Mytheon: A Hands On Preview

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Nowadays in the MMORPG market it’s very common to see games emulate other more successful games, and why not right? As the popular saying goes “If it’s not broken don’t fix it.” Because of this, it is very rare to find a game whose feel is very distinct and players can sometimes find themselves feeling like they’ve played the same game over and over again.

Enter Mytheon, Petroglyph’s new MMORPG based in the very rich universe of Greek mythology, which has been garnering attention due to it’s “unique” gameplay style. In Mytheon, players are thrown into the worlds of such epic stories like Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, the Spartans and much more in this MMO with a multi-genre feel.

Mytheon of course has the MMO aspect, whereby players are immersed in this ancient Greek universe with hundreds of other adventure-seekers. The game also has a Diablo-esque action RPG quality to its gameplay where players fight, level get gear all in a click to move environment. However, the most surprising quality of Mytheon, is in its battle/combat style system, which has been cleverly harmonized into Mytheon’s storyline.

The heroes of Mytheon are, of course, the players. The players are mortals who have been given special stones called “Power Stones” to fight an epic battle pitted by the Fates against the Greek gods who have oppressed the mortals for far too long. With the aid of the Power Stones, players are given the chance to even the playing field and be masters of their own destinies (sounds like a Greek Myth in the making to us!).

Power Stones are charged with the element of “Mytheon” and basically work like magic spells; players click on one and it casts a fireball or other type of spell. The X factor, however, is that players don’t get to choose what Power Stones will be on your cast bar at any given time. The stones work like a deck of cards where a player has a hand of 6 cards to use, and when one is used, a new spell is drawn from the deck. In this sense there is a bit of random chaos as to how all battles will play out. A player can have 40 Power Stones in their deck at a time, and they drop randomly from monsters killed in game. One thing players do have control over are what stones they place in their deck.

Players can choose between three different “Stonecaster” classes: The Warcaster, The Elementalist, and the Eidolon. Each class has its own very cool primary set type of stones to choose from.  Warcasters are descendants of Achilles and his infamous Myrmidons, so it makes sense that they are the warrior/tank class. Their set of stones allows them to summon beasts from the hulking minotaurs and cyclops’ to skeletal archers and harpy’s.

Elementalists are a mage class that worshiped the goddess of magic, Hecate, and thus have a stone set that allows them to control air, water, fire and earth and also summon elemental companions for each.  Eidolons are actually a priest-like class based on Egyptian mythology. They were worshipers of the gods Horus and Isis and have a stone set that allows them to have a great offensive power as well as supportive power. This class is actually a hint towards a possible future expansion involving Egyptian mythology.

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“How expansive can they get with this Power Stone system,” you ask?  There is an important aspect of strategy when it comes to stones. For example, melee companions do little to no damage to flying enemies, whereas ranged companions do an extreme amount of damage to flying enemies. In addition, each element has a weakness to another, so a water stone will be of great value against fire. Air beats Earth, Water beats Fire and so on.

Also, if a player summons companions under a family such as a Spartan Guard, Spartan Veteran and a Spartan General all at the same time the player gets what they call an “Affinity Combo” which gives a healthy bonus. In a similar fashion, players who cast a certain combination of even rarer and more powerful stones called a “Merge Set” will bear witness to the summoning of a super weapon. It’s like the royal flush of Power Stones.

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Stones that players don’t want can be combined to create random new stones they may want to keep at the Stone Forges in Argos, the main city and hub of Mytheon. In addition players can also forge stones out of recipes or even clone stones they currently have.  In Argos players can also look for groups, spend time looking through the broker (auction) house, and even lay waste to their fellow man in player versus player (PvP) at the coliseum.

The PvP system has three types of controlled PvP (1v1, 2v2 or 4v4).  Similar to World of Warcraft’s PvP, players can choose to queue for a certain type and when it has enough players, they are loaded into an instance to battle others around in the same level range. Each type also has a PvP ladder where players and teams are given ratings and rankings based on their win to loss ratio.

Groups are amazingly easy to find in Argos and there can be up to three players in a group. From there, the leader can open up his/her mini-map and click on the instance the group wants to go to. Depending on the level, groups can go from fighting Medusa at the Temple of Athena, to fighting Zeus himself at Mt. Olympus. The quest system works very simply.  Once a quest is finished, players don’t have to run all the way back to the quest giver to turn it in, it just gives them the rewards instantly after it’s been completed.

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Even though Mytheon is a click-to-move type game, the developers have made it easy to move around in. Instead of clicking multiple times on the screen to move a character, which players can still do, if that’s what suits them, players can simply load up their map and click on their desired location and their avatar will automatically path to that point.

Argos is also loaded with different types of “Tomes” which are basically little books scattered across town that will inform players how to do certain things. For instance, there will be a Tome of Guidance sitting around the Stone Forges to tell adventurers all about how to create new stones, or there will be a tome in front of the coliseum telling eager PvPers how to PvP. Tomes of Lore are used to engorge the player in the rich background mythology. In the middle of town sits the “Argo”, Jasons famous ship wrecked by the Kraken after Jason heroically retrieved the Golden Fleece to protect his people from the gods.

Mytheon has joined the likes of Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online as a F2P (free-to-play) MMORPG that will rely on microtransactions for in game item purchases. Players can, of course, gather equipment from in game loot.   However, the items purchased with real money will come with advantages such as better stats, a better looking style, or simply giving the player more convenience with extra hotkey slots.

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So, even though Mytheon is really just a mix of different genres, it feels fresh and seems to work well for them. You can check it out and decide for yourself by downloading the game.  It is currently in open beta.  Mytheon is slated for release on July 13th.  For more information, you can visit their website.