couldn't get much further than level 2. You also can disassemble your old gear in order to get cubes, and you should do so instead of selling them, because some quests require them, and the game does a poor job of explaining to you that you should hang on to them.
DFO is quite unique and it might be right up your alley if you like beat-them-up and MMOs. I had a good time with it - much better than with Ragnarok Online - and I remember fondly playing it when it came out years ago and was published by Nexon. Even with the in-game shop where you can buy stuff more important than cosmetic changes for your character, it's still a good free to play game without much limitation on how you play it.
