Madtale: Idle RPG charms you with Fairytale setting, graphics and all the known characters from your childhood. But is it actually good?
In this article we will talk about both good and bad sides of Madtale: Idle RPG so you can decide if this is the right game for you.
PROS
1. Interesting Setting
In Madtale: Idle RPG you will summon and create a team of fairytale characters like Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Although they look a bit different from the ones you are used to. Red Riding Hook is actually riding a wolf, I guess they became friends and other heroes resembles their original counterparts, but in a new and interesting way.
2. Fantastic Story
Storytelling in Madtale: Idle RPG is really well made. You will start story as Red Riding Hood looking for a grandma and realize that the fairytale kingdom is plagues with corruption. Your role will be getting rid of it, assembling other fictional characters together and fight evil. Overall there are a lot of dialogues, they are voice overed and it looks very good.
3. Good variety of heroes and their abilities
Madtale: Idle RPG features 48 unique characters. Each of them have its own style, abilities, voiceover and backstory. You can mix and match them to make a perfect team and upgrade using hero copies like all other gacha hero collector games.
4. Some unique QOL upgrades to the hero collector genre
Madtale: Idle RPG is really generous with speedup and qol mechanics. You get x2 speed early game, you can skip the fights after the second turn or on the first attack in dungeons and adventures. In Labyrinth mode you can kill enough enemies to get specific buff that have a chance to skip the fight and get rewards straight away. All those things aiming at lowering boring tasks make Madtale: Idle RPG more enjoyable.
CONS
1. Most game mechanics are same with other hero collectors
Mechanics wise Madtale: Idle RPG looks pretty similar to other gacha hero collector games. You have same 5v5 combat, factions, skills, hero progression, game modes and so on. Yes there are minor differences here and there, but it feels like you played this kind of game really fast if you played that genre before.
2. Premium currency is scarce and hard to get
There are games that are more strict on giving the players premium currency, and there are more generous games. Madtale: Idle RPG is somewhere in the middle in that concern, but probably future patches might shift this balance one way or another. At the moment its pretty hard to collect enough diamonds to do a 10-summons, and it feels like building a proper team will be pretty slow and hard.
3. Combat is pretty blunt
Unlike AFK Arena and other similar games Madtale: Idle RPG have fixed hero placement, they dont move on the battlefield and just use their row and column attack mechanics. Combat is basically turnbased and you cant effect it in any way, like using skills or something like that. That makes going through the campaign levels boring pretty fast and wishing for "Skip Fight" button right next to the "Battle" one.
Verdict. Is Madtale: Idle RPG Good?
Yes.
With all its drawbacks Madtale: Idle RPG feels like an interesting game because it brought some new things to the hero collector/gacha genre. Fairytale settings feels intriguing and story is actually fun. Character design is flashy, and some of them look really cool. Question is how mid-end game progression will be balanced and how f2p the Madtale: Idle RPG is.