If I had to pick recommend or not recommend after finishing the story, I'm going to lean not recommend.

tl;dr -> Ultimately, I feel like the game and gameplay itself is fine for casual co-op play, but in creating an atmosphere to prod the player into wanting to pay for things, it causes the game to suffer. Design decisions were clearly made to make you want to avoid all of the RNG and grind for players that will be invested in those who are interested in the endgame. This formula does work for Nexon, typically... just not Maple Story 2.

I enjoyed playing the story, and also enjoyed the game giving you different guns that you can play with (even though they weren't particularly different and only the crafted ones have interesting unique passives/skills), but I feel like I'm pretty much done.

I don't care for the excessive RNG grind to unlock materials. I don't really vibe with any of the descendants that much (I'd like a tanky lady descendant or lady support) and I'm not going to either pay $50+ for ult bunny or RNG grind for her. I don't like the one-use paint system. I don't like them charging random amounts for things in the store so you have to over-pay for items and I don't like waiting for crafting. How did they take the bad part of Warframe (crafting timers), then also take the annoying part of destiny (consumable paint) and ship that? I wouldn't mind as much about the starter descendants, but 2 out of 3 of them are the most basic looking characters they could have chosen. At least they give you bunny, but let's be honest - that's probably 30% of the population.

Also, why is there no system to trial the descendants? Why would I work towards unlocking a descendant that looks cool only to try it and discover that I don't actually like it much? Why is Nexon not learning from Hoyoverse on this?

It's also a weird decision to lean completely into the sexy bunny look and then just not have that look for anyone else or any sort of outfits like that for anyone else. Are they plan on staggering that stuff out to get people back into the game as the numbers dwindle? Most of the outfits I've seen are kind of lame, which acts counter to wanting money.

It's a fun game and you can definitely play through the story without paying, but you'll definitely have a lesser experience than someone who will just pay to have items to expand your mod capacity or to buy characters. I bought the battle pass to support the game early on, but there's also not even a single outfit in there.

If you subscribe to the notion that a PvE game can be pay to win, this certainly has elements of that since you can skip large swaths of time wasting if you pay enough. If you don't, then you can ignore that sentence completely.

If I had to pick recommend or not recommend after finishing the story, I'm going to lean not recommend. tl;dr -> Ultimately, I feel like the game and gameplay itself is fine for casual co-op play, but in creating an atmosphere to prod the player into wanting to pay for things, it causes the game to suffer. Design decisions were clearly made to make you want to avoid all of the RNG and grind for players that will be invested in those who are interested in the endgame. This formula does work for Nexon, typically... just not Maple Story 2. I enjoyed playing the story, and also enjoyed the game giving you different guns that you can play with (even though they weren't particularly different and only the crafted ones have interesting unique passives/skills), but I feel like I'm pretty much done. I don't care for the excessive RNG grind to unlock materials. I don't really vibe with any of the descendants that much (I'd like a tanky lady descendant or lady support) and I'm not going to either pay $50+ for ult bunny or RNG grind for her. I don't like the one-use paint system. I don't like them charging random amounts for things in the store so you have to over-pay for items and I don't like waiting for crafting. How did they take the bad part of Warframe (crafting timers), then also take the annoying part of destiny (consumable paint) and ship that? I wouldn't mind as much about the starter descendants, but 2 out of 3 of them are the most basic looking characters they could have chosen. At least they give you bunny, but let's be honest - that's probably 30% of the population. Also, why is there no system to trial the descendants? Why would I work towards unlocking a descendant that looks cool only to try it and discover that I don't actually like it much? Why is Nexon not learning from Hoyoverse on this? It's also a weird decision to lean completely into the sexy bunny look and then just not have that look for anyone else or any sort of outfits like that for anyone else. Are they plan on staggering that stuff out to get people back into the game as the numbers dwindle? Most of the outfits I've seen are kind of lame, which acts counter to wanting money. It's a fun game and you can definitely play through the story without paying, but you'll definitely have a lesser experience than someone who will just pay to have items to expand your mod capacity or to buy characters. I bought the battle pass to support the game early on, but there's also not even a single outfit in there. If you subscribe to the notion that a PvE game can be pay to win, this certainly has elements of that since you can skip large swaths of time wasting if you pay enough. If you don't, then you can ignore that sentence completely.