Rusty Hearts just entered closed beta, so we decided to fight our way through Perfect World Entertainment's anime-inspired action MMO.

While the formula may not be a brand new concept or even a unique one, Rusty Hearts is a refreshing change to the typical MMO. If you take one part dungeon crawler, one part old school arcade brawler and mix in an energetic soundtrack and anime-inspired graphics, you come up with a decent image of what this new offering from Perfect World Entertainment is all about.

Rusty Hearts entered closed beta this week, and I dove in to give it a shot. Keep reading after the jump for my impressions. If you'd like to try out the anime-inspired action MMO, grab one of our Rusty Hearts closed beta keys and you'll be ready to go!

The Characters of Rusty Hearts

Rusty Hearts is heavily driven by the backstory, which is presented slowly through quests and instanced dungeons. The three classes are locked into specific characters: Frantz Kruger, Angela Strraugend or Tude MacLeod. Frantz is a half-human, half-vampire who is haunted by his past. He wields swords and axes and uses dark magic, but also carries some passive defensive buffs. Angela is a witch from a forest village and the de facto magic user. She has lower hit points and weaker armor, but can use several weapons types and powerful elemental spells. Tude was cursed by a wolf that turned his hand into a claw; unlike the other two, he does not use magic but focuses on close, powerful attacks with either the claw itself or a metal gauntlet he wears over it.

Each character has his or her own story slowly revealed; any player who chooses Tude can complete quests, but he won't come into the story itself until later. There is also a fourth character, currently unreleased but visible as a silhouette on the character select screen. Sources online speculate she will be a ranged gun-wielder named Natasha.

Each class has a particular skill set, along with strengths and weaknesses. Frantz wears plate armor and has some defensive buffs, making him a good tanking character. Angela's magic allows her to use ranged spells, but she also has some up-close viability with her weapons. Tude is pure close in melee DPS. While he's faster than Angela and Frantz, he also is severely limited by his range. Each character has a specific armor type, and their passive skills grant bonuses for using the correct type. At the beginning of the game, for example, Tude receives bonuses to HP, damage, and critical strike chance while wearing leather.

Arcade-Style Combat

As mentioned in the introduction, the combat is reminiscent of 2D arcade brawlers. While the game is technically 3D, battles are usually fought in corridors, where enemies pop up suddenly. It reminded me a lot of Battletoads in a way; you can move up and down, but the camera is fixed. Characters can perform various moves and combos. The default attack takes no MP, and can be strung together to do extra damage. The attacks will usually hit nearby enemies as well, so by lining them up, players can damage several enemies at once. Special attacks consume MP and add effects, like throwing enemies in the air or giving a chance to stun them. These usually have a cooldown so they cannot be spammed. Enemies can be grappled or attacks can be blocked, allowing a powerful counterattack.

The default controls benefit a controller more than a keyboard; after a few hours of playing, my wrist was killing me. On the keyboard, X is your basic “action” move: it's your normal attack, or it picks up nearby items. In the world map it interacts with nearby NPCs, which is particularly useful when they are mobbed by new players (as was my experience). Grabbing an enemy is done with C, and while they are held, you can pummel them with X and then throw them at other enemies. Special abilities are marked by A-H keys, while movement is controlled by the arrow keys. Coming from a WASD configuration, this threw me for a bit. Q, W and E control the camera, but that's really a joke: the only place the camera can actually move is in town (the “world map” basically). Otherwise you're stuck with what the game shows you. This is especially a pain when ranged enemies off-screen are hitting you and you can't see them.

The action itself is pretty fast-paced, and goes well with the energetic music (honestly, the music made me want to work out, it was so catchy). While the layout of the fight areas may have reminded me of Battletoads, the combat itself reminded me of Dynasty Warriors. My character was constantly swarmed by enemies, but shredded them like a rainstorm through paper.

The artistic style isn't bad, but all the characters look identical in the beginning zones. As characters specialize later on with different weapons, this could change some. I also didn't see equipment changing my character's appearance, but “costume” pieces from quests did. One plus with the graphics is the option to vastly increase the graphics quality; another is having the major cut scenes be straight anime (which I really enjoyed).

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