I was randomly browsing the internet today when I spotted this game “Prius Online” (used to be Anima Online) on a blog. I checked out youtube to find out how it looks like. What got my interest right off is the graphics, which reminded me a little of Granado Espada (which I don’t play anymore, sadly). Then I saw the adorable little girl character.

My first thought was “Lolita!” After checking out some comments, it seems I’m not the only one who felt that way.

The cute loli girls are called Anima, and they function as the player characters’ companions. According to the Taiwan version official website, you can get them at level 10 and they can do a lot of things, such as supporting players in battle by using skills, cooking, crafting, just to name a few. Depending on player’s choices and the interaction with them, their personality will change, which will in turn affect the skills they use.

You get to customize how they look like when you create your character though you get them later, and when I was customizing mine, it felt a little like I’m choosing a digital version of BJD (ball-jointed doll), albeit with fewer customization choices. Mine looks a bit like the girl in the picture, except with red eyes.

Right now on the Taiwan server I’m starting in, there are 5 races and 6 jobs available, and the jobs are race and gender specific. I picked my usual mage role, of course, which means I get to use the male Hume. I didn’t play much except getting stuck in the new character tutorial (just my luck, since my sisters got through it fine) and playing around with the settings. I have tried some games where I have issues with the camera setting, the keyboard setting, but I didn’t have any with this game. I had to lower the visual quality because my loyal desktop does not have high-end specs (used to, once upon a time), but even so it looks amazing.

If you’re interested, it is currently in open beta phase for the Taiwan version (language is Traditional Chinese). There is a very helpful registration guide for the English-speaking. I tried downloading from the official website and it took quite long. shion1 in OnRPG forum was nice enough to upload the installer to MegaUpload, here’s the post with the details.

Oh yes, here’s a short video to see the loli Anima in action (kinda).