MARDEK review

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by Mia Blais-Côté

I had discovered MARDEK around my 18th birthday. I'm 31 now. I had lots of fun with Chapters 1 and 2, even though the “immature” humor was getting on my nerves and many “plot points” were giving me many “WTF! That's bull!”. At that time, Chapter 3 was not released yet. While waiting for CH3, I moved on. I was not playing many Flash Games. However, when CH3 comes out, I had played it, hoping to have fun and rediscover MARDEK. Unfortunately, I hated chapter 3. The random encounters seemed much harder than in the previous CH. Many new characters I was not interested in. Deugan and Emela are no longer in our party - I know there is a good reason because plot! - but I hated that. I remember Elwyen was getting on my nerves a lot. The humor seems to have been x1000 amplified, so I didn’t longer care about the story. It couldn’t take it seriously anymore. I never finished Chapter 3. Since the series was never completed, MARDEK, in my mind, went to “a pretty cool RPG” to a (sorry to say this) “crappy game”. The French review on Steam also talks about Rohoph a lot. Maybe because he was one of my favorite characters back then, and what I feel like “his true colors” shown in CH3 was “too forced” and “too obvious”. Anyway, I brought the game on Steam to support his creator, also hoping to have good memories, and maybe finish Chapter 3, and… NAH. The dialogues are even more childish (for me) than they were 10+ years ago. The “immature” humor is still there. Still getting on my nerves. The characters are even more clichéd than I remember, even Deugan and Emela, who were my favorite characters back then with Rohoph! The battles. I liked them a lot 10+ years ago, but I feel they have aged very badly, and now they are meh. That’s why I can't recommend MARDEK. 10+ years ago, for a flash game designed by one person, it was pretty cool, but compared to today’s games, and with my personal experience as a gamer, I say "no". The only moment I had fun replaying the game was during Moric’s final battle (phoenix down spam for the win!!!) and I stopped my playthrough after the Sun Temple. I was too bored to continue.