Gameplay from Maplestory 2's Alpha Showcases Early Combat and Exploration

The North American release for Maplestory 2 may only be a twinkle in the eyes of expectant gamers, but over in South Korea, Nexon has already begun letting Alpha testers into the MMO's cube-based world. Despite being region-locked, foreign MMO reviewer Steparu managed to work their way into the Alpha and ended up recording gameplay from several of Maplestory 2's low level zones.

The video (shown above), of course, is entirely in Korean, but through the process of observation, we can gleam quite a few interesting facts. Questing, (at least at lower levels) appeared fairly straightforward, with the added benefit of being able to freely explore each of Maplestory 2's zones made up of floating cube islands. One surprising thing that stood out to us was Maplestory 2's facial emotes, which when juxtaposed with a character's simple body design, conveyed a rather wide range of emotions.

There's also quite a bit of combat featured in the video, but with Steparu only being level 7, there's little complexity seen at such an early stage. Still, Maplestory 2 will feature quite a number of Open World boss encounters for players to tackle cooperatively. Towards the end of the video, a group of players gathers around a menacing bear with a propensity to knock around unsuspecting players and even pieces of the environment itself. Indeed, it appears being placed atop a floating island miles above the ground can lead to dangerous situations, and as one might expect, falling off at such a height does result in an early demise.

What are some of your thoughts on Maplestory 2's early gameplay? Do you feel the gameplay style fits the game's aesthetic choices? Let us know!