With the popularity of next-generation consoles (perhaps, it can already be called this generation of consoles), Sega has ported the "Dragon among Men Studios" works launched in the previous two years - "Dragon 7 Where Light and Darkness Go" and "Eye of Judgment Death's Last Words" to the PS5 and Xbox Series platforms. In addition to a significant increase in frame count, the port version also adds new features including fast loading for new host functions.
In addition to improving the resolution and ensuring a stable 60 frames, the "Eye of Judgment" released on April 23 also made some changes in style: the lighting has changed, the picture has changed from the original bright oil painting style to a slightly realistic dark color style, looking more like the Japanese WOWOW tv series, which is also quite in line with the story setting of the game itself.
Unlike the story of the "Like a Dragon" series with the underworld as the protagonist, in "The Eye of Judgment" the player plays the role of a detective and a lawyer in one of the eight gods Takayuki, although he wanders in the gray area between black and white, but in essence, he and the underworld are still clearly distinguished, and he does not do any dirty work (although he also does this kind of work to collect debts... ）。 The overall story line is also in line with the style of the criminal police detective drama - using a case through the whole process, and inserting multiple small cases derived from the big case in the process, and finally coming together and revealing the truth.
The official definition of "Eye of Judgment" as a "court suspense reasoning action game", while the "Like a Dragon" series is an "action adventure" (generation 0 ~ 6) and a "dramatic RPG" (7 generations), which shows that the difference in tone is that "Eye of Judgment" tells a completely positive story.
Compared with the large number of characters born in the "Like Dragon" series for more than ten years and the intricate relationship between them, "Eye of Judgment" The Last Words of the Grim Reaper are more suitable for players who are in contact with the "Dragon among Men Studio" for the first time, and its connection with the "Like Dragon" series is limited to the background of The Komurocho, and the East Side will appear, players do not need to worry about because of the excessive number of appearances, the relationship is too complicated, and there is a close connection with the previous game to be prohibitive.
Because of the need not to stick to the background setting of the "Like a Dragon" series that has launched 8 original works, "The Eye of Judgment" Directly adopts a new protagonist, and invites the well-known movie star and singer Takuya Kimura to play, although the appearance of the characters in the HD version is a little subtle, but I believe that players familiar with the Japanese entertainment industry can still recognize him at first glance.
In addition to Takuya Kimura, several Japanese stars have joined the "Eye of Judgment Death Testament", including Kenichi Takito, who has gained fame in the Japanese drama circle in recent years, veteran movie star Nakao Bin, and Akisuke Tanihara, who has worked in the show business circle for nearly three decades. If you count Pierre Taki in the original game (who was eliminated and remade in the remake production), it can be said that several of the main characters in this game are provided and voiced by live actors, and their performances are perfectly integrated into the tense and fast-paced story of "Eye of Judgment" The Last Word of Death.
The use of live actors in the game, "Eye of Judgment Death's Last Words" and "Like Dragon" series are not the first, and Capcom is particularly keen to let stars play the main roles of the game, such as Takeshi Kaneshiro, Yusaku Matsuda and Jean Renault of "Ghost Warrior", and Lee Bingxian of "Lost Planet", but it is extremely rare for people like "Dragon Among Men Studio" to use live actors for game production on a large scale.
This has a lot to do with the persistence of series supervisor Nagoshi Hiroshi, who once worked in the film industry, and he believes that actors can show more realistic acting skills, and by virtue of the personal aura accumulated over time to fully bring into the role of the role, more suitable than voice actors to show the personal charm of the characters in the game.
"Ruron 1 ~ 3" does not use live actors to provide face models, but also allows many actors to contribute to the main characters in the game, such as Tokushige Satoshi (Daigo Dojima), Tetsuya Watanabe (Shintaro Kazema), Nakamura Shito (Yoshitaka Takashi Tsuki), etc. These actors who are active in the Japanese entertainment industry bring a sense of realism to the game characters that are different from other games.
But in fact, starting from "Ru ryu 3", every "Ruryu" works have been indispensable to the characters and actors who have made Japanese entertainment fans shout "It was you" - Naoto Takeaka (Marume Nagae), Jin Terajima (Ito), Shota Matsuda (Kojiro Sasaki) of "Ruryu 4", Nariya Hiroki (Masayoshi Tanimura), Kenta Kiritani (Takeshi Johto), Kitaji Nobuya (Seisei Seijiro), Kenichi Endo (Shunji Sugiuchi), Friends who are slightly involved in Japanese entertainment cannot have not seen the Japanese dramas or movies they have acted in
Even "Ru ryu Final Yan", which has now been included in the ranks of nonsense games, also has the roles of chiaki Kuriyama (Miryo Asagi), Tetsuta Sugimoto (Tomoaki Nagahama) and other actors, plus the promotion of the game that year is not ambiguous, it is estimated that sega really developed "Ruryu Final Yan" as a new work in the Masamune Eight Classics series at that time...
The "Like a Dragon" series that entered the PS4 / Xbox One era still maintains this tradition, in addition to Japanese actors such as Hitoshi Ozawa (Daisaku Kuse), Ritsu Takeuchi (Ohki Awano), Shin Iura (Rishiwa Tetsu), and also added an old ghost played by Hong Kong actor Lee Can-chan for the Chinese version, which can be described as extremely attentive.
By the time of "Like Dragon 6", the coffee position of the live-action actors has become the peak of the series, Takeshi Kitano, Shun Oguri, Yoko Maki, Ryuya Fujiwara, plus the excellent Byplayer Miyagi Hiroyuki and Nantomo Omori, what else can go wrong with this luxurious lineup - as a result, the plot of the game is still a big problem...
Although "Rulong 7" did not reach the height of "Rulong 6", it still had many acquaintances - Kiichi Nakai, Xian Yasuda, and Shinichi Tsui. By the way, the Japanese drama "My Business Is Long" performed by Yasuda Xian and Ikuda Dou Allah two years in advance, and the brother-in-law played by Yasuda Xian is very eye-catching and definitely worth watching.
The dragon studio among men, led by Hiroshi Nagoshi, has pursued the goal of "producing entertainment works that satisfy adults", and this belief continues to this day. Apparently, the adult drama and live-action actors that continue to this day in the series are an important part of the "entertainment that meets the needs of adults".
On May 7, Sega and Dragon among Men Studios will host a live event, writing that "Judgment Day is coming", with the label "Eye of Judgment" in addition to a link. Clicking on the link will jump to a feature page called "Judgment Day", which is obviously going to announce the new content of "Eye of Judgment", will it be a sequel?
In fact, when I saw this news, I was a little worried, although the face model is ready-made, but after all, a coffee as big as Kimura Takuya, can you agree to continue to participate in the production of the sequel? Until "Eye of Judgment" released a few short gameplay videos on the official Twitter, and it revealed scenes that were not in the original game, I thought this thing might really be stable.
PS5 / Xbox Series's "Eye of Judgment Death' Last Words" has been great in terms of graphics and gameplay, and if the sequel can continue to have the flash blessing of Kimura Daijin, it is not difficult to imagine how attractive the sequel will be.
P.S. I'm looking forward to the sequel having those familiar showbiz faces again.