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An automated fairy tale adventure | Full Review - Madtale: Idle RPG

2K View2023-07-13

Madtale: Idle RPG

7.8

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Madtale is a mobile idle RPG game that puts players in a dark fairy tale world filled with captivating stories and charming characters — heroes and villains, both familiar or not.

🟩Pros

+A captivating fairy tale storyline

+Great Art Style

+Wonderful voice acting and a fitting soundtrack

+Battles are visually pleasing

+Plethora of game modes to unlock and play

🟥Cons

-The combat is too automated, making battles feel pre-determined with almost zero player input needed

-Ironically, other non-combat aspects are lacking much needed automation

-Performance issues given the 2D visuals

With its unique art style, engaging narratives, and various gameplay features, Madtale aims to offer an enjoyable gaming experience for players on iOS and Android devices with its recent release last July 12.

Madtale features a delightful and cute cartoonish art style that adds a whimsical charm to the game. The vibrant visuals bring the fairy tale world to life with enchanting character designs and imaginative environments that feels like it came out from a children’s illustration book. The intricate animations and vibrant visuals further enhance the overall visual appeal, however I did find some performance issues surprising given the 2D visuals, having experienced some consistent lags during character abilities.

The game also offers wonderful voiceovers for its characters, giving them distinct personalities and adding depth to their dialogues. The dialogues are fully voice acting with impressive performances, and it feels like I’m listening to a real fairy tale dialogue. The background music complements the gameplay, setting the mood and immersing players in the enchanting atmosphere.

Madtale features a captivating plot. With the main protagonist being Little Red Riding Hood, players embark on a journey through a world filled with fairy tale characters like Snow White with intertwined narratives. The game draws players into the intriguing plot and entices them to uncover more about the mysteries of the fairy tale world.

Madtale offers an overworld adventure mode in the story that allows players to roam around the children’s book looking world and encounter various opponents in a chapter-ized manner. The seamless transition to battles without loading screens is a nice feature, enhancing the immersion and overall flow of the gameplay.

The combat system of Madtale predominantly employs idle gameplay, requiring minimal brain power from the player. When the performance is good, the battles are visually satisfying, thanks to the powerful abilities and flashy special effects. Nevertheless, the lack of control over the characters during battles is a significant drawback, and the heavy focus on idle gameplay becomes its own detriment.

Battles in Madtale unfold completely in auto mode, leaving players with minimal agency without any option to take control at any point in the combat. The game heavily relies on team power and the “camp” system to resolve battles, diminishing the strategic depth and making battles feel predetermined.

Despite being a bit contradictory, this aspect might disappoint players seeking a more engaging idle combat experience. This is further exacerbated by the fact that in some of the additional game modes and within the main story itself, you still need to manually control the character in order to progress through the chapters and levels. In short, the combat becomes too automated, while other aspects are lacking much needed automation.

However, the inclusion of upgradable heroes called Partners that are mostly acquired via a gacha system, with unique skills and equippable weapons adds some level of strategy and encourages players to strategize and utilize these powerful skills effectively. Battles can also be sped up and skipped, but faster speed settings are rather part of the progression instead of a full-on feature, which can be unlocked as you progress through the story.

Madtale incorporates the aforementioned camp system that employs a familiar rock-paper-scissors counter dynamic. Just like in other games with similar “elemental” mechanics, certain camps will have advantages over others, creating a mechanic where players must also consider their camp choices when building their teams and engaging in battles, aside from pure power rating.

Additionally, the game provides various additional features to engage players. Building up guilds to defeat bosses adds a cooperative element to the gameplay, allowing players to collaborate with others and unlock additional rewards. The Memorial Palace offers plot stories to unlock, adding depth and context to the game's lore. The Arena provides an opportunity for 1v1 combat against real players, giving players some competitive action.

Madtale also introduces roguelike adventures such as the Giant’s Garden, Polluted Prison and Underground Ruins, where players can explore randomized floors, defeat bosses, choose random modifiers, and earn rewards. The element of randomness adds excitement and unpredictability to the gameplay, keeping players on their toes and giving them endless replayable content aside from the main story. Overall, the game offers a range of live service features beyond the main storyline and Idle gameplay, such as gacha collecting, login bonuses, events, and in-app purchases.

Being a gacha game, Madtale also feels like a low-key waifu collector that features a diverse range of female fairy tale characters, including both familiar and fresh faces. While there is indeed a waifu-ish approach in this game, it's important to note that not every character in the game is female.

Conclusion:

Madtale presents itself as a charming mobile RPG with captivating visuals, engaging narratives, and delightful voiceovers. The game successfully immerses players in a fairy tale world and offers a decent experience through its charming art style, intriguing fairy tale story, and bonus game modes. However, I feel that the combat has become too automated for my liking, without any option to take control. With improvements to the combat system and more quality of life additions, Madtale has the potential to deliver a more engaging and immersive gameplay experience in time, although that’s not to say that game is not worth trying right now.

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Madtale: Idle RPG

7.8

CartoonStrategyRPGIdleCard

Get

Fairy tales and Idle RPG combined | First Impressions - Madtale: Idle RPG

With its unique art style, engaging narratives, and various gameplay features, Madtale aims to offer an enjoyable idle RPG gaming experience for players on iOS and Android devices with its recent release last July 12. Madtale features a captivating plot. With the main protagonist being Little Red Riding Hood, players embark on a journey through a world filled with fairy tale characters like Snow White with intertwined narratives. The game draws players into the intriguing plot and entices them to uncover more about the mysteries of the fairy tale world.

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MadTale : Gameplay Review | FairyTale Type Idle RPG!

MadTale is a idle RPG adventure mobile game with great story content. It reminded me of all those fairy tale stories as there are many fairy tale characters in the game like little red riding hood and snow whites. The character artworks are pretty awesome with great voice dubbings. I would say that this idle RPG game is very worth playing with amazing graphics and good gameplay mechanics. Most of all, there is very high gacha rate for high rarity units in this game.

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