Rusty Hearts vs. Dragon Nest: Which would you play?

The vote is on: Which is the better MMO? Dragon Nest vs. Rusty Hearts!

Right now, we’re looking down the barrel of a multitude of new games coming into the marketplace. Amid them: Rusty Hearts—developed by and published by Perfect World Entertainment—and Dragon Nest—developed by Eyedentity Games and published by Nexon. Each game has come from an excellent vendor and publisher and has a powerful marketing arm behind it attempting to gather hype and attention from the public who play free-to-play MMOs.

Now that Dragon Nest’s open beta is coming to a close and Rusty Hearts is already upon us, people may be wondering what separates these two titles and which would you play?

Forge ahead to find out.

In the graphics department, Rusty Hearts and Dragon Nest take totally divergent paths. RH approaches a comicbook-like cell shaded universe that presents itself with a fixed camera angle to generate a 3D-rendered side-scroller action game; whereas Dragon Nest has fully open environments more common to fantasy MMORPG games. A great deal of time in RH is spent moving through instances where the side-scrolling controls how the camera affects the action, allowing players to spend time on developing their attack combos. In DN, the much more classical world-building 3D environments mean the player uses the mouse to both direct their gaze and the movement of their character.

When it comes down to graphical choices, this means that the two will also diverge somewhat. Rusty Hearts graphics maintain their dour Castlevenia English-Gothic atmosphere and can separate the backgrounds from the characters, meaning the animated characters have the cell-shaded affect atop detailed backgrounds designed to be seen from only one angle. Dragon Nest must spend time making their environments fit into a fully 3D enabled world and thus has a little bit more of cartoon effects to produce trees, ground, and the like. As well, the characters use an animé affect for their outfits and clothing and less the comicbook affectation of RH—as a result the middle-quality rendering style of DN will still stand up against future games.

When it comes to gameplay Rusty Hearts and Dragon Nest definitely diverge. However, they are similar in some respects: both RH and DN use non-targeting combat systems. In both games this is for different reasons: in RH non-targeted attacks are needed in order to recreate the Castlevenia and Gauntlet feel in the side-scroller; and in the case of DN the non-targeting speeds up the action of the game and means that players need to spend time thinking about their positioning when they trigger attacks. In both cases, it enhances the active-combat quality of the game by putting players directly into their characters boots by forcing them to think on their feet.

Character classes represent a very interesting contrast between the two games. Where Rusty Hearts users the character classes as characters themselves in a narrative that the players play through; Dragon Nest once-again falls back on the classical paradigm of modern fantasy MMORPGs.

In RH the classes are in fact individual characters in the story—Frantz, Angela, Tude, and Natasha—each of them has their own particular abilities, sensibilities, and look; but they’re locked into the storyline and narrative and the player plays them as if they’re in an unfolding novel. This is central to the primary storytelling mechanism that RH employs and while it limits the number of branches that a player can customize their character, RH also provides an extensive equipment and skill customization system along with crafting.

As for DN, there are four basic classes—Warrior, Archer, Cleric, Sorceress—and each of those have two specialization roles that they grow into after a particular level. They are more or less the standard fare for fantasy MMORPGs, with the exception of the soon-specialization that happens at about level 15 allowing payers to choose how they want to approach the role their class gives them. Like RH the classes are gender-locked—but not because they’re named characters in an interactive storyline. Unlike RH, hair color, skin color, and other customization of attributes are available from the get-go.

Rusty Hearts approaches MMOs with an innovative combat system that feels like a tight combination between Castlevenia and Devil May Cry with the waves of enemies and combo system; but Dragon Nest will garner players because it follows a modern approach to fantasy MMORPG gameplay and provides a much more classic system of play. Both games are extremely good looking and have a lot of depth to their stories; but they sit on different ends of the gameplay spectrum—that alone will potentially split the types of players who flock to either.

You only have one vote–use it wisely to choose the winner of this game battle–and if you have an opinion, you can leave it here or in the forum.