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Let's Play MARDEK RPG!
Update 1 - Chapter One: A Fallen Star
Welcome to my contribution to to Mega64's Let's Play Flash Games thread.
Mardek RPG-- oh, apologies, MARDEK RPG - could probably be argued for best flash RPG in existence, although that's comparatively not the greatest honour. Assuming he didn't just not credit people, it was made entirely by a single guy by the username Pseudolonewolf (which coincidentally implies that he actually did just not credit people), including music, which is actually really good at times.
It's massive. It spans multiple .swf files (three chapters (so far)), allowing you to carry your save between games, and each chapter has gotten exponentially larger. Chapters One and Two were released in 2007, and re-released with a new engine in 2010 to be save compatible with Chapter Three, with minor changes relating to the remade engine. Chapter One exists only to lead into Two, and while Chapter Two is reasonably lengthy (about eight to nine hours, including farming), Chapter Three is massive enough to have been a legitimate release (40+ hours according to the description).
There's a lot of good things to say about the series. The dialogue is not one of them. While main and side characters tend to be written well, NPCs often exhibit that certain kind of humour. Well, you'll see, anyway.
This title screen gets reused for both other chapters, but it looks nice so I guess that works. The Music Player is just what you'd expect. It also has a link to Lonewolf's Bandcamp page where you can buy or listen to his games' music, which is what I'll link to if there's a particularly notable song. Speaking of, here's the Main Theme for the series, which gets remixed a fair bit throughout, and plays in the games' main menus.
It asks for a name, which is only used for naming save files.
And we start out with one of the few actual cutscenes in the whole series.
Those that do, never return... For a mighty beast...
The dragon is fond of stealing maidens from their homes, and has taken a beautiful Princess from one of Belfan's greatest Kingdoms!
The Damsel in Distress desperately calls out for help!
And now our main characters Mardek and Deugan.
What does 'tally-ho' mean?
Uhm... I'm not sure! But I've heard adventurers say it before maybe! It sounds like something they'd say!
Tally-ho!
Tally-ho! We're adventurers! En guard! Forsooth! Bloody goblins!
Tally-ho!
Now lets go and save the Princess! Tally-ho!
Oh, but Mardek, just a reminder about things! We can open the menu with the ENTER key to check our stats, skills, and items! And we can also open doors and talk to people and stuff with the X key! Remember these things! It might be a good idea to read the Help section of the menu now if you didn't read the Instructions already!
...Huh?
Uh, I mean... Tally-ho! Let's go and slay that dragon!
It's good to start out with breaking the fourth wall. Don't worry, more where that comes from. Let's look at that menu.
Ah, level 50, good start. We'll skip skills for now and look at inventory.
Pretty good items there. Do I even need to go on with the charade? It's a dream sequence.
The map will become basically mandatory late in Chapter Two but is generally just really helpful in dungeons.
The other tabs aren't so useful. I might use Quests in Chapter Three (maybe); Plot Items you never need to look at; Status is things like steps take, monsters killed, chests opened; Encyclopedia we'll look at later since it has some interesting flavour text and hidden information; Options is obvious; and Help is help. Help does explain some things that aren't mentioned anywhere else in the game, such that I wonder how many people know that you can actually skip random battles.
Anyway lets leave.
Oh, alright.
You probably guessed that this was a save point. It's also where you'll switch party members and can act as a bank to store your items.
(Apparently I have to mention this or else you'll probably not figure out that reaction commands exist at all.)
...Huh?
Let's just continue on our way, Mardek! Tally-ho!
There's that fourth wall again. Reactions are one of those very interesting mechanics that MARDEK RPG has. You have four types: physical attack, physical defense, magical attack, and magical defense. Each occur when you'd expect them to. You only get the react bonus if you don't fuck up the react, but failing the react doesn't make you weaker. Failing is just the same as if you had no react equipped in the first place. I'll talk more about them when we get back to the Skills tab in the menu.
Speaking of RPG mechanics, random battles! When you get into a random battle, you either get a blue exclamation bubble or a red one. The blue one occurs when the monsters are trivially weak compared to each individual member of your party, and you can press the Z key to skip it. Naturally you can't skip red exclamation battles.
Here's the only monster you fight in this area. I swear I've seen this same thing outside of MARDEK but maybe it's just memory playing tricks.
And here are what reacts look like. You press X when the marker passes over the lighter area.
Naturally these enemies are not hard.
And oh boy, a save point in front of a door, I do wonder...
Oh no a The Dragon!!!
We will slay you mighty The Dragon! For we are great and Mighty Heroes, even mightier than you! Tally-ho forsooth!
We'll kick your arse dragon!
Do dragons have arses?
I bet they do!
If they do, then we'll kick it like it's never been kicked before!
Yeh! With our big swords!
So bring it on, dragon!
This fight is unremarkable. The Dragon literally can't damage you as long as you succeed the defense react, and still you have the Regen status effect so even that probably doesn't matter. Mardek also has a Power that deals 9999 damage so the fight is over in 3-4 turns.
Well it was really all my fault.
All your *fault*? Do you mean all your *doing* or something? Because that's not fair! We beat the dragon together...
Well I still get the princess.
You can have her! She's a *giiiirl*! Girls are headlice, I heard! They suck on your wallet and drain out all your money, that's what my dad says!
Wow, Deugan's dad. Considering that you're still married to Deugan's mom, even.
Really?!
Yeh, really! My dad told me so it must be true!
Now that we've beatened the dragon though, now what do we do?
It was make-pretend all along! What a twist! So here is Mardek and Deugan for real. They're just kids. But before we go home, lets check out our sick clubhouse.
Loot! 
We'll give these potions to Mardek.
The inventory is awkward and obtrusive. Each character has their own separate inventory and can only use the battle items from their own - which in itself is perfectly decent - but because the inventory screen is mouse driven with additional input from the Arrow keys (no WASD support), you have to shift both hands to use it (unless you use a left-handed mouse but why would you even do that). Use items will stack, but you either take the whole stack or one at a time by holding the S key (!) and when dropping the held stack onto a pre-existing stack you only drop one at a time. That's not even all the problems but we'll come back to that.
Anyway, let's look at that bookshelf.
Awww.
Let's get out of here. The blue arrow indicates a scene transition.
And here's our map screen. We're going to that other dot.
First thing through the gate we have this weird scary church.
The interior is no better.
Gallovar can heal us but there's no reason, since the save crystals just do the same. I believe in the original versions there weren't save crystals so there was a point to this, but what do I remember. So who's this YALORT then?
Surely you jest, children? EVERYONE knows that YALORT is the One True Deity and our eternal benefactor! He is the Eternal Dragon who created the world, and grants priests such as myself magical power! You should know this, children!
Well, I was just being silly...
Yes, I thought as much. But no worry! A sense of humour is a good thing!
YALORT is basically god, though we don't really get to learn anything about the religion yet. I'm not really sure if YALORT is some sort of nod to the developer Lonewolf. Lonewolf's profile pic is indeed a dragon but it's coloured blue and white, not black and green. At least he's not literally referring to himself as god of this universe like what tends to happen in lesser Flash RPGs, at any rate.
That's quite a statue.
Back outside, all the doors are locked.
Screw you, George, I want to go play in the sewers!
You... do remember where you live, right? In those little houses in the south-west part of town...?
No, I, uh... I don't know why I thought you might've forgotten! But it's useful to know anyway, innit?
To the top left of town we have the barracks.
Pfft. This place has been here for years though, and in all my time here it's only been 'attacked' once, and that was by a drunken gruul that passed out after knocking on the door once anyway!
Deugan leaves and now we're alone. If we wanted we could still run around by ourselves and continue to do the exact same amount of nothing, but instead we'll just go home.
We're roleplaying as bright-eyed, clueless Mardek.
You did? That sounds... unconventional. I mean, nice. Yes, that sounds nice, dear. I'm glad you had fun.
Sigh... You're growing up to be just like your father... Only he slew dragons and never really saved any princesses... Except me... He used to call me his 'Queen', you know? I do wonder where he is now though...
We're getting into some shit now.
I hope you're right, dear... It's been so long... But I am sure he'll be back eventually; I can *sense* it! Can you sense it too, dear?
Well, I can sort of feel... that he's not dead? Like he's looking over me but he's not dead?
Yes, that's what I feel too... It must be the spiritual link that we all share, as a family. Because those exist!
Probably.
He was, as I've told you many a time before now, an adventurer of great skill and renown, revered throughout the lands. Oh, I fancied him so much before I even met him! He was Light, so he thought about others much more than himself. All he did was for people he usually didn't even know from Adam...
(I don't know what this means. Who's Adam?)
He was kind, honest... And yet... Mysterious. Did you know that he never told me about his past?
Well, you have told me like a million times, mum.
Well I'll tell you again! He never did tell me about his mystery-shrouded past... But though I never knew about it, I never for one moment felt suspicious about him, like he might've been something bad once. He seemed to radiate this... this *feeling* that he was always a good man, and that he had his reasons for hiding things like he did.
Sigh... I miss him so much...
Well, I do too mum... I wish he'd get back soon.
Don't worry, dear. He'll come back one day. One day...
Sweet dreams, dear. Sleep tight! Don't let the bedbugs randomly battle you during the night!
What a joke! So Mardek's dad is M.I.A. and apparently mom is super depressed about it.
And at the end of the day we go to bed. Nothing in this entire update has mattered even slightly. If you just skipped this update all together and started from Update 2 you would be no worse off in any respect. But anyway. Next time! NPCs! Jokes?? Plot! And the rest of MARDEK RPG: Chapter One!