Hello!

This time, the theme is bringing things to life: exploring elements from games that we would like to see in real life. With that in mind, I asked Gemini AI to create realistic photographs of some MapleStory items that have stayed with me over the years.

Flame Box

The Flame Alphabet Box marked the beginning of events that boosted hunting rewards, and its price consistently held in the hundreds of millions.

Rare Items

First up is the I'm a Lucky Guy★ medal, which was awarded to winners of a past Hot Time event. Its unusual name has stayed with me.

Although I remembered the medal's name, I couldn't recall the details of the event, so I looked it up—and it turns out this reward dates all the way back to the 9th anniversary event.

Next is the The Seed First Challenger medal, though calling it rare isn't quite accurate, strictly speaking, since it doesn't currently exist in the game. As its description explains, it was intended as a reward for the first player to “die” to Dorothy within a set period after the Tower of Oz was first introduced, but apparently no one reached the underwater 50th floor in time, so the medal never appeared in the game.

Compared with Dorothy Challenger, which can be obtained at any time, this medal does seem to have a slightly more elaborate design.

Alicia's Radiance is another item that met an unfortunate fate: it exists in the data but never made it into the game. I thought the design would look impressive brought to life, so I asked for this one as well.

The Sandwich Muto Eats

This is the sandwich Muto eats at the end of Chu Chu Island's main questline. I asked for the bones to be removed from the meat and took the liberty of adding some ham. The blue color is a little worrying, but it looks quite appetizing.

2 Classic Throwing Stars

Throwing stars themselves may not matter as much as they once did, but I still think these are well-designed items. The way their names draw on the Korean names for the days of the week, from Monday through Sunday, made a particular impression on me.

A Little Lottery: the Suspicious Herb Pouch

Since the limit of 12 weekly bosses was introduced, I naturally come across these less often, but the Suspicious Herb Pouch is still a welcome sight whenever it turns up on a Normal Root Abyss run for Reward Points.

Among its possible contents, Juniper Berry Seed Oil, an ingredient in Wealth Acquisition Potions, is arguably the top prize. The quantity is random, ranging from 1 to 30, so getting 30 makes for a tidy reward worth even more than the Intense Power Crystal from Hard Verus Hilla.

Primal Essence

Primal Essence is a crafting material used for items such as the Dominator Pendant and Meister Ring. It used to be expensive enough to count as a valuable find, but now it costs around 100,000 mesos, putting it at roughly the same price as a Nodestone.

In the past, it could only be obtained from Heartstones and Gold Flowers that appeared in the field, or from Arkarium, but its price plummeted after an overhaul of boss reward drops made it available from other boss monsters as well. From what I found when I looked it up, it seems to have been worth around 10 million mesos as recently as 2024.

These days, the contrast between its incredibly low price and its grandiose item description is a little amusing, but going by the description and appearance alone, I still think it's quite an impressive item.

Thank you for reading.