During the weekend, I subscribed to the game Adventure Quest. This is a pretty quick review of what I've seen up to now.

The graphics range from horrible to great. As the game is on an ongoing development, I assume they sometimes stick in new monsters that haven't received much work, and sometimes rework on existing monsters. Some things like the dragons are absolutely beautiful, but I've seen monsters that looked like I made them in MS Paint when I was 8.

The actual characters (i.e. the one you control, for example) are well designed, with a few exception once again.

Contrary to some reviews I've read, I really don't find advertising to be annoying at all. When I log in, and whenever I feel like it during game play, I can view an advertisement from a sponsor. By doing so, I receive a price (usually gold). That might seem to be quite a put off but, up to now, the advertisements were either for movies or for video games, so it didn't bother me at all.

The game in itself has some interesting points. As in every RPG I can think of, you must level up, get money, find new items, etc. I find it odd, though, that leveling up doesn't influence your statistics at all. To increase them, you must go through training against one of three characters. The process can get a bit repetitive. It would be good if leveling up also increased your statistics.

What's the point of leveling up, then? Items can only be bought starting from a certain level. When you start off, there are very few items you can buy and you gradually gain access to more and more. You will also meet new enemies and unlock new areas by leveling up.

I find battles are a bit long. You generally tend to be of a quite equal force with your enemy. If you take, for example, Final Fantasy, you will fight enemies with low statistics and very high HP, while you have low HP and high statistics. In Adventure Quest, your HP is pretty much the same as that of enemies of the same level as you, and so are your stats. You only need to hope that your attacks deal more damage than theirs, so that you can win the fight.

I like how they handle elements. Every enemy and item is assigned one element (wind, fire, etc.). They then have weaknesses and strengths depending on that element. Water enemies are generally weak against lightning, ice enemies against fire, etc. Since the game is played in your browser, you only need to hover over the enemy's name to see its statistics, including element-related ones.

Brief, I'd give the game perhaps three stars and a half. It has great potential, it already has something in it, but it does lack a bit more work, which I hope to see coming.