After shutting down for a year, Earth Eternal has been reborn in North America. Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland takes a fresh look at this free-to-play MMO that's full of anthropomorphic animals.

The game itself is similar in many ways to World of Warcraft. Players level primarily through quests, which is how the story unfolds. The quest dialogue is relatively well-written and contained enough humor and cultural references to have had me chuckling a few times but, like most MMOs, the quests are pretty basic: go to X location, kill Y creatures or collect Z items. The controls are also pretty standard to MMOs; both WASD and the directional arrows can be used to move, and there are several hotbars available for abilities. While the hotbars can be dragged around the screen (as can character panes and the ability tree windows), the options section is practically empty. This means the basic controls cannot be rebound, nor can the default screen size be changed.

Combat in the game uses a system of charges that can result in a strong execute ability. While the tooltips currently differentiate between physical and magical charges and abilities, with separate Will and Might bars for each, presently every ability simply gives you one general charge. This system was perfect for the druid class, as it allowed me to cycle physical and magical spells to quickly build up the maximum five charges for my execute ability (which could kill almost any regular enemy with one hit). However, it also meant that I would have to spread the focus on my gear onto different stats, since physical attacks primarily use strength and dexterity to determine damage while magical attacks use psyche and spirit. Many of the physical and magical abilities of a class also share cooldowns; for example, a druid's Sting (physical) shares a cooldown with Wither (magical). I usually had enough abilities that I wasn't constantly waiting for my cooldowns to end, however. Will and Might seemed to replenish quickly enough that I could usually fight several battles without needing to rest, as long as I cycled through my abilities.

As in many games, dungeons are instanced. I entered a lighthouse in the beginning area alone and managed to get to and defeat the first boss solo; however, I had to use some healing potions and was constantly just a step ahead of respawning enemies. When I finally completed the dungeon with a group, I was a bit disappointed; Krusty the Crab at the end did not drop any special loot, nor was there any quest to complete. Instead my groupmates and I kind of looked at each other and said “Huh. That's it?” before heading out the handy exit portal behind the boss. Group dynamics are rather standard; knights usually take the roll of the tanking character, but in our case we had two mages and my druid, and we did fine just blasting our way through. I imagine at higher levels more strategy will be involved, but the enemies inside were for the most part no more difficult than those found outside the instance.

Even though Earth Eternal is a re-release of a game that has been out since 2009, it's important to remember that the game is still in open beta as the team gears up for the official launch. I encountered various bugs and blips, and the enemies seemed to respawn quickly and always be in large groups. As a druid who specialized in ranged abilities, I certainly had a tougher time kiting enemies when I kept running into their friends!

Still, I found Earth Eternal to be a pretty fun time for a free-to-play MMO. The cash shop is not currently open, but the game developers have said they want to adhere to the original game's premise that you don't need to “pay to win.” One other feature that new players may either love or hate is that a Facebook account is required to play the game. Personally I think it's a fine idea; it sure beats having to sign up for yet another game. There is also currently no interaction with Facebook; none of that pesky spam on your walls that games so often employ.

The question now is how this game will differentiate itself from the hordes of other F2P MMOs and attract new players. For players looking for a game with furry characters and an impressive story, Earth Eternal might be just the thing they want to try.

Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland, Staff Writer