At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, a game released by a French independent studio, "Master (Sifu)", stood out in the siege of many AAA masterpieces in February, causing a large number of players at home and abroad to pay attention. This game not only received a high score of 9 points in both IGN and GameSpot, but also called it a "rare masterpiece in modern kung fu action games", and after the domestic game media tried to play, it also gave a high evaluation.
A successful game certainly has its own unique features, so what is the unique charm of "Master"?
Action design and Chinese Kung Fu
The current positioning of "Master" is an action game that pays homage to kung fu movies and Chinese culture, and such a theme is quite rare for a French game studio.
For a long time in the past, game developers in Europe and the United States have rarely been able to come up with a pure action game, and those open world masterpieces labeled as action games have more of a "action" cloak on RPG games, determining the essence of the game or the RPG value. When the emphasis is placed on graphic quality performance, cinematography, and deep plot, but the design concept of light fighting and action has almost become an industry rule, it takes courage to break it. In this regard, Hidetaka Miyazaki and his "Soul" series found a different design direction for an action game, while "Master" presented another design idea.
The action system of "Master" is more like those classic fighting games, with a more diverse series of moves, most of the moves in the game need to quickly press several keys, although not like "King of Fighters", "Street Fighter" like the "up and down left and right BABA" complex operation, but on the keyboard operation is not so easy. In addition, classic elements of fighting games such as dodging and blocking also appear in its action system.
In the fighting game itself, the moves you come and go are very similar to the "passing moves" in Chinese kung fu, and the action design in "Master" is also a capture of the real actions of the kung fu master, the white eyebrow fist is full of changes, the characteristics of the moves are quite realistic, similar to the unique concentration of "bullet time", you can also find the enemy flaws, make poking and sweeping the legs of the move to counterattack, and rely on the environment to unfold the execution shot, fall, hit the wall and other environmental killing, a variety of elements combined, Bring players a rich operation experience and a lively combat experience. In this way, the designers of the game also showed the interpretation and interpretation of the word "kung fu".
"We wanted to pay tribute to kung fu culture, especially to recreate the atmosphere of a Jackie Chan movie. In a room full of enemies, you can fight with anything you can touch: sticks, bottles, or you can also go through windows or over counters. We want to create a sense of power for gamers. Lone hero, battle the world. The game planner of "Master" once said this in an interview.
As he said, in the game we can pick up weapons in the environment at any time, break wooden doors to get wooden stick weapons, fight by the window to throw enemies out of the window, the bench under our feet can kick enemies, bottles everywhere can stun opponents, and almost all weapons have a unique set of mods, making the concept of "kung fu" more realistic.
"Master" is very restrained in the performance of the action picture, both rarely seen with smoke and special effects in multiple colors, nor a very cool skill designed, at the same time, the visual design of the action has also chosen a very practical style, and all this is to restore the "kung fu" in the developer's mind.
In the gorgeous scene, the fighting action is still mainly fist and foot
Low-poly style and nostalgia
The graphics style of "Master" is also a point of difference for this game, compared to the more persistent and realistic picture quality of AAA games, the Low-poly (low poly) style of graphics is more simple and abstract, more animated.
In fact, Low-poly is not new to us. In the 1990s, forced by the computing power of computers at that time, in order to ensure the smoothness of the picture and reduce the complexity of the scene, Low-poly came into being. It is precisely because of this that Low-poly was originally derived from the three-dimensional real-time rendering of computer games, in order to ensure the smoothness of the player's game experience, the game maker had to limit the number of faces, and through the texture to make up for the lost details, it can be said that Low-poly is forced by the performance of the actual computer or a trade-off behavior made by the game engine.
Low-poly style Lara look in Tomb Raider 2
Low mode to high mode
With the development of computer technology, Low-poly naturally withdrew from the gaming market. Instead, it is a well-made and well-detailed model, the style of the game is more realistic, and the player's sense of immersion, substitution, and gaming experience have been greatly improved. However, with the popularity of realistic style, players have aesthetic fatigue of this style of game, and urgently need fresh blood to enrich the single game screen style, which has blown up a retro wind in the game industry, giving birth to retro pixel style, retro Low-poly style and various types of retro styles. At this time, Low-poly completely changed into a game screen design style.
Because of the unique meaning given by the times, the low polygon has a trendy and nostalgic aesthetic at the same time. This aesthetic triggers a memory of past emotions, and when we look back at the past of PC games, especially after the 80s and 90s, in the memory is a classic game that accompanies us through childhood.
"Master" chooses the Low-poly style to depict a simple traditional revenge story, which is full of nostalgia. In interviews, game producer Jordan Layan said that they had referenced a lot of Hong Kong kung fu movies from the 70s and '80s when designing the game, which would be the pinnacle of the concept of "kung fu" in movies. Kung Fu movies, video games, maybe more than one boy has dreamed of combining the two, maybe the designers of "Master" will be one of them.
Not only Master, but now many game manufacturers or independent developers have begun to launch works with nostalgic and retro connotations. The rebirth of "low polygons" is, in part, an extension of the nostalgic trend of computer games and digital art. But nostalgia is only one end of the Low-poly style, and creating new visual experiences is the other. "Master" covers the suburbs covered by bamboo forests, treacherous nightclubs, trendy avant-garde art galleries, modern city buildings and silent and mysterious sanatoriums, different scenes, architecture and character styles are also different; the fusion of Oriental and Western, retro and modern styles makes the game of "Master" a classical story plot glow with different vitality, making the whole game nostalgic and not old, full of charm and full of novelty.
Write at the end
"Master" as a low-cost game, in addition to these commendable advantages, of course, there are some shortcomings, such as the plot is too simple, after the screen transition to read Caton and so on. But being able to break through the ocean of thousands of indie games today has proved the success of this game. Many times we are too much pursuit of superficial perfection, but ignore the details of the construction, grasp and pursuit, in fact, players really do not want much, do a small part, also enough to praise.
Looking back now, the reason why "Master" is excellent is because they are just doing kung fu itself.
The development of the game industry to the present, many domestic manufacturers are not unable to make such games, as long as "do less flowing clothing, less flashy special effects, less pinch a little muscleless long legs, hold the weapon in your hand, don't let it always float in the sky." "Spend that time researching and developing new kryptonite equipment to study the actual combat use of martial arts routines; it is more realistic to plan less kryptonite activities and think more about what players want."