Fantasy Tales Online
Fantasy Tales Online positions itself as a free-to-play, 16-bit 2D MMORPG built around old-school presentation, dungeon runs with shifting layouts, and a huge pool of collectible equipment. It aims to recreate the feel of classic console-era RPGs while layering in MMO staples like questing hubs, hotbar combat, and social features such as housing and guild spaces.
|
Publisher: Cold Tea Studio Playerbase: Low Type: 16-bit MMORPG Release Date: April 17, 2015 PvP: Currently Unavailable Pros: +Procedurally changing dungeons. +A massive variety of loot and cosmetics. +Player and guild housing. +Works across multiple platforms. Cons: -Pixel-art presentation will not appeal to everyone. -Questing can feel grind-heavy. -Familiar fantasy structure and pacing. |
Fantasy Tales Online Overview
Fantasy Tales Online is a retro-inspired 16-bit MMORPG that leans into classic high-fantasy adventuring, then mixes it with MMO progression and repeatable dungeon content. You select one of three classes and set off into a medieval-flavored world packed with familiar threats, including bandits, oversized spiders, and goblins that hit harder than their sprites suggest. Much of the game’s loop revolves around taking quests, upgrading gear, and pushing into dungeons whose room layouts and routes are re-rolled whenever you enter, keeping runs from becoming pure memorization.
Customization is a major pillar. Equipment ranges from practical weapons and armor to playful cosmetic pieces, so two characters of the same class can still end up looking completely different. On the social side, housing lets players stake out a space in player-run towns, decorate it to taste, and extend the idea into guild housing for groups that want a shared home base and a long-term project to work on together.
Fantasy Tales Online Key Features:
- Retro-style MMORPG – designed to echo the look and rhythm of 16-bit RPGs from more than twenty years ago.
- Randomly-generated Dungeons –enter instanced areas that reconfigure their layout each visit, encouraging adaptation instead of route memorization.
- Thousands of Items –collect a broad mix of weapons, armor, and fun cosmetics, from basic clubs and axes to novelty headgear and masks.
- Player Housing –create a personal home, or build a shared guild house with friends inside player-controlled towns.
- Changing Time and Weather –travel through regions with a day and night cycle and weather shifts that add atmosphere while exploring.
Fantasy Tales Online Screenshots
Fantasy Tales Online Featured Video
Fantasy Tales Online Races
Brute – a frontline melee fighter focused on durability and straightforward damage.
Medic – the game’s dedicated healer, with enough offensive threat to avoid feeling like a passive support role.
Assassin – a sneaky, burst-oriented class built around striking targets before they can properly react.
Fantasy Tales Online Review
Fantasy Tales Online is a free-to-play 2D MMORPG that combines a SNES-era visual style with MMO fundamentals, such as quest hubs, loot progression, and instanced content meant to be repeated. The setting is traditional high fantasy, and the core expectation is simple: grow your character by completing tasks for NPCs, improving your equipment, and tackling dungeons, ideally with other players. At the time reflected here, the project is still in development and includes a test server for players who want to sample the experience early and provide feedback.
The game’s pixel look will be the first point of friction for some, but it is also the main reason others will be curious in the first place. If you have nostalgia for classic RPGs like early-era Final Fantasy or Breath of Fire, the overall aesthetic and pacing will feel intentionally familiar, even when the mechanics lean closer to modern MMO combat than turn-based party systems.
First Steps in Bluevale
Getting started is intentionally lightweight. Character creation largely boils down to picking a name, choosing your class, and selecting from a small set of hairstyle options. Most of your identity is then built through gear, which is where the game’s huge item pool becomes meaningful. There is also a barbershop option in town intended for changing hairstyles later, with more choices than the initial creation screen, although it does not always behave reliably.
After creating a character, you are dropped into the starting area without a guided onboarding sequence. Instead, the game relies on players learning by doing, with a keybinding list accessible through the Escape menu. For genre veterans this is manageable, but players who are new to MMORPG conventions may feel a bit untethered during their first hour.
Controls and Combat Feel
Movement supports both keyboard and mouse, and interactions are streamlined into simple inputs. The left mouse button is used not only to talk to NPCs and click objects, but also to attack enemies, which makes the game immediately playable even if you prefer a more point-and-click approach. Skills and consumables can be slotted onto a hotbar and triggered via number keys, aligning the moment-to-moment play with contemporary MMO expectations.
Despite the retro presentation, the combat is not built around turn-based pacing. Encounters feel closer to real-time MMO skirmishes, where positioning, timing, and resource use matter more than menu navigation. The result is a hybrid that looks old-school at a glance but plays like a lighter, action-leaning online RPG.
Questing, Dungeons, and the Main Loop
The early game begins in the town of Bluevale, where you pick up a familiar mix of errands and objective-driven tasks. Many quests follow standard MMORPG patterns, such as defeating specific enemies or collecting drops, but the game occasionally tries to vary the routine with small investigative threads or repair-style objectives. It is worth stacking quests before heading out, since several objectives overlap and doing so reduces repeated trips into the same enemy zones.
Where Fantasy Tales Online most clearly differentiates itself is in its dungeon design. Instanced dungeons are randomly generated, and their layout changes on each entry. That feature adds unpredictability and helps keep repeat runs from becoming purely mechanical, but it also increases the chances of runs feeling longer when you are searching for the correct path or the last objective. Alongside that, a banking system provides a practical layer of account safety by letting players store gold rather than carry everything at risk.
The Final Verdict – Fair
Fantasy Tales Online has an appealing concept for players who miss the look of 16-bit RPGs and want that aesthetic in an online, loot-driven format. The randomly-generated dungeons and sheer amount of equipment do a lot of the heavy lifting, and housing adds a welcome long-term goal beyond pure grinding. However, the experience is held back by how routine the questing can feel and, more importantly, by the absence of a strong narrative backbone to motivate progression.
In a market full of free-to-play games with more elaborate presentation, a retro MMO benefits most when it offers a compelling story or distinctive world-building to match its nostalgia. From what is visible through the project’s community presence, additional systems, including a frequently requested PvP component, are planned for the future. In its current form, it is difficult to recommend broadly, but it is still a title worth monitoring if you enjoy indie MMORPG projects and appreciate the old-school style.
Fantasy Tales Online Links
Fantasy Tales Online Official Site
Fantasy Tales Online Steam Greenlight Page
Fantasy Tales Online Reddit
Fantasy Tales Online Kickstarter
Fantasy Tales Online System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
CPU: Celeron E1500 Dual-Core 2.2GHz or Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+
Video Card: GeForce GT 330 or Radeon HD 6530D
RAM: 2 GB
Hard Disk Space: 3 GB
Fantasy Tales Online is a Java based MMO and will run smoothly on practically any PC.
Fantasy Tales Online Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon!
Fantasy Tales Online Additional Information
Developer: Cold Tea Studio
Publisher: Cold Tea Studio
Lead Developer: Benoit Girard
Composer: Nicholas Hung
Game Engine: Java
Kickstarter Posting: April 17, 2015
Kickstarter Ending: June 01, 2015
Steam Greenlight Posting: April 17, 2015
Steam Greenlight End Date: June 13, 2015
Steam Early Access: April 17, 2015
Release Date: April 17, 2015
Development History / Background:
Fantasy Tales Online is created and published by the indie team at Cold Tea Studio. After working on the project over a long period in their spare time, the developers released an Early Access version on April 17, 2015. That build opened up the first act on a test server, allowing players to jump in early and share feedback that could help shape future updates. Promotion included a Kickstarter campaign that did not reach its funding target. The game later appeared on Steam Greenlight and was greenlit on June 13, 2015.