- Maple Tale is a newly-released idle RPG
- It boasts some great pixel art, but problems with actually playing the game and its marketing have marred it
- Maple Tale’s advertising has been accused of cribbing unauthorised works from several artists
Coming as part of the seemingly always-ongoing pixel RPG craze, Maple Tale is the latest game to throw its hat into the ring. Coming from developer LUCKYYX Games, it seems to be a fairly standard idle RPG with some lovely-looking pixel art on the surface, and at 100k+ downloads just on Google Play, you’d expect it to have at least some fans.
However, Maple Tale sits at a dismal 2.1 stars on Google Play already, with almost all reviewers reporting issues actually playing the game in the first place. Of course, teething troubles aren’t necessarily a big issue and even the largest of games can have a rocky launch.
More pertinent are Maple Tale’s image problems, literally. Both media outlets and artists on Twitter have called out the game for featuring a number of unauthorised works in their advertising. And while it’s not clear whether any of this is actually used in-game, it’s certainly not the best of looks.
Admittedly, the name Maple Tale itself bears a striking resemblance to Maple Story, so there were some warning signs the developers might have been cribbing from other games. It’s a shame as well, because judging by the number of downloads and corresponding reviews, the actual content of the game itself did seem to tempt many players in. Unfortunately, no matter what the actual content of Maple Tale is like, it may have lost any chance of credibility with these scandals.
Still, you shouldn’t take this as being representative of the entire mobile world. Why not take a look at some of the games on our list of the best mobile games of 2024 (so far) to see what top titles really carry the day?
Better yet, you could always check out our other list of the top 25 free-to-play games on iOS and Android!