Nintendo News | Even More Maple Story DS Details

By Adam Riley 08.01.2008 3

Speaking at the recent G-Star event over in Seoul, South Korea, Nexon's manager of international business development, Stephen Lee has revealed some more details about the MapleStory DS project. Lee stated that despite the game being promised for Autumn 2007 initially, the target release is now set for mid-way through 2008 and the game is shaping up very nicely indeed. As for what the game will be like, it will not in fact be an MMORPG kind of game as some sources have been claiming, instead being an action RPG style affair, just as Cubed3 confirmed back in January of last year. The game is being adapted to suit the nature of the DS. Sadly he does not mention the online element that was talked about last January that much, instead saying the focus will be on the single player mode. He does briefly state there will be multiplayer support, so hopefully the original plans have not changed.

MapleStory DS is being developed in-house at Nexon, in co-operation with Nintendo due to a lot of Korean developers not having much experience with complete, packaged types of games due to the online PC world and downloads being the focus in the country. Lee mentions how helpful Nintendo has been during development and the game has been pushed back due to Nexon wanting to ensure its representative IP is not tarnished by a rushed job that is not up to previous standards. The way Lee talks about expansion of MapleStory into other territories as well makes it sound like Nintendo would be taking on specific publishing duties, so that is definitely something to look out for...

He also talks about something C3 also reported on last year, the issue of a special deal between Nintendo and Nexon that could well lead to more games coming in the future. He states, "the relationship with Nintendo...I can't disclose specific deals with them, but for us, it was a special kind of deal. It's pretty much different from a mere third-party kind of contract." Certainly sounds interesting, no?

Considering the teaser advert in the original story is down, check out the You Tube version below:

In addition, here is some early in-game footage captured from Korea last year:









Box art for MapleStory DS
Also known as

Maple Story DS

Developer

Nexon

Publisher

Nintendo

Genre

Real Time RPG

Players

1

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  n/a

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  10/10 (286 Votes)

European release date None   North America release date None   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date None   

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Spydarlee is offline. Spydarlee 08.01.2008#1

I tried the original PC version of MapleStory Europe last year, and did have a lot of fun playing it… for a time. I loved the atmosphere, cutesy visuals, and simple side-scrolling mechanics, but the super-repetitive level-grinding soon became too much to bear (it was very addictive while it lasted, though).

The promise of a single-player adventure with all the charm of the original, but none of the grinding – I’ve seen some gameplay footage that seems to suggest that this will be the case – sounds very promising indeed.

A sprinkling of online co-op would be nice, or some sort of item trading system, perhaps. But, to be honest, I like the idea of a single-player experience, especially if it allows Nexon to ease the EXP requirements for levelling up.

I never really got into the social aspects of the PC game anyway, so the fact that it was an MMO was somewhat wasted on me. Let’s just hope that the DS instalment makes its way to Europe in the not to distant future. Smilie


Cubed3 Staff [ Retro Editor :: Previews Editor ]
 
Mandown is offline. Mandown 08.01.2008#2

It all sounds very interesting, especially how Nintendo are tapping the creativity in South Korea. I recall a news story of yours a while back covering their attempts to promote and encourage development on Nintendo platforms in the country.

Perhaps one day Korean devs will have something distinct to show the industry, we already get games that are strongly influenced by ancient Japanese culture so it would be interesting to see if it also happened with Korea. I would love to see games embody the culture where they are made more often. Sadness by Nibris is a example of something I want to see more of.

Hopefully this will be a great RPG worthy of getting stuck into, and hopefully the first of many from this source.

Clever Nintendo, I expect them to make huge amounts of money on the back of such initiatives.

 
jopojelly is offline. jopojelly 09.01.2008#3

And thus we see the future of Korean Ads...

Anyone get a Target X Japan vibe from the commercial?

 

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