The third installment of the MARDEK RPG series of games, which is also the current one, is absolutely massive. I had to stop playing because it was suddenly 3 AM, and I have class tomorrow. MARDEK RPG: Chapter 3 on Kongregate, has to be the single largest flash-based RPG I have ever played... ever.

If you haven't taken a look at them, you can find reviews here for MARDEK RPG: Chapter 1, and MARDEK RPG: Chapter 2 on this site. It isn't required that you play through either chapter, but rest assured you will be missing out on valuable levels, equipment, and plot detail. These games, eventually there are supposed to be 8 chapters, have save game files that carry over from one to another. So as long as you manage to finish the chapter before it, your saved file will carry over.

Well for the first chapter, this wasn't bad. After 30 minutes you were done... the second chapter was significantly longer at close to 3 hours of game play available... And to give you an idea, I am nearly 5 hours into the 3rd chapter (the game play clock carries from one chapter to another), and I have only completed the first main story arc. Conveniently, the author has made a number of changes in game play to the third chapter, some good, and some bad.. still has no real music.

*Note, if you are unfamiliar with the majority of the game, I suggest you read over chapter 1 review, it will give you a brief understanding of the game.

The first thing that has been noticeably changed is the difficulty level. Boss fights have become harder, average monsters deal more damage, and maps are a lot larger. To stress that point, some maps have become so difficult to navigate they actually have a fog over them where you can only see immediately around you, and your overview map is useless. These few changes alone take this game out of casual gaming space, and thrust it into the hardcore flash game realm. This game is going to take an eternity to beat, I am sure I will log close to 50 hours of game play by the time the series is over... but mark my words I will play through it all.

Your party is also becoming more and more diversified. If you get all of the possible members to chose from you end up with a very respectable selection size. As far as party composition, I would recommend having at least an off healer besides Mardek, this will let him dish out some physical damage when he needs to. Aside from that, just tailoring the specific party to each zone is the key to winning. Since party members can be swapped out at save point crystals this is something you should never neglect just because of laziness. Having the right party composition will make or break your boss fights.

Another feature that is now more and more prominent is the reaction's portion of the game. If you are unfamiliar totally with this, check out the picture in this article referencing the character and skills screen. Reaction's are something that are used during combat, they can be passive offensive and defensive, and either magical or physical. When that little bar starts moving across the bottom of the screen, and hits the filled in portion press [X]. This will trigger the Reaction, and whatever it's specified effect is. Some reactions will increase damage output, some critical hit chance, and others have nothing to do with combat at all. Balancing which Reations to use is also an important feature, and since you are getting more and more available reactions, some will start taking priority.

Another change is the wide variety of environments. There are sand tunnels, dark temples, winding desert paths, even a port that requires you to answer a series of questions, prior to boarding the ship, designed to add some comic relief to the game. I have absolute faith that as the saga of Mardek progress' even farther, more and more detailed and content rich features will be added to this game.

Now there is a full walkthrough written, I assume it was done by the author himself because it can be slightly vague at times, but still good enough to help you out. Also, there is A LOT of bonus content in this game. I would say that nearly half of the overall game play is from bonus questing alone. That being said, you are not required to complete these quests, but they do award you achievements on Kongregate, as well as better gear in the game usually. This means that future chapters will be easier.

My only qualm was not knowing how much I would wish I would have kept different types of items. This game has a massive inventory system, and dozens of spots for save files. I would suggest making use of these features, or at least the inventory space. Never sell any weapon or piece of armor that has any future potential, I guarantee you will regret it... I know I did.

I am avoiding most of the plot for a good reason. This game is driven by plot, I mean the actual game play is fun, but nothing is more desirable than finishing a quest only to have something horrible happen, or a new piece of information come to light. This is how I can tell that this series will absolutely go down in flash game history. To date I have never played a game as large or as rich in content on the flash system. Nor have I played one that carries over so much information from one chapter to the next. It honestly feels like one flash game spread out over different chapters... exactly how it should feel. The author pulls off everything he is trying to do with a wonderful degree of seeming perfectionism.

Overall I have to say, I can't wait to get home tomorrow night and see how this story arc ends. I also can't wait to start the next installment of MARDEK RPG. I would recommend everyone spend the time to play through this game start to finish. However, if you are only into casual flash games, this title will not be for you. It will not be over quickly at all.

Rating:

Longevity: 5.0/5
Interface: 4.5/5
Addictiveness: 4.0/5
Sound: 3.5/5
Simplicity: 3.5/5

Overall: 4.1/5

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The second chapter in an epic story of bravery and courage, MARDEK RPG: Chapter 2 builds takes off where MARDEK RPG: Chapter 1 ends... and it continues in the same good manor. Found on Kongregate, it incorporates exactly what you'd expect from a game of this nature, magic, levels, and plot development.

This will focus more on the second chapter itself, and the new features it brings... or at least the ones it expands on, for a review of the original game see the review of chapter 1 found here.

So, this second installment doesn't make any changes to the game engine at all, a brilliant move seeing as the first one was great as it was. This game is now plot rich, the previous game took a mere 30 minutes to beat, where as I am 2 hours deep and still am unsure how developed the game will get. That means this review is not based on the entire game, so I can't speak of somethings... the only thing I can say is that Mardek and his friends have their work cut out for them. As far as difficulty, it would seem the number of random encounters has gone up from the first, and the complexity of enemies has also increased.

Shops are found in the main town, and I am sure by now you have got lots of gold from your travels. Before buying lots of one item, make sure your characters can equip them as some items cannot be used by everyone. Also I would be apprehensive about selling off potions, you might not need them early on but speaking from experience, once you reach the caves... you really do need them.

Another expansion is that now inventory management is much more clear, and equipment does play a part. Your party begins to get expanded beyond the two friends that started off, and sometimes party members change regularly. You get a mage added to your party, who does no damage physically, but has devastating spells. In fact when you first get her your physical damage seems almost non-existent compared to her damage output. This changes however once you start to get some better gear for the main character and his best friend.

Save points work in a similar fashion, but now you will be glad for the healing properties they offer. Not only that, they also rejuvenate magic points, the currency for casting spells, and since potions for these are much more rare I'd save whenever possible.

When you pick up items keep an eye on which party member is selected, they do not share a common inventory. Even tho you might think when on the menu screen that the inventory you see is the only one... you are wrong. Each party member has their own inventory, which means that you will never run out of room, and everyone can carry a pheonixdown[used to resurrect dead members]. Stacks of items are split very easily, and items are swapped in a similarly simplistic manor.

Now, as far as plot goes you wake up a few years down the road, with Mardek and his friend joining the ranks of soldiers in an effort to fight evil, gain experience and become heroes. They are tasked with a simple quest to start, find and fight off some bandits, and some fellow recruits go with them. However things take a terrible toll when one of the recruits dies in a horrible accident. Everyone agrees to cover it up, and sure enough you are inducted into soldier hood. The next morning your quests take you to the far east of the global map, to a city plagued by more monsters. On the way is a side quest in a lake, worth the experience, and then off to the city.

Honestly, I don't want to give away the entire game, but it's a good play, and will take a reasonable amount of time to beat. I would not recommend this as a short and quick flash game, but rather something to spend the time to beat. The combat system gets more evolved in the second one as now you need to look at buffs and debuffs, as well as different creature types.

Overall, MARDEK RPG: Chapter 2 picks up nicely where the first one left off, I intend full to go now and finish this second chapter. I'd encourage everyone who played through the first to do the same, and keep your eyes and RSS readers open for the next chapter in the MARDEK saga.

Rating:

Longevity: 4.0/5
Interface: 4.0/5
Addictiveness: 4.0/5
Sound: 3.5/5
Simplicity: 3.5/5

Overall: 3.8/5


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Sometimes you just need to bust out a classic, hammer out hours and hours on an old school NES until your fingers bleed... in this case tho there is now an online equivalent! That's right, MARDEK RPG Chapter 1 on Kongregate is in the same style of an old school RPG, and I love those.

Just to start off, I want to say that this game has 3 chapters currently available on Kongregate with a total of 8 being written by the author. This review only looks at the first of those 3 chapters, but you will find the next two chapters reviewed in the next two days. Let me also say, that this chapter can easily be beat in under 30 minutes. I had to save two or three times without need, and I could have skipped a few sections and still, as you will see later, I did it in just shy of 30 minutes.

So gamers take the role of the main character Mardek,you are an adventurer capable of slaying dragons and saving the princes. In fact that's exactly how this chapter starts out. You run around a castle, and fight a dragon and kill it. You start off at like level 50 or something, and you just annihilate it. The point is tho, the game teaches you a few things about reflex's and the controls get familiar in the few fights that you do. At that point in time you are warped back to your current existence or something, and you are level 1 again. Don't worry tho, levels are gained fairly quickly, and by the time the game ends I was around level 3.

There are two different main parts to the game. The running around, and the fighting. This is pretty standard for anyone who is used to these Final Fantasy style RPG games. This one, even tho flash games have made massive inroads into graphics, still insists on using an old school sprite based engine. Have to say, I really do love the choice of the author to do this. The maps are fairly detailed, and the shops are present which remind us greatly of Final Fantasy 1. In fact I honestly think some of the emblems and logo's for shops were lifted straight out of that game. Saving is handled not at an inn, but at blue crystals littered around the world, walk up hit activate, save and heal and you are off again.

The combat system is also very Final Fantasy 1, no attack timers just pure turn based combat. At the top of the combat screen you will see the order that the turns will occur in, something I've never seen before in this style of game. It helps quite a bit with the memory work since it means you don't need to memorize the attack turns of your characters. This will prevent you from forgetting that the monster attacks BEFORE your mage heals as opposed to after. While this does simplify combat, I don't feel it reduces the enjoyment of the game, hell this isn't ACTUALLY the original... and that game was brutally difficult.

The controls are handled like you are holding an old NES controller. You have movement keys for arrows, and [Z] and [X] are you accept and cancel buttons. However, the author was smart to know that computers have mice, and so for some more complex menus you will see a little mouse icon indicating that you should us your pointing device. Simple things that this are what I am sure will promise to make this a fantastic series of games.

Now to the meat of this one. once returning to your home town, and going to sleep for the night, you witness a flying object crash land nearby. Being adventurers of course means investigating this crash, and so you do. Encounters are handled randomly, with your character pausing an icon flashing and you being taken into the fight. I feel that there could have been a slightly higher number of random encounters, but that's just my personal feelings, and doesn't detract from the game.

Upon reaching the end of the forest, you must battle a mean bully that requires a touch of healing on your part. This is where your skills come into play. You have an attack type called 'imagination', which can be thought of like a type of magic. And inside this attack type you have two abilities to start, one heals the caster and one attacks the monster with more power but less accuracy. Now for this early on in the MARDEK series, I don't think either is really required, but it never hurts to play around with things so you can use them in the future.

After dispatching the big bad bully, you must venture forth into the downed flying ship where you discover the brutal corpse of... well... something. It then injects itself into Mardek's body, sharing his physical form with him.

This is where the massive plot dialogue starts. To warn you, this game is extremely rich in dialogue, it doesn't just have alot of it, it is also well written and slightly sarcastic. You can always skip through it if you want, but I suggest reading it, these types of RPG's are good because of their stories also.

Either way you chose, once you finish that sequence, you just go back home. Navigating larger sections of the world allow you to actually move freely between different parts. What I mean is, when you step on a little blue arrow, you can move as far as you have traveled previously... sort of like a warp gate that gets you to any destination you have been to previously. So once you warp back to the village, and get to your house and goto sleep, we get A MASSIVE amount of plot details, and then the chapter concludes with giving you the option to save.

I'd save now, the reason being is you can then load your save file from one chapter of this RPG to another, which is exactly what I will be doing.

Overall, the game play in this flash game is limited to start, however the game has a fantastic engine, and the start of a great plot. I can't wait to see the rest of this saga unfold as time comes, so I hope you join me and we can play through it all.

Rating:

Longevity: 3.0/5
Interface: 4.5/5
Addictiveness: 3.5/5
Sound: 4.0/5
Simplicity: 4.0/5

Overall: 3.8/5

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