Mabinogi is a very good game. It's actually probably the best free to play game I've played. The graphics are cute and pretty, the user base is mostly very friendly, and the battle system is very fun and challenging.

Pros:

• Character creation is fantastic! You can really make yourself look like an individual. There are about 20 or more hairstyles for each gender. You can also choose your age (10-17), your facial features such as eyes and mouth, the colours of your hair and eyes, and even what race you want to be (human, elf, or giant.)
• You can rebirth your character after a real time week and change the way you look and even how old you are.
• When your character turns 20, you get a FREE rebirth.
• Rebirthing resets your level back to 1 so you can level up again and get all the AP over again!
• Storylines, or Mainstream Quests as they're called in the game, are now free. Before the recent Pioneers of Iria update, you had to pay a monthly fee of $10 or more. Now they are free. The advantages of this is being able to transform into either a Paladin or Dark Knight which gives you a huge stat boost for a certain amount of time.
• There are two continents to explore. The two continents are Udlah and Iria. Iria is massive and is home to the races of Giants and Elves. It also has many different terrain types from a beautiful grassland to a huge desert. Udlah is small but has many dungeons, towns, and other neat landmarks.
• You can have pets! There are so many different types of pets to have. There are cats and dogs, horses, bears, and even odd pets such as spiders and ostriches. Every couple months, there are new pets added to the game.
• Pets have inventory space. It varies between which pet you have, but all the pets have inventory space where you can put items that are too special to sell but you don't have enough room for in your own inventory or your bank.
• Pets gain levels and can also help you fight. The best fighting pets are definitely Bears. Bears can hit for massive amounts of damage. Pets can also be used as decoys, tankers, and even healers! Pets also have skills that rank up as they level up.
• Some pets can be used for gathering, Sheep provide wool which can be weaved into thread, cows provide milk, snakes provide poison to coat your weapons with, etc.
• You can PLAY as your pet! If you play as a horse, you can give rides to other players. Running around as a little kitten is just cute!
• There's lots of skills! Skills are an important part of shaping your character on Mabinogi. Each skill can be ranked 15 times using a certain amount of AP or ability points. You get AP from leveling your character, your exploration level, certain quests, and from gaining a year in Mabinogi time. (One Mabinogi year equals a week in real time. Characters gain a year every Saturday at 12pm PST.)
• Skills are not just about fighting. There are also life skills such as Tailoring, Blacksmithing, Weaving, Fishing, Cooking, and many more! Because the game is not all about combat, you can have characters that are strictly just great Tailors or Blacksmiths and they would still have lots of money and experience.
• If you are into combat, the battling system is all about skill and not just mindless hack and slash. As you fight higher level monsters, you'll find that just going up and hitting them isn't going to do you well. Using careful planning, reflexes, and different skills is how the battle system works.
• There is PVP and dueling. You can turn on PVP and go around killing other people who also have PVP on. Or, if you'd rather just duel a friend who won't get angry with you, you can do a 1 on 1 duel. You can set the Hit Percentage so your attacks don't hit as hard as normal, you can also set where there is a Ring Out or if you can use Pets or not.
• There seems to always be an event going on. For as long as I've played, it seems there's always a special and fun event going on. In some events you can win Nexon Cash or you can win in game prizes such as rare weapons or items.

I'm sure there are more Pros, but these are the big ones I could think of.

Cons:

• Character Creation is very extensive but if you want access to ALL the hairstyles, facial features, and colours, you have to buy a Premium Character Card for 9,500 NX. (10,000 NX = $10)
• Everytime you rebirth you have to buy another Character Card. Basic ones cost 7,500 NX. (Basic Cards give you access to the free hairstyles and such.)
• FREE Rebirths are indeed free but you cannot change your appearance, only your age.
• Iria is a big continent and it's fun to explore but unfortunately it's rather empty at the moment. The middle part of the continent has not been released yet so there are only 3 towns and only 4 dungeons in Iria.
• Pets must be bought with NX.
• Pets have summoning time. If you deplete the time, your pet cannot be summoned again until 7AM PST the next day in real time. Most pets have anywhere from 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours summoning time.
• If you play as a pet, the summoning time still decreases.
• The Battle System does take some time getting used to. I have played for about 10 months now and I am still learning different fighting techniques. It's a little challenging for a beginner, but you get a greater sense of satisfaction when you kill a really hard monster.
• You can only PVP if you're a Paladin or Dark Knight and you're fighting the other, or if you join sides with the Giants or Elves (or if you are a Giant or Elf). If you are neutral, you cannot PVP but you can duel.
• There are many gold selling bots in the starter town of Tir.
• Other countries outside of North America are IP blocked from playing NA Mabinogi.

I'm sure there are other annoyances or things that are cons in the game, but these are the big ones I could think of currently. I hope that gives some of you a better idea if you would like to play Mabinogi or not. It really is a good game if the cons don't bother you too much.

I added a few cons to the list based on some of the posts in this thread. Thank you everyone who takes the time to read my post and write comments that are well thought out and not rude.

... i'm not reading that, but thanks.

Biggest Con for me is I cannot play it from the UK.

Originally posted by dewonderworm

Rebirthing resets your level back to 1 so you can level up again and get all the AP over again!

Now why the hell would you want to do that?

You forgot to add the following Con:

When you first get into the game it's all cute and stuff, until you reach the first town and you're swamped with goldseller spam.

That turned me off of the game immediately. It isn't like WoW where its a message or two, it's massive wall of text over and over. Very annoying.

Originally posted by Elitekill4

Originally posted by dewonderworm

Rebirthing resets your level back to 1 so you can level up again and get all the AP over again!

Now why the hell would you want to do that?

Mabinogi has current lvl and total lvl. When you rebirth, you keep your skills and total lvl.  Anyways it's way easier to lvl and get ap at lower "current" lvls, making rebirth desirable. Only bad thing is,  you have to pay to rebirth. And if you are power hungry, you have to rebirth every week to keep up with the other power hungry fellows.  Otherwise, you can just just rebirth every 2 weeks for free(have to pick age 18 to rebirth to everytime, since you get free rebirth at age 20. Otherwise you'd be waiting a whole lot longer if you were to rebirth to lets say, age 10). And yeah, you age 1 year every saturday, just another factor mabinogi implements that makes this game unique.

Originally posted by Splinki

you reach the first town and you're swamped with goldseller spam.

Yes, that is one that I forgot to add. There are alot of these bots in the main town but you can always block them so their speech doesn't appear in the chat box. If, however, you feel it's too much trouble to do this, that's fine and it's your choice to not play this game. In my own opinion however, the pros for the game outweigh the cons. But that is only my opinion and you are entitled to your own.

As with most of these types of games, I usually just stay away from the newbie town. Once I'm out of the first town, I don't really notice the goldsellers.

Originally posted by Realedazed

As with most of these types of games, I usually just stay away from the newbie town. Once I'm out of the first town, I don't really notice the goldsellers.

That's true. With all the new places that have been added (and are currently being added in G7) it's quite easy to get away from the spam in Tir. Also, you can choose to begin your game in Iria where I hardly ever see spammers.

Considering so many of your pros had to do with pets, and I happen to not give 2 clumps of dung about pets in any mmorpg I don't think this game is for me. This is a good read for those interested in the game though. Lots of good info.

Thank you for the well written review of Mabinogi. However: not being able to play from anywhere except America is the biggest turn off. There are ways to get around it, but whatever method you try you will always play with lag. I've done it with both MapleStory and Mabinogi, but the lag and thus the turn off is just too big. Nothing like looting and having to wait 2 seconds before it ends up in your inventory. Try it for a couple of hours and you'll get very sick of it.

Maybe we should wait for a European server just like they did with MapleStory. But then we'll have to wait 6-12 months before we get new content that has been introduced in America. Oh, and they'll use their spectacular money rate: 10 dollar (for 10.000 NX) becomes 10 euro instead of 7,03. *Cough* Rip-off *Cough*

But to get back on Topic: I might give Mabinogi one more try since the new content sounds good, plus your review got me a bit hyped again.