My favorite types of games are things like Soulcalibur, American Mcgee's Alice, Devil May Cry, Bio Shock, Tomb Raider, Blood Rayne, Kain Blood Omen / Soul Reaver and various games alike. So if you like these kind of games you will probably like KrabbitWorld Origins.

Along with the mentioned games, I do enjoy a good RPG like the Shadow Hearts series, especially the engaging combat system. What I don't like are games that have the click and pick your nose combat. This is where you choose what to do and then it's completely up to the system whether you hit or miss. Well I'm a skilled fighter and hate being at the mercy of a random roll of dice to hit or miss.

Though I do play some of those games and they're easy to take advantage of, all you need to do is lopside your character. Just specialize in one thing to the max. Developers don't usually test for this and this allows you to make a fairly powerful character. In the click'n pick combat I find myself getting up during combat, walking away to get a drink or whatever and let the game play itself. You can't do that with all click 'n combat games though. Ones like Sacrfice or Spell Force series, beyond the attacks you can use, you also command large forces and your quite occupied / engaged at all times. :D Now thats were click 'n pick makes sense to me.

Action Video here

This is KrabbitWorld Origins, a true hybrid game. It takes Action, RPG and Fighter all rolled into one. Along with a minor, very minor, RTS element you can control your henchman with. You can choose up to 6 characters to play and up to 5 different henchman to accompany you.

Action:

Well it's certainly very action; this is it's primary focus. It has 4 action game modes to choose from, Arcade, Versus, Team and Survival.

Movement is fun, you can jump and have full air control. Hold down the space bar to slow your descent and you can glide. The dash attacks for melee fighters are just fun. it almost makes you a range fighter (though you're up close and personal). Instead of having to run up to your target and then attack, all you need to do is get in range and hit an attack key and dash!! you're up there mashing your target. Hold down shift to block and any movement key to perform a dodge.

Melee attacks and the combo system; it isn't nessessary to use to play, but is certainly fun. You have 4 melee attacks. First is weak, but fast, 2nd strong, the 3rd is a double hit attack and the forth is the strongest attack and knockback. The stronger the attack the more damage you do and the more stamina it uses. If you hit your next melee attack before the combo timer runs out you can increase your combo count, which increases your damage and uses less stamina. If you hit the key when each area is lit up you can get, fair, good, excellent and critical hits. For defeating bosses this is good to master and will be most fun in PVP. If you get a critical combo, your attack count increases by two.

Along with melee attacks you can perform air attacks. Jump into the air towards your target and hit a melee attack key. You will perform a dash attack mid air, then just keep striking to stop yourself from falling. You can air jump at any time to get out of the situation rather then just falling.

Magic users have two types of magic. Combat magic and Aura magic. Combat magic is very 3rd person shooter base and you can perform multishot. To do multishot jump into the air and as your krabbit starts to summersault, start pounding that combat magic key; you can get anywhere from 2 to 5 shots off. This is handy for flying targets as well as big bosses.

Aura magic is your most powerful magic. These are big attacks, but you need to stand still to cast and the cast can be interrupted. Two types of Aura magic, Friend or Foe. Friendly aura magic; you can cast shield, heal and various stuff like that. With Foe aura magic, you can cast your ultimate spells like Heavenly strike, wall of fire, YORG!!, Valkeryie's Wrath, Rain Lightening and Sonic Boom. All of these spells are AOE. Other types of aura are hold, vampiric heal, (damage your foe and gain their health), posion, dazzle, etc.

Whether you want to specialize in melee or magic, you can enhance your attacks using scribes and potions. As well you can use food to heal / replenish your stats and also watch out you don't starve to death! :P

RPG:

First off there is character building and customization. Beyond the action controls and your own combat skills, you can build up your Krabbit's stats to enhance your own type of play. Build strength and constitution for melee characters, but don't forget about wisdom. Wisdom helps to prevent your attacks from getting interrupted. So for those who may not have the twitch factor down yet, you can balance your play with building your krabbit.

In story game mode, you have 35 quests to complete. This is RPG lite. Not a lot of blah blah blah, which I personally like. You get your quest, head out to do it and kick some butt. As a spell caster you need to complete some of these quests in order to fill up your spell forge. This is the source of your power as you get to higher levels. It's also a nice and easy way to slip into the combat and get used to it, as the action game play modes can get quite insane as your character level gets higher.

There is NO grind here. You level fast, you gain a level each time you complete and gain a quest. Tomes placed throughout the land in story mode, give you massive XP. The level cap is 99, which doesn't take long to reach. If you play through the entore story mode, you can end up with a level 70 - 80 character fairly easy. And once you reach 99, it doesn't end there. You can "level lap" each time you gain 99 again, you gain 3 build points to continue enhancing your krabbit.

To build your krabbit, you can gain levels. You get XP per hit based on the damage you do. The higher the damage the more XP you gain. Along side this you can get weapons, armour, ear cuffs and bracers to enhance your krabbit.

Fighter:

This is not a fighter game in the traditional sense of games like Soul Calibur. It doesn't have throws or grabs. What it does have is complete 6 degrees of freedom movement. It does share the heart pounding fast paced rush of fighter games in the action game modes. Arcade game mode is very fighter based. And each enemy you really get to trash / beat em up! The music in the fights really enhances the play and gets the heart pounding. The standard monsters in the game are fairly easy to beat once you've mastered the combat system and even if you haven't. The bosses are a little more challenging, but it's the other characters that are the most challenging.

The main characters are Kria, Krei, Teella (dead), Ogre, Cleria and Teella (Live). Each has their own unique powers and abilities to use their utlimate strikes on you. Kria has heavenly strike, where she rains down a guardian upon you. Teella dead uses her pumpkin bombs and wall of fire. Ogre is tough and strong, he has Yorgers, little tazmanian type devils of himself spinning around with his dual axes. Krei is a bard and a true guitar hero :P he has Sonic BOOM, with one great strum of his guitar he'll blow you away with his loud speakers. Cleria uses Vaikerie's Wraith to hold and spear you, she also thorws holy spears which explode on impact. And lastly Teella live, uses death dragons and rain lightening. Rain lightening is probably one of the most deadly spells that really get me, but wall of fire is up there too. These are both DOT attacks (Damage over time) as well AOE. Watch out when fighting the AI they're really good at sneaking these attacks in on you. You do have a chance to block any of these attacks, but the RPG element always gets factored in, so even if you block it, it may still break through your defenses. This is were high wisdom stats can really help you.

Henchmen:

You can choose from 5 different henchmen. Some specialize in melee and others in magic. Blazie is by far though the most powerful, being a fire medium. Her weapon is her sunglasses! :P Mehli is a ninja, with a great katana. Drake an adventurer with a big war hammer. Ivy a beast realm amazonian warrior with a spear and Talehma a scorceress from the realm of dreams. Not only can your henchman help you, you can toggle them in and out of combat mode, click to plant a flag to tell them where to go or just hit Z to drop one were you are. You can also control them directly, by clicking on the crown by their hud or pressing backspace key. While controlling them directly your main krabbit will be ignored and shielded. If your main Krabbit is defeated you can switch to your henchman to finish the job! :D

Overall I quite enjoy the wide range of gameplay. Sometimes I feel like questing and other times I just wanna kick butt and chew bubblegum. I always enjoy customizing my character's look and powers. There is a demo avaible for both Mac and Windows, which gives you a taste of the story mode play and arcade mode game play. The play is unlimited so you can play it and learn alot of the tips and tricks mentioned here.

You can download them off the Krabbit Online main site link here, just scroll down to the free demo heading.

You can also download a PDF of the manual which is also included with the demo download.