There's an interesting system in Trickster that gives an XP bonus depending on your party makeup. For example, a party composed of all Buffalo would earn bonus on XP as it quested together, a party of all male or all female characters would do the same. The biggest XP bonus, though, is reserved for a party that includes one of every class archetype - a "Royal Flush" bonus.
Another peculiarity of Trickster is that NTreev really, really likes drills. There's an entire subgame based around drilling, where players can... well, drill holes in the ground for experience, items, and money (or just because they feel like it). In fact, players can effectively level up to level 60 by drilling alone. The character that they'd given me was a Fox - Female Sense type - and had the ability to sense where items were on the map to drill up, which certainly gave me an advantage.
The main city of Megalopolis, as one might guess from the name, is where everything goes down. Naturally, there were dozens upon dozens of players there with their own player-owned shops, buying and selling gear with NPCs and other players alike. There's an NPC in Megalopolis who will upgrade gear for you by Tempering it... as long as you get some items, including one from the RMT store.
Trickster Online Revolution is, Noss stresses, free-to-play from level 1 all the way to level 400. Like most F2P games, though, there's a microtransaction real-money shop that they call MyShop. For example, if you want to upgrade your gear, you'll need a catalyst called the Artisan's Flame, purchased through MyShop.
Beyond that, the shop had your standard array of gear, items, and pets to make adventures easier - amusingly enough, the pets aren't what one might consider "pets" per se; they are more like cute little anime-style companions that boost one's stats (so certain pets would be more valuable to certain classes than others). Of course, if you really grow attached to your pet, you can always upgrade it so that it's still useful once you've outgrown it.
In general, MyShop offers a pretty wide range of cosmetic options that run the gamut of popular anime styles - you've got your schoolgirls, you've got your ninjas, and best of all, you've got your giant robots. Mmm, giant robots. So if you want to plunk down a few bucks' worth of live cash to look like you came straight out of Macross, maybe it's worth it. (Though, given the emphasis on drilling, maybe Gurren Lagann would be more accurate...)
The entire thing has a very cute anime style, and Noss said that that's something that players like about the game. For Halloween, they wanted to adapt the mythical figure of the Crow into the game, but felt that the original - spooky - idea wouldn't really fit with the feel of Trickster. Solution? Make it slapstick, and it fits.
Really, though, the drilling was ... just kind of addictive. Go figure.
(Thanks, Daniel! Check out the official Trickster site!)
