Maple Tale is an upcoming ‘pixel casual adventure RPG’ for Android and IOS by LUCKYYX Game. However, one look at Maple Tale would tell you that it’s another low-effort asset flip attempting to gouge those unfortunate enough to download it.
Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, Maple Tale has been plagiarising and stealing art. An advertisement for the game features pixel art of the cast of Final Fantasy 5. Bartz Klauser is riding a Chocobo, Faris and Lenna are holding hands, and Krile and Galuf are walking behind everyone else. The art even features the logo for Final Fantasy 5 and the Super Famicom. It’s doubtful Square Enix or Nintendo has been involved in the development of Maple Tale.
As tends to be the case with these low-quality mobile games, the actual game doesn’t feature these characters. Maple Tale appears to be a sort of platforming combat game with crafting, complete with chibi-style art. Another game attributed to LUCKYYX, Mushroom N Heroes, follows a very similar formula.
Asset Flipped Garbage
Artist Cocefi on X also reported that Maple Tale used their art without permission. “Scummy game Maple Tale is using my (and others) art on their Facebook and Instagram ads without permission. I’m a small artist and can’t do much. I hope the person responsible stubs their toe or something,” their post reads.
LUCKYYX’s page on the Play Store reads, “LUCKYYX Game is committed to providing high-quality game services for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian regions.” The footage of Maple Tale posted on YouTube is in Chinese.
The images provided on the store page for Maple Tale are likely AI-generated, as objects are blending into appendages and one of the characters only has four toes. These aren’t intentional choices that any artist would make.
It’s very difficult to do anything about these fraudulent developers because they are often shut down and then just crop up again under a different name. However, Google and Apple should still do more to curate their stores to prevent shady games like Maple Tale from appearing on their storefronts.
Final Fantasy
One of the oldest and most beloved series in the JRPG genre, Final Fantasy games have sold north of 100 million copies since the late 1980s. The series now covers several genres and media types, from MMORPGs to mobile games and movies. Games such as Final Fantasy 7 are considered among the greatest of all time, while the series has innovated and popularised.
