Alicia Online Review

Alicia Online (aka Project Alice) by GameTree is an online fantasy horse racing game that was released in Korea in the end of 2009. The game looks very promising with the racing and horse breeding features of it, and the graphics is also very nice. Alicia's horse racing MMO may sound cheesy at first, but this game cannot be judged by first impressions. You have to play the game to see it for yourself.

The Rider/Avatar

Once you sign-in from the website for the first time, you'll be treated with a character creation screen to pick your name, gender, eyes, mouth, body size, and voice. After that, you are ready to play the game. Your character will gain experience points as you play and it'll be used to unlock a variety of things, since clothes, hair, horse's in the shop, etc...

Here is how my appearence looks like.

The Shop

Here you got your typical attire of clothes and head gears to choose from. Some higher priced items can only purchased when you meet the level required. As well as your Rider, Horse's can be accessorized with equipments that will increase their stats. The shop carries some items to help you taking care of your horse, food, clean items, etc...

Style your own Rider with dresses and gear.

Buy gear to your horse  to boost his stats. Each part will equip towards all of your available horses instead of individually. Be carefull it has a rental period, 1 day, 7 days and 30 days, but you can always customize your duration however you want.

The Horse

You'll need to maintain your horse and keep him healthy or else he won't be able to perform so well and if neglected your horse he may get injured easly and that'll cost more money to get it treated. It sounds like a pain to keep up with, but I think it's one of the things that brings up the interaction during the game so you don't use your horse as a racing tool. The job is simple, all you need to do is, feed, clean, keep it entertained, and rejuvenate his stamina. 

Don't forget it will cost you some money to get the supplies so be wise with funds you get.

Horse's can level up too, and each level up he gets 1 point to be distributed on one of the five stats available: (they are described here and in order)

1st - Agility Speed Effects: Dash speed is increased. Cornering ability is not hampered. Reduces the amount of deceleration of the sliding rate.
Magic Effects: "Shield" spell duration increases. Each 10 stat points increase critical chance of "Shield" spell.

2nd - Courage Speed Effects: Reduces slowness on uphill. Increased speed going downhill. Collision impact is reduced.
Magic Effect: Magic gauge increase faster.

3rd - Breakthrough Speed Effect: Boost speed is increased.
Magic Effects: "Shield" spell duration increases. Each 10 stat points increase critical chance of "Shield" spell. (yes same as Agility). Each 10 stat points "Accelerated", "Order" magic critical rate is increased.

4th - Strength Speed Effect: Increase duration of boost.
Magic Effects: "Boost" spell duration increases. Each 10 stat points increase critical chance of "Boost" spell.

5th - Competition Speed Effects: Chasing (feathers) speed is faster. Chasing (feathers), the active point is faster. Chasing (feathers) acquisition range is wide.
Magic Effects: Reduce collision with "Ice" spell. Each 10 stat points increase critical chance of "Ice" spell.

There is even a breeding system that I haven't managed to understand (only makes me think that is a little bit random). Your character must be level 10 to unlock horse mating, however your horse most also reach a rating of 4 to be able to mate. You can fave horse's to breed later and list your own with the amount you set for a rental period to make easy pocket money.

Gameplay

As you know the main atraction of this game is to compete against other players in a race. There are four modes to choose from the online play:

Speed: Traditional race with speed boost only competing against other players.
Speed Team: Same like Speed mode but with teams of Red vs. Blue.

Magic: Uses item attacks much like how Mario kart works competing against other players.
Magic Team: Same like Magic mode but with teams of Red vs. Blue.

Time Attack: Available in solitaire only. See how fast you can finish the course.

And remember you can play in unique and extrodinary visuals.

Final Thoughts

This is a game that everybodys talks about for a good time but as well a game that seems to never been finished since the ones who follow it for a long time know that this game is having updates.  Like many of you I had my eyes on this title for awhile with this amazing visuals and unique racing system that I wanted to experience. The summer of 2012 I finnaly I had the luck to try it out and since then I dont leave palying this amazing game.

As you level up, you start unlocking more new contents along the way so there's possibility more new contentes I haven't discovered just yet. This is a game that you play non-stop for a good few days which is a positive thing nowadays since it's hard to play a game like that. The racing experiences feels unique in a way that the horses feels realistic as they gallop (thing that any game I played gave that feeling).

Remember that this game is still in progress and from what I heard the game will only come to English version when the game is "finished", there is still missing a type of racing which I called the fighting race as you can see at the official trailer, new horses are coming up soon as well and there isn't any marked day as the official english upcoming.

So are you interested in trying this game out too? Those who already have accounts from Gametree or play Pangya KR can go ahead and log-in from the site. Be sure to have both the Gametree Launcher and client downloaded first before you proceed. Click on "Game Start" and follow along each steps carefully and it should be easy to go from there. Once you finish creating your character from the website, you should be good to go.