Hello

The keyword for this post is trendy items, and more specifically, items that became popular in games.

Here, I looked back at the different Adele looks that stayed popular in MapleStory for about a year as several factors overlapped.

Adele, once one of the most popular characters

Adele is a Flora warrior class that was released on January 16, 2020. Along with receiving praise for the character’s design, Adele was also widely regarded for a time as a beginner-friendly class. Because of that, huge numbers of players chose Adele in the period right after release.

One reason for that popularity was the excellent range on Divide, Adele’s main 4th-job skill. At the time, hunting maps did not have personalized fields like they do now, so large numbers of Adele players would run through maps and casually jump while using Divide, which apparently left other players with a negative impression.

Some of that may have been intentional, but many beginners probably just did not know the unspoken rules of hunting maps yet. On top of that, a lot of them wore only the event items they had received instead of customizing their cosmetics separately, and that look itself briefly became a meme. The best-known example is “Chu-del,” wearing the Chu Chu Island battle outfit shown in the image, and there were also variations like the ones below.

For this post, I looked into what each of these Adele types actually was, and it was interesting to see how the outfits let you track the passage of time over roughly the first year after release.

The most iconic Chu-del

To start, one of the defining features of this Adele series before cash items entered the picture was the set of boss accessories awarded through the <Hyper Burning> event that actually showed on the character’s appearance: the face accessory, eye accessory, and earrings. In particular, the mark on the forehead was commonly referred to as a pimple.

The items in question were the well-known Condensed Power Crystal, Aquatic Letter Eye Accessory, and Dea Sidus Earrings. Since buying a transparent accessory set or other cosmetic items required at least mileage or mesos, those naturally would have fallen lower on a beginner’s priority list.

This was improved after the recent Len event, as the initial event rewards were changed to include a transparent equipment set box. Since Len’s popularity and numbers far surpassed Adele’s case, it feels like a timely improvement.

In any case, this Chu Chu Island set outfit was distributed first as apology compensation and later as a reward from the Wongstaurant event. Unlike other cosmetic items, it was a so-called battle outfit with temporary stats attached, and because it could be claimed with no extra process, I think that is why it became the representative look.

Later on, Chu-del gained broad name recognition and a certain kind of popularity. After the All-Star Choice Coupon was released, many players even recreated the look using those Adele hair and face coupons. I still have it on a mannequin myself. There is also plenty of fan art if you search for it, so it is worth a look if the topic interests you.

Black Set Adele and Chaos Root Abyss Set Adele

These were Adele versions for players who could not even be bothered to equip cosmetic items, specifically the versions wearing the Black Set and the Root Abyss Set given out as Burning rewards.

The mask worn by the Black Set Adele in the image above is a clear reward from the theme dungeon Riena Strait. Since Tera Blink did not exist back then, it seems theme dungeon clears were needed for leveling.

Grand Master Outfit Adele

The Grand Master Outfit was a reward from the <Adele Launch Support> event held to celebrate Adele’s release.

It could only be claimed after reaching level 200, the final step of the step-up event, and the outfit itself turned out quite nicely.

Mouse Adele

Since 2020, the year Adele was released, was the Year of the White Rat, two events offered rat outfits as rewards: a Lunar New Year event and a Valentine’s Day event.

The NPC in charge had a pretty memorable design, but the outfit itself came out cute, so

Candy Cloud Adele

The Candy Cloud Set was an outfit tied to the <AWAKE> update.

This update took place in June 2020, and considering that Adele had launched in January of the same year, you can really tell it was still a popular

class at the time.

This outfit was later made available in the coin shop as well, but its original acquisition method was a little unusual. Before the update, coupon codes were revealed one by one, and entering them gave you one part of the outfit each time. Since there were no extra conditions attached, it seems to have ended up being distributed very widely.

Fresh Immortal Training Outfit Adele

The Fresh Immortal Training Outfit Set was also a cosmetic item that could be obtained through the <AWAKE> event.

Because this item was given out early in the event, it was apparently worn even more often by players who had missed the pre-event mentioned above, and the pandas that were effectively the stars of that update also wore this outfit.

However, between the event difficulty and the pandas’ overall image not being especially positive, it ended up as an outfit remembered mostly for its notoriety.

Rudolph Adele

Lastly, this set was a Christmas event reward tied to <NEO>, the winter seasonal update of 2020.

That means Adele was everywhere from the summer update through the winter update as well, which feels fairly remarkable looking back.

In any case, this reward could be claimed through a Christmas quiz event, and since it was not especially time-consuming, it seems to have been widely used.

Thank you for reading.