The longer you spend with a game, the more it feels like the moments that really stay with you aren’t the ones when you were playing alone, but the ones you shared with friends. If I had to name the game that’s been like that for me, it would definitely be MapleStory.

I started playing MapleStory in my second year of middle school because a friend recommended it to me. Back then, Hoyoung, Ark, and Adele were known as the “Maple Big Three,” and I ended up choosing Adele as my first character too. The Hyper Burning event was happening at just the right time, so I remember throwing myself into it pretty seriously.

But since I was a student, I couldn’t spend all my time gaming. I played a lot during school breaks, but once the semester started, my login time dropped off a lot because of studying. Even so, the reason I never fully quit was simple: my friends were still playing too.

Especially the friend who first got me into Maple—we’re still enjoying the events together every break even now. (The Burning before last, we played Wind Breaker and Hoyoung)

Whenever a new Burning event starts, we naturally end up reaching out to each other, and somewhere in the middle of talking about which character we should raise this time, I find myself logging back into Maple again. This summer, thanks to the Legend God patch, five of us including me are playing together, and even though we all have different goals, it’s been a lot more fun because there’s something really satisfying about growing together.

Right now, my main is a level 277 Kain. Back when I was a middle schooler raising my first Adele, I never imagined I’d still be playing Maple this long, but somehow I’ve made it all the way to level 277. Of course, leveling up and increasing your combat power is fun too, but when I look back on it now, the thing I remember most is the time I spent with my friends.

Every break, we all come back, enjoy the events, share how our characters are progressing, and talk about bosses, and at some point that whole routine became a memory of its own. The in-game content matters too, of course, but I think what really makes MapleStory more fun is the story you build together with your friends.

So if someone asked me to recommend a good game to play with friends, I’d say MapleStory without hesitation. To me, it’s more than just a game where you raise a character—it’s a game where you can build memories with your friends over a long time.