In ancient times, two goddesses, one of light and one of dark, created many worlds, including the Maple World. When the goddess of light wished to protect the Maple World from the darkness, her sister attacked, and after a brutal war, was defeated, but not before poisoning the land with her power. The remainder of the light goddess's power became Empress Ereve, who enlisted seven heroes to contain and eradicate the darkness. After a ritual to purify the darkness went awry, creating the Land of Darkness, two of Ereve's heroes set forth to complete the ritual, sacrifcing themselves in the process. A peace finally dawned upon the Maple World, but the advent of the Black Mage threatens the realm once again, and only a true hero may rise to stop him.
Unlike its predecessor, whose defining trait was being a 2D platformer in addition to being an Action RPG, MapleStory 2 adopts an isometric 3D style utilizing a cuboid design not unlike that of games such as Minecraft and Dragon Quest Builders. Like the previous game, players take up the role of one of many classes and fulfill requests for people while progressing an overarching plot, but the overbearing complications and archaic mechanics surrounding the overall gameplay have been adapted and streamlined to fit a modern formula. Along the way, players can also take the time to settle down with their own custom house, take up gardening and mining for resources to craft items and gear, design clothes for you and your friends, or just play some music on the side. Whereas the original game was largely gameplay-focused, MapleStory 2 is more about the player experience, evident in its bursting character and depth of customization. Of course, that doesn't mean you aren't going to be heading down to the deepest pits of Hell and slaying a Balrog or two.
As of June 2022, the English version has a fan-made custom server, "MapleStars 2", which can be found here
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MapleStory 2 contains examples of:
- 2½D: While the majority of the game is in full 3D, there are certain maps that appear exclusively in Side View with a restricted 3D movement plane to emulate the maps and movement of the original MapleStory.
- Achievement System: The game prominently features an expansive Trophy collection system where completing certain tasks will award Trophies. A vast majority of Trophies will award a variety of prizes such as Titles or Attribute Points, and your Trophies and Trophy count can be displayed and seen by other players. Certain Dungeons also require you to have a minimum number of Trophies as an entry requirement.
- Actionized Sequel: Inverted; the introduction of lifestyle side activities such as Mining, Fishing, and Farming plus the addition of your own customizable house makes the game into more of a "Mabinogi Lite".
- The Alcatraz: If you violate the game's code of conduct or abuse the in-game reporting systems (such as falsely reporting another player), you will be banished to Alikar Island, a remote island off the coast of Lith Harbor. The island is completely inescapable and you will be forced to stay there until you serve your sentence. Sentence time can be reduced through the local warden, but she's said to be as dangerous as the prison itself. Non-prisoners can also visit the island through a ferry at Lith Harbor, where they can explore around, collect extra Exploration Stars, and visit offending players who have been locked up.
- All for Nothing: When you need to meet the Mayor of Kerning City, his secretary tells you that the next available appointment opening is in two weeks. In an attempt to secure a visit with the mayor quicker, you agree to go check on her sister, who has been doing field work near the Ludibrium Clock Tower and hasn't returned for a few weeks. After helping the local researchers with the time dilation effect surrounding the Clock Tower, you return to the Mayor's Office for your promised "sooner" appointment — except that while you were gone, two weeks had already passed outside of the Clock Tower region, so the entire trip was practically pointless!
- Anachronism Stew: The setting most predominately takes place in a fantasy medieval setting, but also has elements of other settings from other time periods. For example, Kerning City takes place in a modern urban location, Taliskar takes place in a futuristic setting, and Perion is inspired by Native American and Mesomamerica cultures. There are also countless items that range from the typical armor and swords to cars, jets, cannons, and electric pianos, to name a few.
- And I Must Scream: One book details the story of a town who found a bag of masks. They put on the masks and play around with them until they realize that they can't take them off. The masks eventually turn the people into drones who hunt the writer, who goes into hiding but eventually becomes possessed by a mask himself.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- NPCs will often create a portal that takes you directly to the location of your next Epic quest, allowing you to complete the main storyline and reach the level cap quickly.
- Advance your mining and foraging skills enough, and you'll unlock access to Berg Island and Alkimi Island, maps containing respectively every kind of mining and foraging node, eliminating the need to travel across the entire world to do your daily gathering.
- Failing to enchant a specific piece of gear will accumulate Enchantment Charges, giving players the option to have slightly better odds the next time they enchant the gear.
- Anti-Grinding:
- There is a limit of 1,000,000 Prestige EXP you can earn per day. Once you hit 1,000,000, the rate at which you earn Prestige EXP plummets to practically close to zero.
- There is also a limit to how much EXP you can earn per day from decorating your house. This is completely justified, considering that you can earn an excessive amount of EXP from doing relatively little work that has no limit.
- You can do 10 Dungeons per day and 30 Dungeons per week, while Chaos Raids have a limit of 3 runs per day and 6 per week. Once you pass either the daily or weekly limit, any further Dungeon runs award nothing.
- An Interior Designer Is You: All players have a house that starts off as a small, empty floor, but can be built up with various blocks and furnishings. Surprisingly enough, most items are completely free (although there are some furnishings that require Merets to buy).
- Art Evolution: The art style retains elements of the original game's art style, particularly the use of slightly Super-Deformed artwork with the large eyes, but 2 features more dynamic, refined, and expressive portraits. This is mostly noticeable with the handful of returning characters like Lilin.
- Art Shift:
- For some reason, the Runeblade's key art is noticeably different than the rest of the game's, using much simpler shading and more Super-Deformed than normal with less detail.
- The cutscene showing the Sky Fortress taking off for the first time is fully animated, similar to an action anime. This is in contrast to every other cutscene in the game, which either uses still images or the in-game engine.
- Bittersweet Ending: One sidequest has you tracking down a little girl's runaway cat. When you find the cat, he tells you he's fallen in love with a lady cat and plans on eloping with her. The quest ends with your character either telling the girl you couldn't find her cat, or telling the truth. The girl is heartbroken either way, but if the latter option is chosen, she'll accept her cat's decision and wishes the couple a happy life.
- Blatant Lies: When Katvan takes Eve through the Shadow Gate, Lennon tells you to tell Allon that Eve is "on vacation" so no one will become suspicious. When you relay these exact words to Allon, he appears to not buy it but trusts you anyways.
- Bonus Level: It is possible to find black floating top hats called Hats of Misdirection that appear at random on the field. Interacting with them before they disappear takes you to one of many secret maps that have the potential to dispense large stashes of Mesos or items.
- Boring, but Practical: Despite the fact that you are given a choice between Enchanting at Ophelia or Peachy, in the end the more economically sound option practically always ends up being Ophelia. This is largely due to how much Peachy's costs inflate by at high Enchantment levels, which ends up causing decreasing gain per cost spent per Enchantment level. It's typically more efficient to roll on Ophelia's luck-based upgrades since you can later funnel failed upgrades back into Enchantement Success boosts and there's always the chance of getting the upgrade for far less than you would have spent by using Peachy instead.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Dying is referred to as being "tombstoned", which refers to the Instant Gravestone that drops from the sky and crushes you when you run out of HP.
- Cap: There is a hard limit on Adventure Dungeons runs per character; one character can run 10 Dungeons per day, and 30 Dungeons per week. You can still run after you've hit the cap, but you won't get any rewards.
- Cast from Hit Points:
- The Berserker has a buff skill called Blood Price which boosts their damage in exchange for losing HP with each hit they land. This skill is meant to be used in tandem with Passives that give bonuses for being at low HP and their Life Drain attack to juggle HP management and raw power simultaneously.
- Havi Poison, a status condition afflicted by Havi Kolyca from Ellin Grove, causes the player to take damage every time they attack in exchange for raising their attacks.
- Combat Medic:
- Priests are essentially do-it-all support mages. They can buff and heal allied players in addition to doling out a constant stream of magical attacks.
- To a lesser extent, Heavy Gunner, who specializes in gunning enemies down, can heal a teammate when they know the skill Med Kit.
- Combat Resuscitation: When a player dies, they are buried under a tombstone, which can be broken by attacking it in order to revive them. This also inflicts them with the "tombshocked" debuff, and if they die again without visiting a doctor to remove the tombshock, the next tombstone will be made of metal, which cannot be broken, forcing you to use Mesos or a revive voucher to come back, or respawn in town instead.
- Convection Smonvection: There are absolutely zero adverse effects to standing right next to lava in locales such as Perion. Standing in lava, however, will rapidly drain your HP.
- Cosmetic Award:
- The lower-level Adventure Dungeons grant outfit items that overwrite your equipment's appearance if you complete them enough times.
- Many trophies and sidequests award dyes that let you change your equipment's color.
- Dash Attack: Every class starts the game with a unique Active that propels them forward, and with the exception of Runeblade, burns Stamina as a resource instead of Spirit. The exact purpose of each Active varies; the Priest's dash emits a short-ranged AOE heal and boosts movement speed temporarily, while Runeblade gets a Flash Step.
- Deadpan Snarker: The player engages in their fair share of dry sarcasm several times in the main plot.
- Death as Comedy: One quick sidequest involves discovering a dead pig next to a propeller blade and broken wood. Climbing up to the tower next to him reveals that the pig had apparently been inspired to attempt to fly via a homemade contraption. The results are as morbid as they look.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Unlike the original game, there's very little penalty for dying other than being sent back a ways. This can be slightly more inconvenient in dungeons if the respawn point is far, but otherwise there's no permanent loss. Allied players can even revive you by attacking your tombstone as long as you don't have the Tombshocked debuff (which summons a metal tombstone upon death instead).
- Double Unlock: Some Trophies unlock items for purchase in shops, after which you must go to the shop and shell out Mesos to actually acquire the item.
- Draconic Humanoid: The Nova, as with the first game. Despite the Dimensional Gateways being closed at this point in time, one Nova, Varrekant, has somehow crossed over to the Maple World and is seeking the Lumenstone in an attempt to become Kaiser and rule over Grandis.
- Dramatic Irony: Most of the Dark Wind arc runs on this. At the very start of the arc, you are suddenly thrust into a flashback sequence where Lennon is shown discovering his captain's dead body, then immediately being framed for the murder by Katvan and other Dark Wind troops, forcing him to go on the run. The fact that Lennon is being set up by Katvan doesn't become apparent to anyone else in-universe until far later down the line.
- Dual Wielding: You have access to two weapon slots, one for each hand. While some classes use the off-hand slot to equip subweapons needed for certain Skills like the Knight (Shields) and Priest (Tome), other classes can flat out wield two weapons, like the Thief and Assassin.
- Easy EXP:
- The game literally heaps EXP on the player like crazy; not only can you earn EXP from standard RPG stuff like hunting enemies and completing Quests, but virtually any other action can potentially award EXP, including interior decorating, playing instruments, playing minigames, you name it. This, combined with the fact that Epic Quests already throw huge batches of EXP at you, makes it very easy to hit the cap by just playing the main story and participating in non-gameplay-related miscellaneous activities.
- Special note must be given to Instruments, which are the fastest way to level grind in the game due to how much EXP you get for completing a performance. Best of all is that due to the existence of Auto-Play Vouchers, you can level grind without playing the game!
- Easy Level Trick: The first half of Tronix Bunker requires fighting two Ninecap mechas as minibosses. You could fight them conventionally... or you can pick up the large EMP batteries strewn about the area and chuck them at the mechas to deal ~400,000 damage and temporarily stun them. A full party of players armed with EMP batteries can just throw them all and wreck the mechs in seconds. The November 2018 update nerfed the batteries so that they deal far less damage, but the mechs are still easy regardless and the batteries are still free stuns.
- Evil Me Scares Me: As an Innocent, Einos holds both a light side and dark side in his heart. When Jorge attempts to revive Einos after he returns, his dark side breaks off from him and becomes a dark entity named Pathos, who immediately guns for The Cusp of Life so he can take Einos' body.
- Excuse Plot: Largely averted. While the original game ran on this until it started establishing a mythos as a base for later playable classes and content, the story for 2 is made clear from the outset and many of the starting playable classes have ties to the history of the Maple World.
- Experience Booster: In addition to standard EXP boosting tickets, simply staying in your house or logging out of the game while in your house will cause you to accumulate Rest Experience. Rest Experience doesn't directly give you EXP, but it doubles all of your EXP gains up to a specific threshold, which increases the longer you're in your house.
- Faceless Goons: Every single Knight in Tria has the exact same armor and face except for Cadet Joddy. Hilariously, this extends to the Knight Fish, a rare fish only found in Tria that also has the exact same face as the generic knights.
- Falling Damage: Falling from a sufficient height before landing on the ground will cause your character to fall flat on their butt and take damage. This can never kill you, but the damage taken can be substantial. It is possible to break your fall if you use a flying Mount in the middle of plummeting to your doom.
- Forced Level-Grinding: Averted, unlike MapleStory. In the original game, the main story quests were rather sparsely spread out between level requirements beyond the tutorial sections, typically requiring you to travel around and do side quests until you hit the level requirement to start the next story quest. In this game, Epic Quests dump such massive amounts of EXP that very little actual grinding outside of the main plot is necessary, and EXP is ridiculously easy to earn in comparison to the original game, so even that doesn't matter.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Certain consumables mentioned in the main story are actually usable; for example, if one were to make more Glutamine tablets after Einos requests them, the player can take them themselves, and true to how they're portrayed in the main questline, they offer protection against shadow.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Like in its predecessor game, the "story" for each class doesn't really matter in the long run. They will all react the same to multiple situations regardless of motives or context.
- Guide Dang It!: A decent number of Exploration Stars require you to uncover a hidden treasure chest (or chests) or an otherwise hidden landmark. The game does not provide any help with finding any of these aside from a vague hint towards its general location, so you may end up resorting to a guide if it's stumping you.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Villainous example with Varrekant, who is wearing a helmetless version of the Kaiser Final Form armor.
- Hold the Line: The Cusp of Life is a dungeon where you are tasked with protecting the namesake artifact from Pathos and his monster army. The dungeon takes the form of a wave-based tower defense where you must ally with NPCs to protect the gates guarding the Cusp of Life.
- Hope Spot: In Alikar Island, you can find the diary of a former prisoner who attempted to escape via an underground passageway he discovered. The passageway leads to a void known as Escapee's Dream which appears to be a pocket dimension surrounded by endless white space.
- Hotter and Sexier: Downplayed. While the impact of this is noticeably unpronounced as the result of the Super-Deformed art style, there are a greater number of female NPCs that have designs with more accentuated... "assets", with outfits to match. Fanservice Costumes are also more prominent and the transition to 3D models enables more showing off.
- I Am the Trope: When the player is deployed to Henesys to help fight back the incoming horde, they are asked about the reinforcements, to which the player replies "I AM the reinforcements!" They're pretty much established as a one-man/woman army by this point.
- Impossible Hourglass Figure: A good chunk of the female characters with portraits go back and forth on this trope. Peachy is the prime offender; her hips are ridiculously exaggerated.
- Improvised Weapon: Certain items such as signs, bushes, and telephone booths can be picked up and used as weapons.
- Instant Gravestone: Like in the first game, a gravestone drops down from above when you die. Unlike in that game, other players can actually destroy the gravestone to revive you (only once though; future deaths create an indestructible metal gravestone).
- Later-Installment Weirdness: Many aspects of gameplay were overhauled from the original game to make them more player-friendly.
- Instead of the game being split up into several "Worlds" with a small number of Channels in each World, the game is now split up into large regional servers with 50 Channels each. This makes it easier to connect to a server closer to you and less problematic to play with friends.
- Mana has been replaced with a Spirit Gauge that has a permanent cap of 100 and quickly regenerates on its own. Furthermore, not every Active Skill requires Spirit to cast. Consumables that restore MP have been taken out as well.
- Weapon upgrades have been streamlined considerably compared to the first game and now work more similarly to games like Dungeon Fighter Online. Instead of using Scrolls to upgrade gear, you now pay a fee and a batch of materials acquired from Desynthesis to Enchant gear. In addition, there are now two methods to upgrade gear: a cheaper method that has a chance to fail at higher Enchant levels, or an alternate method that always succeeds but is much more expensive.
- You no longer lose EXP upon dying, something that was a huge pain in the ass in the original game. Another player can also revive you once by breaking the tombstone that crushes you, and you also have the option of ponying up Mesos (or using a Voucher) to revive on the spot.
- Bows and Throwing weapons no longer consume an inventory item as a resource, essentially giving them Bottomless Magazines. A loading screen message points out this fact for Bows.You don't need arrows for your bow.
- Attribute Points have been separated completely from levels; instead of gaining AP upon leveling up, you now gain AP from various achievements, mostly Trophies and Exploration Stars. This encourages the player to explore Maple World as a way to power up their character as opposed to simply power-leveling. Even Skill Points can be earned from certain Trophies.
- The Subclassing system that defined the original game took the axe in this game, with each Job being locked into one general Skill Tree each. Awakenings were added in the May 2019 update, but unlike the original game's Job Advancements, Awakenings function more like straight upgrades to the base Jobs and build upon the class's pre-existing skill set.
- Professions have been re-labelled "Life Skills". Certain herbs and ore veins are limited behind a certain level, unlike the first game allowing them to be mined at any point at the expense of a lower chance of success. They are also limited to certain areas and have a daily collection limit.
- Lava Is Boiling Koolaid: Lava is treated like typical water, in the sense that you can swim and fish in it. You're even encouraged to fish in lava, since they often contain fish in the "Unique Biome" category. The only difference between lava and water is that swimming in lava will quickly drain your health.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: A particular piece of merchandise◊ plays this angle for all its worth; it's a t-shirt that literally says "SPOILER ALERT: JODDY DIES" on it!
- Level Ate: Some areas in the northwestern part of Victoria Island have terrain made of cake and candy. Some of the NPCs and interactive objects in these areas make it clear it's all perfectly edible and quite delicious.
- Level Scaling:
- If you are a higher level than a World Boss upon encountering it, the boss will gain a permanent buff called Fair Fight that scales up the stats of the boss relative to the level difference between the boss and the player. This also includes HP, so you may start wondering why a Level 30 boss suddenly has over 20 million HP when you encounter it as a Level 60.
- Players who enter a dungeon while overleveled will have their stats scaled down so that the dungeon still poses a challenge.
- Light Is Not Good: The Black Mage's modus operandi is protecting the Maple World from a mysterious force known as the "light of destruction", which is only known to be connected with Empress Ereve. However, they are still clearly evil and the good guys are still clearly heroic, so it's more clean cut than the Black Mage makes it out to be.
- Modesty Shorts: For many skirt-wearing females, they wear the default red-patterned tap pants underneath. For others, certain skirts already come with their own leggings.
- Mythology Gag:
- Just like the original game, seven heroes stood up to seal away a great darkness, with two dying/vanishing in the process.
- Empress Ereve shares her name with the island that would house her descendant, Empress Cygnus.
- The Berserker's prologue story contains several similarities and references to Aran's story in the MapleStory, such as being based in the island of Rien, having a relationship with Lilin, and having past ties to a giant, ancient weapon.
- The hidden Stranger's House map in Henesys is a near-perfect 3D recreation of the Mushmom Forest Trail map from the original game. Stranger's House also has a Mushmom for you to fight, not surprisingly.
- One of the sample textures for the custom outfits that you got with the game is practically identical to the starting armor of the demon slayer.
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Many maps enable you to just waltz off into a void; doing so will usually simply return you to the last safe position you were at and incur Falling Damage.
- Not-Actually-Cosmetic Award: Trophies are earned from completing in-game objectives, which can range from slaying boss monsters and completing dungeons to gardening and blindly throwing yourself off cliffs. In addition to showing off, your Trophy count is actually a requirement for entering dungeons, and many of them will also grant rewards.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Cadet Joddy jumped in front of a fireball to protect his fellow soldiers while the player was protecting Ereve, inflicting mortal damage. You return to the battlefield just in time to see Joddy's last moments before he expires.
- Player Versus Player: This mostly takes the form of "PVP Zones" where player stats are massively scaled up, players are able to attack each other, and the only penalty for dying is a respawn timer. This can get rather annoying if a Quest happens to require you to hunt monsters that spawn in these areas, as it is possible that you'll get another player who will constantly fry your ass while you try to hunt monsters (or just players out to kill other players, for that matter).
- Random Event: There is a random chance that you will be spontaneously invited to participate in a minigame. Putting the primary objective on hold to play minigames is highly recommended, as these minigames can dispense large amounts of EXP and decent rewards for playing them.
- Rearrange the Song: Many of the towns that also appeared in the original feature rearranged variations of their respective tracks from the first game.
- Regional Bonus: There is an item called "Trader's Ribbon" that allows you to trade an item that has already reached its trade limit. In most regions where it has already been added, the Trader's Ribbon is a Cash Shop item that can only be purchased with real money, but the Global version introduced it as an item that can be earned in bulk from participating in endgame content.
- Retcon: Many events and characters in the story contradict the established MapleStory mythos, which implies that MapleStory 2 is more of a reboot of the storyline as opposed to a concrete prequel.
- Many of the locales in the original game can also be visited in this game, despite the fact that some of them were not established until relatively recently in present day MapleStory.
- It's mentioned that two goddesses created and governed the Maple world, likely taking the place of the spirits mentioned in Heroes of Maple and the first game's Transcendents. The introduction of Innocents further complicates the matter.
- Schizophrenic Difficulty: You are required to clear both Blaknov No. 1 and Blaknov No. 2 to clear a specific Epic Quest. However, Blaknov No. 2 is far more difficult than any dungeon that comes before or after it in the main Epic Quest line, and additionally has a Gear Score requirement of 1500, which you are likely not able to accomplish at the point in time that you are required to clear the dungeon to proceed. Blaknov No. 2 also drops equipment at least a whole tier higher than your current equipment, rendering much of your other gear obsolete if acquired.
- Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can:
- The Berserker's body is host to an evil demon that can potentially take over if the Berserker doesn't learn to control his/her powers.
- Empress Ereve has a mysterious power known only to others as "the light of destruction" sealed inside her. Ereve nearly releases it when she is cornered by Madria, forcing Madria to beat a hasty retreat.
- Shout-Out:
- The Mabinogi theme can be purchased as a premade music score from any Music shopkeep. Playing it awards a special Trophy that awards the "Milletian" Title.
- The game contains references to numerous memes, such as "Gotta go fast!", "Don't let your dreams be dreams!", and "Your Tears are Delicious".
- The elder warrior wolf in Perion is named Muphaza.
- One of the games in the Arcade is essentially a MapleStory-themed rip-off of Bomberman.
- An early sidequest around the Kerning region that requires slaying a World Boss is called "Life Finds a Way".
- Soft Water: No matter from how high the distance, you will not take damage from falling into a water tile.
- Toy Time: Ludibrium is an area that is themed after Legos. There is also a phenomenon where other terrains are converted to toy-like blocks known as Ludification.
- Video Game Perversity Potential: It is possible to design rather scandalous artifacts through the Maple Workshop for others to see. However, if even a single player decides to call you out on it, say hi to Alikar Island.
- Violation of Common Sense: Several Trophies requires you to effectively hurt yourself in different ways, such as falling off the map a certain amount of times, swimming in hazardous liquids such as sewage and lava for a certain period of time, and getting tombstoned enough times.
- Virtual Paper Doll: To a far greater extent than in the original to the point where it's billed as a major feature. Not only is fashion much more expansive, you can even design your own custom styles in the Maple Workshop and show them off to other players or sell them for Merets in the Meret Shop. Fashion is also made more accessible for non-paying players, as cosmetics are frequently distributed as in-game rewards and many items in the Meret Shop can be purchased with Red Merets, which are given away for free.
- The War Sequence: The climactic battle against Madria's forces in Tria. Also serves as a Wham Episode and a major turning point in the story.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: The Ludibrium Clock Tower has a bizarre time dilation effect that causes the flow of time to slow as one gets closer to the clock tower. It's discovered that the source of the phenomenon is Papulatus, who is hiding in the Clock Tower.
