Arkandian Legends is a video game on Kongregate by Undefined that consists of three chapters: Crusade (2010), Revenant (2011), and Explorer (2012) in that order. In them, you play as a hero with a customisable name and appearance, who has to stop (or possibly help) the threat of the chapter.
The games are split into two halves: Dungeon exploration and tactical battles. The former half plays like a Dungeon Crawler, in which you must explore over 50 dungeons, killing enemies and finding treasure. The latter is more of a Strategy RPG, which actually uses multiple heroes that must be controlled around a grid based battlefield. There's also a mostly optional crafting system, in which you can make weapons, clothes, potions, food and furniture (Though the last two are only in Crusade).
A unique feature is the games' Old Save Bonus. If you unlock an achievement in one chapter, you may have an easier start in the next chapter, with some bonuses or exclusive classes. All chapters have this, though you won't be able to cash in the achievements from Explorer, since the creator's on hiatus since 2015 and Adobe Flash is dead, so it's safe to assume chapter four is unlikely.
Compare with My Pet Protector, a different series of role playing games by the same developer.
This game series contains examples of:
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Inverted. If you keep buying or selling items, your Bargaining stat goes up and you can buy items cheaper and sell them for more money.
- An Interior Designer Is You: In all chapters except Revenant, you can decorate your house with various furniture.
- Antagonist Title: Revenant is the villain of his titular chapter.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Explorer added quite a few. First there was an Emergency Buyback feature, in case you sold an item by accident, you can re-buy the last three items sold. Next is the autofight feature, which even allows a choice of attack strength. Finally, crafting materials can be bought in the shop, since they tend to be scarce in dungeons.
- Asteroids Monster: The exclusive dungeon for beating Revenant in Explorer has you fighting multiple weaker copies of the Revenant, they're even called "Weak Revenant".
- Auto-Revive: The Elixir of Twisted Fate. When you drink it, the game says "You no longer fear death of any kind.", which means that if you die after drinking it in battle, the game will instantly revive you with 25 HP once.
- Beef Gate: The games open high-level dungeons fairly early (like Crusade opening red dungeons while you're probably not even halfway through the yellow ones). Actually going there until you've beating the majority of those on the previous levels is typically not a good idea due to the enemies being much stronger, dodging lots of attacks and hitting you with strong ones. Still, if you can manage the difficulty, your stat growth will go up significantly and they may drop very powerful equipment for that point.
- Big Bad: Fak'Ough in Crusade and the titular Revenant in Revenant are threats that cause problems and have to be defeated.
- BFS: Some swords in the game are about as long as the characters wielding them, with Orcam's Razor in Crusade being the biggest. They can even hold them in one hand and have a shield in the other.
- Boss-Only Level: The final boss is always in a separate dungeon from the buildup dungeon, so there's obviously a way to prepare.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Billy Bob, your sidekick in Revenant, isn't very reliable.
- Cap: Every skill's level maxes out at 1000.
- Character Customisation: All games have characters customisable to an extent, featuring choices on hairstyle, hair color, beard, and starting from Revenant, race.
- Character Name Limits: You can give your hero a name with up to 15 characters. The name input bar's width would imply that you can enter much more, but it's still quite generous.
- Continuing is Painful: If you die, you'll get "slightly weaker"... and that may mean things like losing 10 max HP.
- Crutch Character: Also a Crutch Item. Picking the Ascended or Demon class in Revenant or Explorer will give you extremely good armor that can't be changed, so it will work great for early game, but if you wanted other buffs, you won't get them from armor.
- Dungeon Crawling: One half of the game, which has the player character traverse through dungeons filled with enemies to attempt to get their hands at treasures hidden in the dungeons.
- Edible Bludgeon: One of the melee weapons used by Hat Dweller enemies in Crusade (that could have been used by you in the fourth game since the Chilly Child achievement in Explorer would have started you off in the next chapter with it) is a snowman's carrot.
- Episodic Game: The game is split into three chapters with each one being a separate game following the previous and you retaining some things you've done in the previous game via Old Save Bonus, though playing them in order isn't completely necessary.
- Evil Is Easy: Playing the demon campaign in Crusade does give you extra hitpoints, the protagonist even says "It's good to be bad". Though ultimately it's subverted, as the very useful Great Heal spell is only available in the ascended campaign.
- Fame Gate: The game won't let you access more difficult dungeons or defense quests until you reach a certain fame level, raised by exploring other dungeons and taking part in other defense quests.
- Fireballs: One of the early spells is Fireball which looks a little different from a usual fireball as it seems to leave a trail of balls effect, deals light damage, and costs 15 MP.
- Fighter, Mage, Thief: There are three weapon types to choose from, which are also the types the enemies wield. They are a physical weapon (dagger/sword/mace/axe), a ranged weapon (bow) and a magic weapon (spellbook/staff).
- Final Boss Preview: The fight against Fak'Ough at the beginning of Crusade is impossible, since he has 500 HP when you can't deal more than 10 damage in one turn, while he'll easily deal 30. You just won't be able to deal enough damage before he beats you.
- Heavenly Blue: All Ascended (a race on the side of good based on angels) have blue skin.
- Humans Are Average: The Arkandian race is the series' equivalent to humans. In terms of gameplay, selecting it offers no advantages or disadvantages.
- Idiosyncratic Menu Labels: The games use "Begin your journey" and "Continue your adventure" for starting or loading a game.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Almost every single dungeon has several treasure chests, with brown ones containing normal items, red ones containing artifacts, and black ones being the quest target. Also, every enemy spawns a treasure from the sky upon being defeated which contains gold and some items.
- Infinity -1 Sword: The angelic/demonic weapon given over the course of the story in Crusade is very strong at 4d8 and with several buffs, but there are still better options.
- Infinity +1 Sword:
- Harry the Hatchet is the strongest weapon at 6d10 with the highest value, only available after beating the final boss or as a very rare drop.
- Explorer tops it with three weapons, one for each type, that have 6d12 and are also available as very rare drops.
- Item Crafting: There's a robust system that allows crafting of things like potions, weapons and armor based on recipes in each game.
- Jack of All Stats: Playing as an Arkandian gives no strengths but also no weaknesses, which is why the game recommends them for new players.
- Kill Screen: Floor 26 of the Mystery Dungeon in Revenant is a glitchy screen which flashes a bunch of the game's items. Though refreshing the game isn't necessary, only heading out of there is enough.
- The Leader: The player character can lead a team of people into strategy battles, managing their equipment, skills, and positioning while fighting on the frontlines himself. He also has a Leadership skill that lets him perform better at it.
- Life Drain: A mid-game spell is Life Drain which deals some damage to the opponent and gives back that amount of damage to you as HP at the cost of 15 MP.
- Limited-Use Magical Device: Spell scrolls let you use a spell in battle once before getting destroyed. They're helpful if you're out of mana or haven't learned that spell yet.
- Lizard Folk: Lizardmen are occasionally foes and a selectable race in Explorer. You first meet them in Crusade inside a prison camp owned by them and rescue a captured unit from them.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields can be equipped in the left hand and are necessary for blocking (even if an enemy hits you, the attack fails when it's blocked).
- Mana Drain: The Mana Drain property lets your character gain mana for themselves and reduce it for the enemy sometimes when they attack, even if the enemy has 0 MP.
- Marathon Level: The Archmage dungeons in Explorer start at 6 floors long and only get bigger from there. To compare, most normal dungeons don't have more than 2 floors.
- Massive Race Selection: Explorer has ten selectable races for the player character: Arkandian, Necretian, Ascended, Demonic, Werewolf, Zombie, Orc, Lizardman, Mindflayer, and Vampire. The latter five have to be unlocked by completing the game.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: Revenant doesn't really innovate much from Crusade. However, Explorer does do a lot of convenient changes.
- Multiple-Choice Past: The stat-altering quiz at the start of Crusade has multiple choices of, for example, who the player character served before the game's events.
- Name McAdjective: The reputation title for the lowest level of crafting ability is "Crappy McRuinsthings." However, getting to a higher level gives the title of "Crafty McMakesthings".
- Oculothorax: Beholders are monsters that are one huge floating eye covered in teeth, with six smaller Beholders around them.
- Old Save Bonus: Earning achievements in previous chapters unlocks bonuses for next chapters.
- Opening the Sandbox: The games typically start you off with one dungeon and one defense quest to beat. After that, a whole bunch of dungeons and defense quests open up which you can play at any time and you keep getting to access to more as you progress.
- Punny Name: Crusade's Big Bad's name is Fak'Ough, which sounds identical to a rude way to tell someone off.
- Randomly Drops: Every enemy can drop one or several random items. The only thing that's consistent is that stronger items or those with more value are earned from those in later dungeons.
- Random Number God: Many processes are mandated by a tabletop-like dice roll system. For example, attacking works on a d100. If the number rolled is higher than your hit Chance, the attack will fail.
- Rare Candy: Elixirs of Toughening which permanently raise HP, Elixirs of Harnessing which permanently raise MP, and Remedies of Learning that permanently boost random skills.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The demons are mostly red and wear black.
- Scratch Damage: As Armourer's Handbook points out, damage will always be a minimum of 1 point (though there are cases where an attack is avoided, is blocked, or resisted if it's magic).
- Shock and Awe: One of the lategame spells is Lightning Lance, which zaps the enemy with a blue lightning bolt to deal large direct damage at the cost of 30 MP.
- Slobs Versus Snobs: In Crusade, The Lizardmen in Snake Lane are tough and brutish, but Lizardmen in Underground Forest are refined and almost civilised, which the game mentions how different they are to their western counterparts.
- Squishy Wizard: Most mage enemies have 10 less HP than other enemies you'd meet in the same dungeon. This is taken to the extreme with Mindflayers, who only have 20 HP but 100 mana and powerful magic at their disposal.
- Stat Grinding: There's no traditional level-ups, only stats go up when you do certain actions related to them.
- Strategy RPG: Another half of the game.
- A Taste of Power: The first battle in Crusade lets you use your character with nice equipment, all spells in the game, and fairly high stats. Of course, they aren't actually high enough to defeat Fak'Ough at that point, and you lose them after that fight.
- Teaser Equipment: The shop in Explorer sells armor with protection+6 for 2750 gold and weapons with up to 3d10 damage for 2500 gold (which also have sockets that require magical gems so you can use them to the full potential) even at the start, while you start with only 100 gold and are unlikely to earn 2500+ gold before midgame.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: All female characters have breasts, and that includes lizard people and skeletons.
- Time Travel: The last parts of Crusade involve travelling through time so you can beat Fak'Ough before he kills you.
- Victory Pose: The hero does a pose every time he wins a battle, like spinning the weapon, walking on place, or kneeling and praying.
- Villain Protagonist: If you pick the demon campaign in Crusade.
