"Based on ancient Chinese mythology, the world of Dream of Mirror Online exists as an alternate reality inside the 'Kunlun Mirror,' a sacred artifact." [source]

The basic premise of this game is that the 'Kunlun Mirror' has stopped reflecting reality as it really is and is instead causing havok in the mirror world. Adventurers set forth in an attempt to restore balance to the mirror world and in turn save the real world. Curiously, in the mirror world, 'time' does not exist. Or at least according to the lore it doesn't. Time is instead only perceived as the sun rising and setting, seasons changing, and a little clock in the lower right of your screen that tells you what time it is in the game world (this was conveniently omitted from the lore on the website). Strikingly similar to how 'time' in the real world is perceived. You know...sun rise, sun set, seasons...and clocks.

The game's refusal to admit it has a clock and quests based around precise times in a world with no time aside, this is a pretty fun cute and fun game for the casual or social MMORPG player. This game is free to play and is supported by a cash shop like most F2P games.

Content

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As before I can't comment on the super-high level stuff because I don't have all the time in the world to play games to the max level before reviewing them. Reviews would take years a piece because of my schedule. Further, games that can't give you a good glimpse into their full potential early on don't really deserve reviewing.

• Storyline Quests: Here's an aspect of this game I really like. The storyline quests give you major plot-point events complete with cutscenes. This is a fairly heavy amount of immersion for an F2P MMORPG. The only quirk is you have to be at certain locations at certain times (but that can't be because 'time' doesn't exist in the mirror world...right?) with a certain amount of money to do the storyline quests.
• Quests: I like questing in mmorpgs. I do not like grinding. That said, it's really, really annoying when a game asks you to go grind for quests over and over and over. That's pretty much what DOMO does in the early stages of leveling. I'm not sure if this continues into high levels but it's very discouraging to the beginner player.
• Characters: You can be one of four races in DOMO: Human, Shura, Sylph and Sprite. Each race has its own benefits for certain classes and so choosing a race goes hand-in-hand with your future class decisions. The biggest draw-back of DOMO in this department is that you can only have 2 characters per server. It's my belief that you should allow for the the same number of characters per server as there are base jobs in the game. In DOMO's case I would say to at least allow 4 characters per server as there are 4 races. Basing the number of characters in DOMO on jobs is redundant because...
• Jobs: ...each character can have every job. Once you hit level 10 you can take the qualification exams for each job in the game. Once you obtain the qualification you can officially change to that job. Each job keeps up with stats separately so putting points in for a wizard build won't affect your blademaster build.
• Combat: Combat is very different for each class and each race. Some races are magic casters; some are melee fighters. Each race has its own unique set of skills that can be leveled up to suit your needs and the base skills can be used with any job skill. A defining characteristic of this game's combat sytem is its "Combo" system. After building up enough "Combo" power, you can unleash a powerful attack on your enemy.
• Customization: Surprisingly you can customize quite a bit about your character's shape and size, but not about their head (which I consider to be the most important part of the character). You can change the length and width of your arms, legs, torso, and the size of your head but you're limited to a small choice of hairstyles in limited colors and only a few face choices.
• Professions: You actually have to choose your professions in this game and you can't just learn them all but from what I gathered in the game there's no use for professions early on so it's better to not toy around with them until you're higher level.
• Pets: You can capture pretty much any monster and make it a pet for a limited amount of time using items called 'Mirror-Trapping Mirror'. Your captured pet will follow you around and fight for you but it doesn't last long. If there is a way to keep pets from going away I couldn't figure it out (not that I tried). Most likely you have to raise its loyalty.
• Character Relationships: Characters can become friends, desciples, masters, and even lovers in DOMO. The lovers part often provokes the weirdest of interactions with players in the game (and also causes most of the drama in the global chat) but it's a neat feature. Players with special relationships who fight with their counter-part receive special bonuses while fighting. I was unable to test this aspect of the game in-depth since apparently no one in the game loved me (which is probably for the best).
• Flight: You can fly! Flight is always a fun part of any game and in DOMO your weapon becomes your mount. Better weapons have faster flight speeds and just plain look cooler when flying on them. The controls for flight are seriously in need of reworking but the fact that you can fly just makes me chipper.
• Cutscenes: Cutscenes are used to deliver main parts of the story-line and work very well in DOMO. More games should use cutscenes.
• Environment: A lot of effort had to go into the making of the world itself because of the flight aspect of the game so most of the zones are quite nice to look at and very polished. Also, during my tutorial, I was treated to a nice bit of rain. Weather effects are always appreciated as they add to the game's immersion.
• Death Penalty: When you die you lose 10% experience. If you die in a plot battle you lose 1%. You cannot de-level in this game but you can go up to 50% in the negative. The negative portion (anything below 0, not anything lost from death) can be forgiven with special stones called 'Rebirth Stones' bought from town. They aren't cheap.

I didn't get a chance to check out the guild system or party system all that much so I won't review those pieces specifically but they are there.

Community

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I can't honestly say in the time limit I've given myself for reviews that I can truly assess the quality of the community in some games. However, when a game's chat is consistently filled with people begging for help and not getting it followed by the higher level people ranting about marriage it speaks volumes for the game. I witnessed this each and every time I logged into the game. Granted, a game with multiple servers can have different communities per server. So the server I was on could've just been the rude one.

Graphics

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Cute! OK I should probably be more specific. This game seems to pride itself on its cuddliness. Pretty much every monster I encountered in the game was cute in its own way. Be it dogs with enormous heads or super pudgy piggies, the game just makes you smile.

As far as the actual rendering of the characters in the game, it's another cell-shaded 3-D game. Unlike some other game the cell-shaded aspects of this game seem a lot more refined. By that I mean the game looks a lot more like a cartoon which is the whole point of cell-shading. The one thing I don't really understand is the game's full screen glow effect. The game goes from looking quite nice to looking completely washed out and nearly blinding. I chose to play with glow turned off but every other setting I could find maxed. To be honest, even with all settings maxed, I was unimpressed with the textures on the character I was playing (as far as her clothes). It just didn't seem as well done as even the NPC clothing.

Also, I hate the running animation for the Shura. It just seems that it wasn't thought out very well. That may not be the case for other races (the Sylph hover about a foot off the ground and glyde instead of running) but it's quite annoying when playing a Shura.

Music

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I really don't have a lot to say about the music in this game. It's forgettable as best. Maybe it gets better in more suspensful settings (higher level areas) but in towns and in the world it's just cookie-cutter forgetableness (that's a word).

Sound Effects

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Meh. Sound effects are a difficult thing to do really well and integrate them seemlessly into the gameplay. That's not to say they failed miserably in this game. They just didn't seem to try really hard. Most of the effects are like that of any run-of-the-mill game. The spell sound effects aren't too bad though and may be the game's only saving grace.

That and the sounds monsters make on occassion.

Controls

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FPS controls are present but wonky and you can't jump which is just plain wrong in a 3D MMORPG. It also doesn't make any sense at all when you consider that you can fly in DOMO. You can FLY, but you can't JUMP. Eh? That aside, you can also click-to-move but you're better off using WASD if you're in a hurry because the pathing in DOMO is all but nonexistant. When using click-to-move your character will run straight into objects if they're in the way and get stuck as opposed to finding a way around said object. Further, in an open area, if you click into the distance directly in front of your character then your character will zig-zag to the destination. I have no idea why that is, but it's rather annoying. Your character typically runs about a third farther than they have to by zig-zagging than if they had just run straight. I suppose this is one of those things that is being worked on and will be fixed eventually. They've been working on it for years apparently because it hasn't changed since closed beta. You can use the full map view to right click and area you wish to move to using the click-to-move movement system, but you're better off just running there by hand.

The controls for flight suffer more so than the controls for running on the ground. The controls are no where near intuitive but I doubt they'll be revising it anytime soon (and certainly not because a nobody like me reviews their game and says they need to fix it).

Learning Curve

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It's pretty simple to just jump straight into this game. The game plops you into a tutorial zone and sort of walks you through doing things. There's no popup tutorial help to inform you of what's what (or if there is I couldn't find it because it was so unnoticeable). The only things that get confusing are professions and skills (spells and abilities). There isn't much explaination for those so you're left to fend for yourself figuring them out. Further, you get 3 points per level up for character stats. After your first job change, all points you've put in are redistributed based on what class you became. The problem with this is that you can't really gear your character toward a certain build early on because it gets forced to something new after changing jobs but this can be a perk for people who don't know where they should allocate points. So I'd say this game starts easy but gets rather confusing early on. If you aren't prepared to do some research outside the game then you'll be in for some headaches.

Conclusion

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DOMO is a good game if you can stomach the grind quests. The story line quests are at least worth putting up with the grinding for. I recommend trying this game out if you're interested in something a little different as far as the storyline quests but the game is sub-par in most other aspects.

I definitely don't think the game is bad. In fact, for people who like a game based only on looks, this could be one of the best. Try it yourself and comment on the forums if you have any comments.

I had two more screen shots prepared for this game but room didn't permit them. You can view them here and here.