Title: Mage Knight Apocalypse

Date: 11.09.2006

Genre: RPG

Platform: PC

Developer: InterServ International

Publisher: Namco Bandai Games

Here we go again, the world is in crisis and like always, you're the one to save the day. This time though, the game is brought by Bandai and Namco, two big name companies from Japan. Unfortunately, a big name usually can't guarantee a good game, and this is the case with Mage Knight Apocalypse.

The Mage Knight is a miniature war-game that Bandai has converted into an ARPG. For those who are interested in Mage Knight's story and background, you can visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mage_Knight

Anyways, Mage Knight Apocalypse (MKA) is a game that resembles Dungeon Siege more than Diablo. The graphics of this game is supposed to or at least to be recognized by some gamers to be similar to World of Warcraft. In a sense, that it a good thing as you can zoom all the way down to the back of your character and see the environment while you're fighting through the nicely detailed world of MKA. Unfortunately, for a game that requires fast response to mass amount of enemies, MKA's camera is actually more trouble than help. You'll find that you'll need to constantly adjust the camera because it'll never really be at the location where you want it to be.

The camera chases the action but fails to follow the direction of the battle by pointing to your front all the time. Instead, you'll have to constantly manually adjust the camera, turn it around to show what's before you. To make things worse for those who like to have the camera high above showing the whole area, the maximum zoom out is way below the alert distance of your enemy. In other words, if you try to see the action from top down, you'll probably get your ass kicked pretty badly before you know what hit you.

Another thing about the graphics that may make a few of us jump are the fonts that was chosen for the menus in this game. Personally, I have never seen any fonts less hard to read than this game. Regardless of the reason behind choosing that font, it is just plain bad decision. Other than the fonts though, most things are indeed pretty and nicely colored. Fans of World of Warcraft will immediately take a liking to the environment and characters in MKA as they do look similar in terms of the style.

MKA promised an Action RPG with 6 unique characters each with their own style of play. While it is true that you can bring the remaining 5 characters on screen while you control your character, the bad AI really hindered the actual use of your allies.

Often you'll notice that a range attacker that you've chose is attacking from melee range, and they're not using their best abilities and skills. In addition to that, for those who want to play as a range attacker or a mage, there are no buttons that allow you to stand still and attack. If you made a mistake by pointing to the ground next to your enemy rather than choosing him/her/it, your low HP main character will just go "Banzai!!!" and charge to his/her death.

One thing that probably will determine if you will love or hate this game is with the looting and XP system. The biggest thing about ARPGs such as Diablo, Titan Quest, and Dungeon Siege is the part where you try to collect loots or items to "socket" (in MKA, known as forge) your weapons/armors. The point of doing so is to earn that sense of being superior to your enemies and crashing them to their knees with your weapon that you collected in the 50th run over an area. Unfortunately, MKA implemented the level scaling system. Like Sacred or Elder Scroll 4 Oblivion, the enemies level up while you level up as well! So no matter much you train or how much loot you try to find, there will always be someone tougher carrying something bigger than you! To those who want to play this game once or each character once, this means that you no longer need to dwell in hours after hours to find better loot or level up, but for those who like to take their time, this may be a bad thing instead.

With all the complaints, Mage Knight Apocalypse is actually not a bad game. The game runs smoothly on most computers given that you may need to scale down the graphics and effects if you have older video cards. Gaining new skills and levels by repeatedly using the same skill over and over again makes this already 3D ARPG even more similar to Dungeon Siege. Unfortunately though, MKA wasn't able to surpass other ARPG titles with things that could have easily been fixed.

Game Score

C-

Reviewed By: Contributed