Taichi Panda Review

Taichi Panda from Snail Games gives you the option of playing as a burly warrior, a lithe knife-wielding woman, or a fat drunken panda. Unsurprisingly, the hub world is jam-packed with fat drunken pandas. The game may as well ask you to choose between playing as a rock, an empty cigarette carton, or a fire-breathing werewolf equipped with a Fender Stratocaster.

Taichi Panda is already a massive hit in China, and it's not hard to see why. Pandas or no pandas, it's a bit more polished, a bit more fair, and a bit more well put-together than a lot of mobile massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs). That's not to say it doesn't have some of the problems inherent to the genre, but if you're planning to funnel some of your time (and even some of your cash) into a mobile MMOG there are certainly worse titles to attach yourself to.

One compelling thing about Taichi Panda is that its combat is all action-based. It's not the first MMOG to let you personally bash your enemies, but it's preferable to being hands-off. More importantly, it has pets - and it starts you off with one once you clear the tutorial. It's almost funny how much more invested you get in the game once you have a pet to fight beside you. You wind up saying to your foes, "Punch me, stab me, fry me - but keep your damn dirty demon paws off my ice turtle."

Taichi Panda also lets you engage in free draws that, surprisingly, will actually score you rare equipment from time-to-time instead of just vendor trash. You're also constantly rewarded for logging in and playing, so there's certainly incentive to come back and see what you get.

The game's graphics are also bright, colorful, and well-animated. That said, there are definitely some server issues that may hamper your log-in process. And then there's the usual trapping of free-to-play MMOGs: wait times. Each quest you embark on requires stamina, which refills gradually. You're often gifted instant refills, however, which is nice.

If you're not down with mobile-based MMOGs, Taichi Panda doesn't revolutionize the genre even though it's a decent offering. If you do happen to be a fan of MMOGs, make this the Year of the Panda.