If I say "there's a new game from flash game developer Undefined," what are you picturing? A new Protector game? Well... SURPRISE!! Way to fall into the trap. Get ready for Undefined's new game Arkandian Crusade the first chapter in the new Arkandian Legends series, a turn-based RPG with defense elements. Create a hero who will venture out into the world at the behest of your kind to combat the demon threat. With over sixty dungeons, hundreds of items, magical spells, quests, and much more, expect to be busy for a very long time indeed.
While there are story quests, the game lets you decide what you want to do. The bulk of the gameplay is split into two categories: adventure and defense. When you decide to go adventuring you'll be presented with a world map with possible adventure locales. Some of them are simply places where you can hone your skills, make some money and find equipment, while others are places where you can get spells or are dungeons related to completing story quests. To go to a dungeon you'll usually have to pay a fee. When you go to a dungeon, you'll control your character with the arrow keys. In the dungeon you'll find materials scattered around which can be gathered and used for crafting, along with chests containing equipment, and enemies. Combat is turn-based and you have a few options when it comes to attacking. There are three kinds of weapon attacks (heavy, normal and light) with different chance-to-hit percentages. You can also use items, defend or cast any spells you've found.
If you choose a defense mission you'll be taken to the battle field, which is a 6x6 grid. At the beginning, you'll place your character and then click the next turn button, whereupon enemies will start moving in from the right. With every new turn, you can move your character. When you end your turn your character will attack whatever's directly in front and diagonally of them. Enemies will move one square at a time and if one of them reaches the other side you fail the mission. If you've earned enough gold during the defense you can place one of your soldiers on the field.
In Arkandian Crusade, you won't level up in the traditional way. Almost everything you do exercises a stat and will increase your proficiency in it. Buying and selling trains your bargaining stat, for example, and every action in combat has its associated stat. Even when you're not adventuring there's a lot to do. You can visit and decorate your home, craft items using the materials and recipes you've gathered, or you can equip your soldiers, sell and buy items and check out your progress.
Analysis: The best part of Arkandian Crusade is that all of the elements are collected into this one game. It's like a buffet. Different kinds of gameplay all collected in one place and you can sample them as you like. The adventure quests are the meat of the game, which is good because they're a lot of fun. It's exciting to watch the dungeon unfold as you explore it and the prospect of all the new equipment that awaits will keep you moving forward. The combat is simple, but it works well. Sometimes it falters a little, like when you land a heavy attack and it does disappointingly low damage. However, that won't be too much of a problem as your character's skills increase at a pretty fast rate and your attacks won't miss as much. That's not to say the game is easy; as you get stronger, more difficult dungeons and tougher enemies will be unlocked.
The defense quests are a little weaker than adventure quests, but they're still fun. As time goes on you'll find yourself in really tense situations. There's nothing like trying to take down one enemy while another has almost made it to the edge of the screen. The crafting system is another element that starts off slow. You won't have many recipes initially and your crafting skill won't be very effective, but as you get more recipes and materials you'll have a good time creating new items.
There are other small touches that make for a great experience. Just like in Pet Protector, all the items you equip are shown on your character in battle. If you equip your hero with a pretty bow, you'll see yourself doing battle with demons while wearing that bow. The leveling system is nice too, because some stat or another is constantly increasing. You'll be getting a lot of notices that your stats have raised, which gives a nice sense of accomplishment and progression.
Arkandian Crusade is an incredible game that offers a ton of gameplay and will last a long time. Sometimes this expansiveness works against the game when it comes to smaller things, like managing items. The vast majority of the time the game is a treat. You can easily lose yourself on minor dungeons for hours and barely touch the storyline and you'll be glad because so much more content is ahead of you. It's great to see a talented developer like Undefined do something a little bit new and it's even better when it turns out this well.
Over sixty dozens?
Not a bad little time-waster, if you like some grinding. A couple mechanics seem awkward, like the gold to buy defenders in the defensive missions, and some stalling in the driver. But for the most part a fun little diversion.
I enjoyed this game for an hour or so, until I wanted to save and come back later. I saw no obvious save menu, so I clicked the "main menu" button, thinking there would be a save option there. I was greeted with the options to start a new game, or restore a game - but my save slot was empty. It would have been nice to have a warning before I erased all my progress.
Okay, seriously. How do I save?
Lol, the dungeons use RPG Maker tilesets. Come on, dude.
This is nowhere near as good as Undefined's other efforts, feels like a giant step backwards.
The game autosaves, and the first time you play it, a Flash menu pops up and asks for permission to store up to 10 MB on your system. If you denied that, you can't save. To correct that, right click the Flash file, choose Settings, click the Folder icon and then move the bar to 10 MB.
Seriously, what's the point of this kind of games? Is there anything to do in addition to see your statistics growing or equip bigger weapons? If you play Arkadian, Sonny or other similar games you won't use more than one button, combats are resolved by pressing attack endlessly and healing yourself when needed... and this goes for hours and hours.
It could make a good base for a decent RPG just adding some real strategy elements or maybe a proper storyline, but in its present form this kind of games are a total waste of time for both the creator and the player.
How do you go about hiring people in the barracks? I've found one, equipped him, trained him (I think). But I have no idea how to bring him into a battle...
I confess, once I found the Pink Bunny Slippers of Looting, I haven't changed footwear! I'd also like to know how my guy fires his bow with a great honkin' tower shield strapped to his left arm, but... While I'm not a fan of the defender quests, they are an interesting break from the dungeon quests. Being able to equip my troops (such as they are right now) with my leftover dungeon items is a nice bonus. It's not the deepest story, but it's a fun time. Glad this one came up.
Oh, I do have one quibble: the fact that you can't cast healing spells on yourself between combats while in dungeons is a bit silly. I'm learning to save potions for that purpose, but it seems odd that you can't lay hands on yourself unless you're staring death in the face.
Three recipes so far:
Minor healing potion:
1 wing, 1 amphibian foot, 1 holy water
Healing potion:
2 wings, 2 amphibian feet, 2 holy water
Tongue of Flame:
4 coal, 2 fire stones, 3 iron bars, 1 jorellium
I really like this game!
2 things so far:
1. JIGuest, how are they ordered in the grid? Thanks so much!
2. I have a trapped mind flayer soul gem thingy, but I can't tell anywhere how to use it in the barracks for a new unit. Help?
Thank you.
@Ultio: Go to your inventory and click on it to 'use' it. It won't work while you're in a dungeon.
@anyone: I didn't realize failing a recipe made it disappear. Now I don't quite remember the setup for the burning bow I wanted to make. Does anyone have it?
@ensoul
How? I can only go to storage and equip unit from barracks. Neither will let me use the gem. I have three of them now, and frankly I need the backup soon to nowish.
I wish it explained this in the library...
Thanks.
Oh. Power of posting, naturally.
Release gems *outside* the barracks.
Thanks...
@ensoul - If you find a recipe, it goes into the book. (Bottom center of the crafting screen) You click on one and it automagically places the ingredients into the matrix for you.
Ok, pet peeve here, if you're going to introduce weapons into a game, you ought to understand what they are and how they work!
It's already been noted that it would be *really* hard to use a bow with a tower shield, which is why most games make bows 2 handed weapons.
On top of that, I just picked up a "main-gauche". Interestingly, it's a "right-handed" weapon. If you know anything about weapons (or a little french), it's clear that "main-gauche" is french for "LEFT HAND" (actually hand-left)! The whole point of a main-gauche is that it's a left handed knife for surprise attacks, usually by thieves!
Here is a video with all the recipes. I made it myself. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qWW6l5gpU0
Anyone have a good way to get that 1k stat trophy? After 800 or so, it seems to take forever to get points even with 100+ learning. Is there a trick to it or something? (like is it easier to get points if you miss?)
Also, does it feel somewhat unfair towards mages? Easily the most difficult enemies are the mages if not simply due to the fact as you don't face them very often, you don't build up the magic def/res. Luckily for melee/range, they have low hp and def, making them easy to defeat quickly. However, mages will find them even harder to hit than other enemies as they have the highest magic def/res. Only strong point is that as they raise mana lore passively, their spells tend to be quite strong (6d6 heals anyone?)
Actually, overall, this game seems to favor melee. They have the most types of weapons, and some of the most powerful uniques. Their weapons also tend to appear more often in chests, which makes upgrading much easier for them than the other two. You tend not to see better types than what the shop sells til late yellow.
Another point is the fact that uniques are just way too powerful compared to the typical items. Very few can compare, and you typically only use normal ones if you don't have unique items of that type or completely focusing on one special.
Last thing of note: in the recipe book, sometimes you can click ?s that you don't have, and still have it appear on your crafting screen. Of course you don't know what you'll make and at what % success.
first, game saves itself
second, guessing the matrix should also unlock recipe (like guessing health potion and getting a simple click instead of placing)
Anyone have a good way to get that 1k stat trophy?
JIGuest, I intend to gather ingredients to make Remedy of Learning over and over ... all of the skills that can be bought are already at 1000, with many others close. It seems to assign skill points only to skills you haven't yet mastered.
I reached the 25th level of the Dungeon of Mystery and found 3 really nice weapons! There are no more staircases on the 25th level.
I have a theory and am currently farming the mystery dungeon to test it.
I think there might be an artifact for every item type.
I'm going to try to collect one of every artifact. When I'm done I might post a list, maybe. Good thing the storage tower doesn't seem to limit space! (Another thing to test).
I might also try to craft every weapon/armor/etc available and post that. It could take awhile.
I found that melee have the short end of the stick. My ranger cleared the trial halls fairly easily, my mage creamed them, but my melee character died in the trial hall.
One more thing: The court physician is your best bet for starting equip. The other givens are nice but won't stop you from dying if the RNG hates you.
That's all for now.
Edit:
The game was just very nice to my melee and gave him a katana, immediately followed by an artifact glaive(?), Mr. Stabby, which does an insane amount of damage compared to any other weapon I had available. *evil laugh*
Now it doesn't matter that his HP is in the low 90s. I can fix that! Guess I was wrong about melee being pushovers. Still lovin' the mage's healing and lifedrain, though.
if any one wants to save i cant tell you how it's easy you only right click (in any place in the game) and press settings and then you will read "how much information can (the name of the website) store on your computer. You only should make it unlimited then your game can be easily saved.
so good bye guys :D
does anyone know what the best melee weapon in the game is?
what is the best weapon in the game for the warrior class?
It seems to assign skill points only to skills you haven't yet mastered.
Well, it did. And now it seems it's not. I'm not sure what happened, but now I have the same question: how can anyone get combat skills up to 1000? My highest is stuck around 950, and it takes dozens of battles for it to go up even one more point.
This game is surprisingly compelling for something so utterly broken. In almost every single way.
I regularly saw the number messages appear in the wrong place or with the wrong colours.
The crafting is like someone took Minecraft and stripped away everything useful about it. Theres no reason to try out different arrangements since you can't see whether you have a recipe or just a random group of ingredients. Then, theres no incentive to grind away at the craft skill, but instead it seems you're encouraged to buy skill books to get your skills up to 1000. And as JIGuest has said, you can click on some ?s and it thinks you have the recipe.
The defence is interesting. Or, at least it would be if you automatically hit and did some damage, and could have more than one defender to start with. And there was some defence missions with more, slightly weaker enemies at higher levels.
The mystery dungeon is pretty messed up with the menus- if you go to the exit stairs, enter the inventory then click "activate" without leaving the inventory you go to the next level but you can see the inventory items. If you click where the close button was on the inventory screen you go to the last level, but your position is where you were when you "exited" the inventory. By going down the stairs again you skip a level. By doing this you can go to level 26 and carry on going down forever.
Being able to create potions that add a damage die to your weapon is interesting but completely messes up the game. But even ignoring the fact you can add make your weapon do like 40d6 damage, its completely unbalanced between weapons. Some weapons have lots of small damage dice, for example the bow "Forgiveness" does 14d4 damage, so adding an extra damage die adds 2.5 damage on average. Whereas the book "Strategies of Timald" does 1d50 damage, so adding an extra damage die adds 25.5 damage on average, over 10 times as much.
I enjoyed it, but it's had 6 updates to fix bugs and still has lots of bugs, let alone the problems with the game design.
Oh, and JIGuest, probably the strongest melee weapon is Redemption (5d12 damage, +20% damage, 10% crit, +25% hit chance, 40 pierce). You craft it, with 65% chance to craft with max Smithing and Artistry.
I wonder if the defense quests could hold up as a game all their own given a few more interesting mechanics. I think I'll try that out in JavaScript...
He seemed to have fixed and changed a few things:
Training high lvl skills is easier now, and increasing learning % does seem to have a noticeable difference.
You can actually make mystical hairpin now.
Making something gives you the recipe (and you can't click on empty ?s and sometimes get recipes)
And Parthenon, besides a few early recipes, making stuff is all post-game fun for the obsessive. By the time you have enough money to make the enhancement pots, you'd have long beaten the boss (or at least should have if you haven't been putting it off. And you shouldn't put it off as the main story dungeons give far higher lvl loots compared to the enemy str as compared to the other dungeons) Yes, its not balanced, but it doesn't really matter that much at that point.
1K skill achievement: I've done it the long hard way (repeated trips to the dungeon of mystery), and the easy way.
Easy way: After winning as Good, I decided to try Evil. I started equipping and keeping every LEARNING item I found. Worked great - much faster than using the BEST weapon. I spent the first few dungeons getting each enemy down to a few points, then switching to DEFENSE until I was almost dead. Then finish him off, leave the dungeon, and come back for the next guy. This way I quickly raised my defense skills up. Combined with LEARNING items, I quickly zipped my attacking skills up as well.
As for Artifacts: there are so many unique one, plus a bunch of prefix based ones. The 25th level of Dungeon of Mystery holds like 8 artifact chests, so a few trips through will get you a complete set of high level artifacts.
I think my game glitched a bit because i was equipping stuff and then a strange flashy thing appeared in my pack. i sold it and now i have nan/infinite gold. wtf? also how do i get to the final demon again? How do i actually win this game because i finished every dungeon apart from the sewer bandits which cant be finished and the mystery one. Does it matter that im playing this game from another site or not?
Help Me please !! WHen I enter the barracks I have a unit there but the training tab is not highlighted so I cant select it. How do I train the unit and how do I bring it to battle?
@Slx your unit has to reach 50 points before you can train it.
I can't move in the dungeons! The program just isn't recognizing my arrow keys after I quit and returned to the game.
Anyone else having this problem?
hey, i started a couple days ago and i finally got to the point where you choose which storyline to follow, is one better than the other? And if not, then do you get to play again with the equipment you finished with, or what? Please help. :(
Am I the only one that noticed the Nazi symbols on some carpets?
I have four people in the barracks who I have kitted out with good weapons and armor I've found. How do I use them in battle? the training icon is not highlighted, and someone said they need 50 points for that anyways. When I read about barracks in the library it said I would need to pay them to take them into battle, which is fine, but how do I hire them?
Also in a Defensive Quest I see an option to deploy a unit on the field which isn't highlighted. I think this might be because I can't figure out how to hire any of my units, or maybe this is how I choose a unit to hire. How do I hire?
u need 15 gold 2 hire a unit in defensive quests, but u can only use the gold gained from killind poeple in that particular mission
Am I the only one who noticed Chaos Mages are females but have beards, like seriously either they enjoy dressing up in female armor or they have mutated chins. They are on floors 8-12 of the reset dungeon.
Ohh and Sword of Omens ftw 100% hit chance.
O.o
Yeah, this game is impressively long and intricate, but has several, several problems. Too many for me to list, and I'm sure there's more than I'm aware of. For example, having bonus stats named differently than how they're listed on the stats/library was a bit confusing at first. Then of course there's the top rated qualms in the kongregate comments.
This game has the potential to be really, really amazing, it just needs some work.
How to get coal to make redemption? I completed the game but cant get all the recipes. Lack of coal! HELP!
@Maxx
You can either go through the unlimited dungeon, whereupon you can find coal on the ground on some of the screens in the top left-hand corner, or you can go to the store and buy a "BASIC" resource pack
Okay, how many levels of training are there? I only have basic and advanced.
Love this game, although the final encounter was disappointing. I literally killed him in one hit after buffing a little bit. Other than that, maybe less repetition? Great game, though!
Just finished it in 8hrs 56minutes.
Tips:
Alchemy is fun but totally useless for winning the game. Takes a ton of money to build up the necessary skills to forge anything useful and the best items you can forge are not necessarily any better than the best items you can find (at least for the mage).
There are more decent mid to high range melee weapons than mage weapons. You will get into the 30 max damage range much more quickly, since there is a huge jump between the 2d12 mage weapons (of which there are only a couple) and the ones that can dish out 50-60 max. However, once you reach the top I think you are much more powerful as a mage than melee.
Fighting the mid to high-level demon mages is not fun, since you don't have much magical defense since mages are less common. I recommend using a couple drain life spells to knock them down and attempt to finish them in 3 - 4 rounds. They can knock you back for a lot of hit points if you let them stick around do I think it is generally better to burn some mana than risk that.
Good mid to late game strategy is doing a bunch of mana (and life) leeching. So long as you don't attempt enemies that are out of your reach, this keeps you from relying too much on potions to replenish lost hit points and mana points. Of the two mana leeching is more important since you can make us of drain life.
I did mostly missions without spending too much time in the Dungeon of Mystery and once I finally made it in there it was pretty easy. I suggest this, since the story arc will present things at the right difficulty at the right time and you can get the items you need pretty easily. I recommend starting off with the first couple spell missions, then doing a few story missions, then going back and forth between each and some of the side plots. The side missions are especially important since many of them boost your hit points or mana, which is very very helpful later on. It is often enough to guess where it is then go in and grab it an leave (although don't forget there is often an archive chest nearby).
About the (demon) boss:
Ridiculously easy. I had a backpack full of restoration and super health potions but simply enchanted my weapon then dealt a bit over 400 damage killing him with the first blow with a normal attack from my recently acquired Stick's Brother. I didn't even get to see how powerful since he missed his attack while I was enchanting.
Umm, I guess it is cool that you can upgrade your house and do all of these defense quests. Unfortunately it is a major pain in the ass to equip 5 other people.
Here was my setup at finishing:
RH: Stick's Brother 10D6
LH: Preservation (somehow never found any good shields worth over 400G -- probably accidentally left behind when zipping through dungeons)
Head: Comic Relief
Torso: Holy Chains
Hands: Life Wrenchers
Legs: Hunter Pants
Shoes: Throne Reclaimers
Finger: Finger Leech
Neck: Prince's Gem
By the way there is a nice wiki: with all(?) of the major artifacts listed here:
http://arkandiancrusade.wikia.com/wiki/Artifacts
The tutorial says to explore using the arrow keys, but my character doesn't move when I press the arrows. I've tried opening and closing the inventory, restarting the game, using aswd and number pad keys. Nothing works, so I am unable to explore any quest areas. :-(
I'm using Chrome on Windows 7.
The game is really unbalanced towards melee weapons. I've found at least a dozen strong melee weapons and am still desperately searching for a decent bow for my archer, with only a few missions left to go. It's beyond ridiculous. Why allow a choice if one class is going to get all the goodies/
After I answered all the questions at the beginning and I press close, the game just goes black and nothing happens.
[Try emptying your browser cache and reload the game and try again. If the problem persists, try updating your Flash Player and/or try another browser. -Jay]
So how do you get the chapters to link up? I saw a comment somewhere that it should be automatic if you play on this site but that didn't happen.
GIMME ALL ARTIFACTS TAHT I CAN USE NAO!!!!!!!!!
dont forget to raise your mysticism skill, there are caps on all buffs that can only be raised by doing so. i had just the comic relief and demon armor themselves should max out protection if your mystisism is high enough.
Update