Hello

For this keyword, I chose color hunting, where I pick a single color first and then look through the game for elements related to it.

Since it is summer, which makes me want to look at cooler colors, and because I have always liked sky blue and blue tones in general, I tried looking through MapleStory for related elements.

Blues Found in Items

Among consumable items, most of the ones related to EXP tend to use blue-toned colors. The 2x EXP Coupon, which is now effectively removed and can no longer be obtained outside of Mu Lung Dojo and The Seed, is a pale sky blue, while the 3x versions use somewhat deeper shades.

The exchange ticket for that 3x coupon, as well as Union's Might, the EXP coupon sold in the Union Coin Shop, are also consistently blue. The Bonus EXP Coupon follows the same pattern.

Along with that, the VIP buff items currently sold in the Meso Shop also make the EXP coupon blue, which gives the whole set a sense of consistency.

These are not consumables, but the EXP-related items EXP Boost Ring and Spirit Pendant also use very similar colors.

Of course, there are exceptions like Blood Oath Ring and Azmoth's Elixir, so it is not as if every EXP-related item shares one unified color scheme, but after looking around a bit, I did get the sense that things may have been arranged this way to avoid confusion as much as possible.

In that sense, the fact that the MVP Super Power Buff, which is not an EXP coupon, was changed to pink also seems to fit the same approach.

Blues Found in Monsters

To start with, Dorothy, the boss of The Seed, wears blue clothing based on the outfit of Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz, who serves as her motif. The interesting part is that in GMS, the color of that outfit was changed instead.

Like the VIP buff, it was changed to red. There are guesses that this was done to avoid possible copyright issues, but as far as I know, no exact reason has ever been officially given. Because of that, the outfit purchasable with points also ended up with completely different colors.

Beyond that, blue is also closely associated with cold, so it often ends up being used as a main color for various monsters, and the ones that stand out to me personally are the following.

The Frozen Terror, Frozen Rage, Frozen Solitude, Frozen Anxiety, and Frozen Void that appear in Kritias's Forest of Tragedy in the Making may look fairly simple at first glance, but they suit the surrounding background so well that the cold atmosphere comes through clearly.

Ascension and Foreberion in Limen look cute, but as the World Archive also mentions, the fact that they are monsters with an unknown identity gives them a strangely cold impression in itself.

Lastly, G. Phantom Watch is especially memorable to me. From the Monster Book to the World Archive, it is described as having committed a grave crime in the past, and that detail combines with its harsh appearance in a way that makes it easy to picture. In particular, the King of Ludibrium is not really portrayed in other quests as someone who is serious about everything, so seeing how he responded here makes me think it must have been something fairly brutal.

Blues Found in Locations

First is the classic building design of Lith Harbor. It is said to have taken Santorini as a motif, which explains the similar blue atmosphere, and as the place where a proper adventure first begins, I think it creates a very fitting mood.

Angler Company, one of the Epic Dungeons, fits its concept as a structure located in the deep sea very well, and starting from the entry UI, it does an excellent job of conveying that cool blue underwater feeling.

The Seed also has a very good atmosphere because you can see the Aquarium seascape from the rest areas, though one slightly disappointing point is that the background does not change even when you go farther underground. If it had reflected that descent into deeper waters, I think it would have been even better if the rest areas below a certain floor had shown a darker sea along with deep-sea monsters like Bone Fish and Cold Shark.

Next is Papulatus's boss battle map. The boss itself may not mean much now, but the concept of a monster dealing with time from another dimension, together with the cool-looking background built around that idea, still feels quite appealing.

This is Mirror Cave, located at the very end of Rien. You cannot actually go inside, but getting this far is easy enough with the Teleport World Map. If I were picking maps that look especially cool and refreshing, I think this would rank near the top.

Lastly, Snow-Covered Whale Island in Aquarium is somewhere I sometimes go just to idle because the atmosphere is simply that good. I have no real basis for saying this, but the air there looks unusually clear. It already makes me miss winter air.

Thank you for reading.