C21-Online

Notice!

In C21 you play as robots which you can design and texture yourself. This is one of the starter robots in the Japanese version.

This robot of my own design (I haven't found the proper bat head) has no attacks, but it's fast and I use it for traveling. Robots made out of less powerful parts will level up much faster. The robot parts each have different stats which scale with level.

During Yule 2011, I ran into this special reindeer. The portal lead to a place with a few Santa characters. There are often special events happening during holidays.

This page was done before there was an English version of C21. The idea was to help the English speaking people who wanted to check out the game. If you're reading this in 2012 there should be an English version of the game out. However, according people who have played the beta, the English version of the game is a bit different.

I can't help but to wonder why they just didn't make a client in English and some English servers. I think the biggest flaw of the Japanese version is the lack of variation that you have with the starter robots (knife and handgun), and it would be fun to see larger mobs here and there too.

I will leave this page up, as it might still serve as some kind of introduction to the game for those curious about the Japanese version of C21.

Introduction

These cute acorn-like enemies are mostly harmless, hovering about. Top, left to right: Quick inventory (F1-F4), Health and stuff, Robot inventory, item inventory, stats, and some other stuff. Bottom row: Friends / chat stuff, clock, money, message bar (can be expanded), typing bar that's usually full of "ssss ss" or "wwww w" because you can't type and wasd move at the same time (return will toggle the mouse cursor lock). Then finally bottom right, maps buttons (very useful) and some stuff that's self-explanatory once you click it. "wwwww" can also mean "hahaha".

C21-Online is a free to play MMO, although some things in the game cost 'Mt' credits which are more convenient to purchase using real money (that's how the game appears to be funded) (50 Mt is 500 Yen I believe.). The game is in Japanese, but it seems like the Thai version is partly in English. I made this page because there are very few, or no pages about this game in English, save this one now.

C21 differs a bit from other MMOs out there. It's more action oriented and plays a bit like a 3rd person shooter with a loose lock-on feature. If you're skilled with the controls and health regeneration keys, you can take on enemies of a higher level and roam more freely.

The most prominent feature of C21 is the robot customization. A robot is generally built from legs (LG), a torso (BD), arms (AM), a backpack (BS), a head (HD), and a range and melee weapon held in each hand. However, it's possible to mix the parts up and build all kinds of crazy looking things.

The parts come in many different sizes and appearances. The 'leg' part doesn't have to be actual legs, it can be tank tracks or a hover knob for example. I currently have a robot with 4 legs, a torso with 4 guns, and a melee (pincer) head. It's actually a copy of the 'Dekamuka' enemy in the game.

The robot parts can be seen to the left here, arranged hierarchically. A detailed view of the stats are seen to the right. You can rotate, move and zoom the 3D view in the middle with the mouse. Changes don't apply until you Finish. I put the Rookie Badge into a slot (lower left), but I don't know what it does.

On top of this, you can change the color scheme in a couple of different editors. There's even a texture editor which shows you the UV-map. If you visit the city (hub) in the starting area where a lot of people hang out, you'll soon get a grasp of the variation that is possible.

The game itself is fairly straightforward. You can roam around and kill enemies, earning XP, money and loot. Some enemies drop parts of their body which you can add to your own robots. There's a Mission Center where you (and maybe some friends) can complete various mini levels and earn rewards. There's a whole bunch of NPC's standing around, but I see no point in talking to them as I don't understand what they say.

There's a sequel / offshoot called Cosmic Break which is more focused on mecha girls.

Links

Windows (XP) versus Mac version

I tried the Windows version on my notebook first. It didn't display the japanese text properly (even after installing a bunch of language support), it drew the interface wrong, and it bluescreened every 1-2 hrs. The game runs in 800*600, so it is playable on a notebook (might lag in the busy city areas though). Mac version worked like a charm straight out of the zip.

Controls

I only know a few vital keys so far:

WASD	Move (double tap to dash, or fly-dash to reach new heights)
Mouse	Aim
LMB	Left weapon / Ranged / Primary
RMB	Right weapon / Melee / Secondary
Space	Jump/Fly. W to descend, S to Ascend (to a limit).
Shift	and LMB/RMB to switch between armaments (if multiple).
Return	Free mouse cursor, so you can type and interface.
F1-F4	Use the items top left (mostly used for healing).
F5-?	Interface hotkeys (robot list, inventory, etc)
F12	Screencap (goes in /capture/)

Settings

I can't read anything here. I'm guessing that you can adjust music volume, bind keys, fiddle with graphic options, etc.

Story

I can't read much of the Story, but the game appears to be set 1000 years into the future, in the era of the Cosmic Renaissance. The "Angel Legion" fights the "Evil Legion". The game has an intro which you can rewatch from the login screen.

I don't know how big the robots are or if there are any humans alive. Sadly, the game is a bit sterile. I can appreciate the clean style - it's quite delicious - but the levels are repetitive and kind of dead. I'd really like to see some scale reference and landmarks to liven the place up a bit. Drew stuff:

Dekamuka scale

Anyways, since I can't read the story, I thought it would be fun to come up with my own, so here it is.

Centuries into the future, man had just colonized the 15th planet in the name of the Earth Empire when the singularity breakthrough came. On Earth, a computer so powerful and intelligent that its motives were beyond comprehension, had been constructed. It burrowed itself into the core of the Earth, and transformed the surface into a shell so hard it would survive being submerged into the center of the sun.

This transformation soon took place on all of the Earth colonies. On the surface of these post singularity planets, simple machines of unknown function had been left to wander aimlessly. What happened to mankind is a mystery, but to this day, human structures keep appearing on the surface. Some believe it's a form of mausoleum that is maintained out of sentimentality... if a singularity can feel such a thing.

As time went by, some of the machines roaming the surface of the Earth found their own purpose. By modifying themselves and evolving, they also developed a darker side. One group believed in enforcing structure and oneness, suppressing the individuality that is an inherent emergent property of a robot's mind core. The group of robots who opposed this agenda called themselves 'Legion of Angels', and they called their adversaries the 'Legion of Evil'. In truth, it is only the Legion of Evil which is Legion.

It was the Legion of Evil which found the old warp pathways between the Earth colonies. Eventually they found a way to force-reprogram mind cores, and this lead to the eradication of most 'aberrants'. Now, the Legion of Angels are fighting a losing battle to maintain their individuality. Meanwhile, the Legion of Evil is finding new ways to spread, using warp technology.

This new era of robotic life and strife is known as the 'Cosmic Renaissance'.

So, this story of mine attempts to explain why the terrain is so hard and looks kind of artificial, why some structures regenerate, why there are no humans, why the bad guys are clones, and how they can teleport in.

Cities

Soaring high above the busy streets with my Dekamuka. It doesn't have a BS (backpack) part, but I suppose it might be built in.

The cities have a bunch of useful buildings which you can enter. Out in the streets, people advertise their goods. At least that's what I think they're doing. The kanji for goods is one of the few that I can recognize.

You can travel to different planets using the starport which is found in one of the zones. It's clearly marked on the map. The zone map has to be explored. You can't see all of the zone connections initially.

The NPC's with a (?) emote are probably offering fetch-quests and such. I talked to one and it gave me a piece of paper. Maybe I'm supposed to deliver it somewhere?

Planets

I've only been to a few planets so far. I assume they're planets anyways, because there a sequence with a spaceship. You can find the spaceport easily on the world map. Forest and beach (ticket cost: 300C), Brown wasteland (500C), Desert (2000C), Black tech-land (10M). There's also a snow planet. I think there's a really neat big stompy square thing there, but I couldn't find it because I almost died.

Garage

Here you can manage your 5 robots, add/remove parts, or scratch build new robots. The tabs (numbered) are useful for sorting stuff.

I'm keeping some health regen stuff in my field inventory to the right. Some inventory tabs might be locked for various reasons (your 7 'noob' days are up, or you're doing a mission which doesn't allow inventory use). Parts are dropped by enemies in [?] boxes. I collect Dekamuka parts out of compulsion.

The Garage is where you keep your robots and items. Zones with a Garage (and other buildings) are always void of enemies.

Robot screen: Similar to the Pokémon games, you have a couple of robots which you can switch between anywhere (out in the field). Unused robots are kept in the garage. I didn't understand this at first, but it appears that you get a whole bunch of robots when you start, on top of the robot that you 'rolled' when you first start the game.

Editing a robot might change its level (since you introduce level 1 parts or something like that). Strangely, I had a robot go up several levels once. Dismantling a robot will make all parts level 1 again, I think. Yeah, the robots are leveled individually, just like Pokémon. Once you are a high enough level, you get less % XP, as indicated in the main HUD next to the mini map.

Important buttons lower right panel (robot garage):

(left column)
[ Heal or resurrect ]
[ Edit the selected robot ] (cheap)
[ Assemble a new robot ]
(right column)
[ Edit robot name & comment ]
[ Dismantle the selected robot ]

Item screen: The cyan capsules are health, and the yellow are energy. Moving and shooting might cost energy. Your energy will recharge on its own (depending on part stats and level), but sometimes when things get intense, you risk running low (and freeze in the middle of a battle).

The hexagonal items are gates which allow you to return to the city or leave a dungeon. The green items are some kind of ingredients I think. Robot parts are also stored here in the lower area, over the trash can.

Paint store

This is the texture editor. Turning on the UV map helps a lot when editing. The UV map is mostly placed so it makes... pixel sense. Eyes are often a separate polygon shape, perhaps to avoid slopes/jaggies.

There are several ways to paint your robot. The second option in the main menu lets you paint the robot by parts, which is pretty useful. The first option in the main menu lets you either paint the robot quickly with some default color schemes, or edit the texture. Then there are some other options which I haven't explored.

The textures are kind of palletized, so changing a color will affect the whole texture (and the light-mid-dark shading of that color as well).

The texture editor screen had a lot of buttons. At the top is some kind of load, save, export, import buttons which I have never clicked. There are also undo and redo buttons, and copy-paste buttons. The drawing icons (right side) should be self-explanatory.

The dropdown list is important because it's where you select which part to edit. I haven't seen any weapons in that list though, I edit their color elsewhere. It will cost you 5000 credits to edit after your 7 noob days are over.

Laboratory

I don't know what is done here. I'd guess crafting/'cooking'. The enemies drop what appears to be robot part ingredients sometimes. The color of the ingredients often relate to what planet you're on. If there's a little clock in the corner of an item (like on the dogu-head-handbags), it means it will time out (disappear) at some point.

Dungeons and portals

This is the dungeon entry just outside the main city. The party menu can be seen to the left. Remember to pack some stuff to keep you safe.

Each planet has a zone (or several?) with a dungeon that you can enter. In the dungeons you have to collect gems (keys) to unlock doors. Stand in front of a locked door and doubleclick the gem of the correct color to use. In the first dungeon, you might have to wait for enemies to respawn if a certain (red) gem drop is rare.

At the end of the dungeon is a big boss. You get to choose one out of three treasure chests. Often, you get some health packs, and some robot part. The first planet has a very easy dungeon which you can take on with a few friends at level 5 or so. Be sure to step into the gate gizmo all at once (then action-click to activate). I think the dungeon segments are instantiated, so if you enter alone you play alone.

Using a cheap HP regen pill inside dungeons seems like a good idea, because you'll do a lot of fighting and walking, and it's nice to not have to worry too much about the health bar. There are pills for energy too. I sometimes use an expensive HP pill on the boss. The boss will drop more rare stuff. Dying in a dungeon will nullify any drops or XP gains that you've accumulated there.

Be sure to bring an escape dungeon portal in case the dungeon is too hard for you. Escape portals look like a stargate with a blue swirl in it. It will bring you back to the closest Garage. There's also a purple portal, but it does not work in the boss dungeons. The various colored portals will take you to different planets (you can sort of tell where the lead by their color), so you won't always have to go by shuttle.

On top of these, the item store on each planet sells portals marked with difficulty levels. These will bring you to entirely separate map regions with pretty good XP (30-70 per enemy, Easy difficulty) but few drops. I'm unsure what to do there though. Green -> cave, Light brown -> forest with squirrels. A purple portal will bring you back. Easy difficulty is still rather difficult for me, and I have a L20 thing which some high level guys gave me parts for.

Level and Class

Max level is 50, but many people seem to stop at 30 because of some limitation. More powerful robots are more difficult to level up. It might be possible to join a party (group) with a weak robot, get shared EXP and level up faster, then replace all parts of the robot with powerful ones. However, consider that after 7 days (rookie badge expires), changing parts would lower the EXP. Changing all of the parts would level the robot down a lot. Also, it seems that swapping to a more powerful part lowers your EXP much more than swapping to a weaker part.

Next to your name is a smiley face, but some people have flags there. You need to have a flag of a certain level to buy some stuff. To get a better flag, you need to "class up". To do this, complete all of the missions in the Mission Centers on the various planets.

Mission Center

The Mission Center is clearly marked on the world map. Each planet has a Mission Center, with missions more difficult than the last. Some missions can only be played alone. Some mission have special objectives, such as escort / save an NPC, kill all of the enemies with a triangle on the minimap HUD, kill a boss, find some teleporting pods. Other missions can be coop'ed with friends (who will be able to see you in the mission list once you're inside the little mission prep-room). You may have noticed that your robots has a point value. There might be a point limit for some missions, preventing you from using your best robot. Be sure to toss your won items into the garage after the missions so you're not full.

Part ranks, and how to build a good robot

There's an icon which looks like a floppy diskette (F8). Use the dropdown list to get this detailed view of your robot. I've edited the texture a bit here...

The lowest part rank might be C-1, but apparently this doesn't necessarily mean that the part sucks. I've found that it's very difficult to compare part performance. R parts can't be traded, afaik.

All of the robots that are available early to beginners are pretty poor in performance. Larger robots have more HP and can carry larger weapons, but it appears that high level players have found away around this. It's common to see tiny robots toting enormous weapons. I think as you level up, the performance of the parts will increase (according to the level table you can see when hovering over a part). I've found that some weapons do more damage depending on how the robot is built, but hand held weapons seem to have static damage. Close combat weapons doesn't seem very useful early on.

The machineguns (there are several) are pretty decent. Perhaps your flag, robot level and the various part ranks determine which of the hand held weapons that you can equip. You may have to experiment a bit. Note that You can change hand held weapons without any XP penalty, unlike when changing parts.

Body (BD) parts can be stacked to increase health, but also weight. Weak legs and a poor jetpack on a heavy body is not a good combination. Doing missions in the Mission Center will give you a bunch of new parts, some junk, some good.

Department store

There's a little basket in the upper-right interface. This is yet another store, but it works differently. First, there's a capsule game of some sort. It works like those capsule machines for kids, where you put in some coins and get a random item, probably not the one that you wanted.

The second option appears to be a regular store of some sort. Perhaps in here an item which sizes up your inventory (pages 3-5) can be found.

Navigating the map

You'll see two map icons bottom right (F9-F10). The best way to find your way across the world is to simply check in which direction a zone node lies on the world map, then find an 'in' icon in that direction on the mini map, because they're always placed in a direction which makes sense.

You might need to find a tree or elevated shelf to jump (fly) from to reach some places (since your maximum flight altitude is limited early on). The fastest way to travel is to dash or fly dash. If you want, you can make a special fast traveling robot that you use just to get around. Remember that after having switched to a new robot, you can not switch again for a while. The fastest way to get around is using gates. Sometimes other players will throw down gates, an during some events (around holidays), special gates might appear. Walk into these on your own peril. I was once teleported to this really high level area where I promptly died.

The star port will take you to different planets (high level players will have teleportation gizmos though). The 300 credit ticket will take you to the brown planet. You can buy tickets with friends and travel in the same ship.

Places to grind

Grinding on the pig men legions just East of the city under the main city. To the left the create party menu can be seen. It's important to stock up on health packs.

Halloween event. A few groups consisting of two ghosts, some bats and a pumpkin reaper will spawn. I think my strongest character is around L18, and it can't kill both (?) groups within the time limit.

A good way to grind early on is to join a party in the 'lost forest'. It's called that because it's not marked on the map. You'll have to ask someone to guide you there the first few times, because it's hard to find. It's down left (South-West).

I think the only place someone BM'ed me was in the lost forest. People there care more about "kill steals" since the XP is pretty good (30-ish for the trees?). On the other hand sometimes people will put you in a temporary party and you'll share XP, which is great if you have a low level character.

An easier place to find on your own is South-East, just outside the city there there are some pig men which spawn in groups.

Sometimes there's a special event happening in a zone. You'll see a warning message and some pretty strong enemies might appear and proceed with killing you. If alone, I think you need to be about level 20 or so, with good parts/weapons to take on these event enemies on safely.

Often you can just run away, and some high level players will soon appear to take care of the bad guys, unless the server/planet is not very busy. I think high level players can detect and teleport to event areas because it usually gets crowded real quick.

Enemies during events drop rare stuff and give a bunch of XP.

That chat icon bottom left

If you see a little message flashing there it's probably someone who wants to friend you or have you in their party (PT). You can also make friends request and parties. There's a dropdown list with a number of options:

Other notable interface buttons:

Each name will have an x, o or (o) in front of it. This indicates that a player is offline, online, online and in same zone. Name in green... moderator/creator?

There's probably a button for setting 'message in yellow that hovers over your head'.

So how are people in the game?

I haven't been very chatty, but the people who can speak English seem to be quite friendly. I would wager that xenophobes inherently don't know any English. The same might be true for the kids who often act like jerks online. Since I can't read Hiragana, this situation really works out for the best!

I've befriended a couple of people, one of which was my age. They were indeed quite friendly, and gave me a bunch of stuff and helped me to understand the interface. You might not make any friends in the main city, it's just too busy.

PvP and such

There are some zones in the game where the rules are different. The main city has a 4 team just-for-fun battle arena adjacent to it. Then there's another zone North-East which I dare not enter. there's also a special server/channel just for PvP. Outside of PvP, the only methods of griefing is bumping each other around, and higher level players might kill whatever the noobs want to grind on. EXP and drops from kills are divided up according to the amount of damage inflicted though, so you can't steal kills.

Time limit check

That square 8 before the 3 means 'days', I think.

This is some kind of reminder / counter for temporary effects / items. The Rookie Badge appears to be temporary (7 days) because it has a little clock on it. (Put in in one of the two slots on the robot edit screen.) There are also items looking like pills which I'm guessing gives temporary boosts (probably measured in minutes though). (Put into inventory and doubleclick to activate.) Then there are crystals which might give you EXP/Drop bonus for 30 mins, maybe up to 4 hrs.

The first week that you play a lot of services in the game are free, like painting, robot assembly, and you will not lose EXP when changing robot parts. Later, changing parts (other than held weapons) might lower your EXP by quite a bit.

There might also be some kind (monthly?) of limit on buying Mt (green currency). You can buy Mt in the item store, gold coin on gold background, green arrow. The translation is all weird (see key up left on the item store screen). The more you buy, the more expensive it gets.

Some inventory tabs might be disabled (after the rookie badge has passed) until you 'buy something' which enables them.

Logging out

To log out of the game you should use the door icon upper left. The first option will send you to the server (channel) screen, allowing you to change server. The second will exit the game. The third is cancel. Servers might be down on Tuesdays (jp time).

Concept art and fan-art by Arne Niklas Jansson. No infringement intended.