Allow me to start this off by saying that not a one of us at Crush! Frag! Destroy! had heard of Wakfu when we saw it on the floor at PAX. It was something grid based and, well, the art style was cute so I took it on as the others took on more… “noteworthy” games.

Boy, did I luck out. Not only is Wakfu a great game, it’s also filled me with that excitement that I haven’t felt for a game in a long, long time.

But let’s get back to basics. I’m sure you’re thinking “What the hootinanny is a Wakfu?” Wakfu is a tactical MMO developed by Ankama Studios and published by Square Enix. Yup, simple as that! But there’s so much to the game. You start with 12 different classes, 3 of which were playable in the demo. The eight that were mentioned are the Eniripsa (Healer), Iop (Warrior), Osamoda (Animal Summoner), Pandawa (Warrior Bards), Sadida (Plant Summoners), Cra (Archer), Sram (Assassin), and Ecaflip (Warrior Gamblers). And let me just say that it is SO refreshing to find a fantasy MMO going with something other than the typical ‘Ranger, Warrior, Priest’ titles and roles. But I digress…

You start the game by making a character, first choosing your class and then customizing it from there. All the classes have completely different looks, from elves to catgirls to anthropomorphic pandas. You can’t change much in the way of the physical appearance of the character, though I can’t see why you’d want to. Each class is so visually interesting that extra hairstyles and such would just bog the game down. You can, however, customize the colors for your skin, hair, and eyes. Though the models may not look different, they should be easy to differentiate from others by the variety of colors offered. Somehow, though, my character looked like the representative character art, so a quick change to some flashy pink hair fixed that!

From there, you’re plunged into a vibrant and gorgeous world. Everything is 2D and has an almost sprite-ish look to it, giving it a slightly old-school feel. You move by guiding your mouse around, and are only restricted to the grid-based forms during battle. The animations are smooth, if a little floaty, but it’s a small thing in such a beautiful game that it’s forgivable. I believe you can also move around using the keyboard, but to be honest, I didn’t even bother. Moving with the mouse was so much easier and more intuitive that I just stuck with that. In fact, the game can be completely played with the mouse, though keyboard shortcuts can be used once battles get a little more fast-paced in later levels. It was a little hard to control my character at first; I found myself walking past where I wanted to go or walking into walls, but with time it got better. The world that I was in was composed of a variety of floating platforms set in the sky, connected by portals called Zaaps, with clouds edging the landscape. Tall plants and fountains decorated the plane, adding little touches to an already gorgeous environment. There are also different terrain types, which influence battle later on in the game.

That leads me into my next subject: combat. You initiate combat by selecting an enemy. This pops up a small button above their head, which gives you the available interaction options with that creature. Most of the enemies I encountered, you could only attack. There is no aggro to worry about; an enemy will only attack if you attack first. It then barricades you into small part of the map, which is surrounded squares with a leaf symbol on them. This is the outer rim of the area, and stepping on those squares will hurt you. Your first step is to pick your starting point on the grid, shown in orange and blue squares. Blue squares are available for you to move to, orange squares are not. There’s a lot to take into account when picking your starting position, as well as the order of your moves. While playing the Cra, I wanted to position myself as far away from the target as possible, but found that I would sometimes position myself outside of my spell ranges. Playing the Iop and Eniripsa was much simpler, as I just had to position myself close to the target.

After you pick your starting point, you then start the battle. The system is turn-based, giving you 30 seconds to make all your moves. You can move however many squares that you’re allotted based on your Movement Points. Movement isn’t always necessary, and a lot of my time was spent finding the most advantageous position, or running from enemies in my Cra’s case. You also have action points, that allow you to perform other things, like spells. Most of the spells I was using only used one or two action points, so I was able to perform them twice.  Or, if an enemy got too close to my Cra, I had a spell that I could cast that would put distance between the enemy and myself without using my move points. There is no strict order to how you can perform your turn; you can move last or first, attack then move then attack again… Any way you want to do it, you’re able to. Again, the game really allots you a lot of flexibility when strategizing, but keeps it simple enough that entry level players won’t feel overwhelmed. I say that from experience, as I’ve only played a handful of strategy games, and didn’t at all feel like it was above my threshold. Oh, and did I mention the combat was fun? After I got the hang of it (and the guy at the booth stopped distracting me), I found myself killing everything in sight.

Let me take a second to discuss the classes. As I said before, only 3 of the 12 classes were playable: the Iop, the Cra, and the Eniripsa. I’ve talked a lot about the Cra, but not much about the other two. Both the Iop and Eniripsa are close-quarter fighters. The Iop didn’t seem to fight with any weapons, just his fists. His attacks were all elemental-based, with you being able to place points into Fire, Water, Air, and Earth skills. The Eniripsa was more of a warrior-monk type character. I’m sure as the game progresses, you can take the character into a more typical healer area, but it was also refreshing to have a support character that could stand up for herself. At the start, I had a normal healing spell as well as a ‘binding’ attack and a magical attack.

While I didn’t get to do much in the demo, I was told there was an extensive crafting system. You can pick up armor off of defeated enemies, most of which will show up on your avatar (except small things like necklaces and rings). You can also color armor that you make, so you can customize your wardrobe to your liking. This was one of the few RPG aspects of the game. Characters also level up by gaining experience through battle (and perhaps crafting), at which time you can place points into skill trees. For example, as mentioned earlier, the Iop’s skill trees are all elemental based, allowing you to choose which you want to focus in. You also learn new spells as you level up.

The best thing about Wakfu? It’s free to play. There was no word yet on if it’ll be based on microtransactions or totally free, though. Currently there is a closed French beta going on, but the English beta will be here in early 2011. The game will hopefully be released sometime in 2011, but no official release date has been set.

Allow me to end this preview by saying that Wakfu was my Game of the Show. I’m sure you already guessed that, but I’m stating it here and now. Having only been announced the day of the show, it took everyone by surprise. There was always a line to play it, and I hope it enchanted many people as much as it did me. It made strategy games, which normally intimidate me, fun and cute. I greatly look forward to playing the game when it’s released next year.