To say that the hottest topic now, the "old man ring" "Eldon's Law Ring" can be said to be unparalleled, open the vibrato, B station almost everyone is playing, the sales of the PC version has also broken the tens of millions of mark, and even more than 900,000 players play online at the same time... As the latest game of the "Soul System" game known for its difficulty, it should have been a niche work in the eyes of many people, but why can it be so popular? This starts with the man behind it, Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Just a few days after the release of Eldon's Legal Ring, the peak number of online users exceeded 950,000
Back to basics, players can grow through setbacks
"The leaves of the Golden Tree fall, the Ring of Eldon shatters, the Eternal Queen Marika disappears, the Golden Monarch is assassinated on the Night of the Black Dagger, and the demigods begin to fight for the fragments of the Ring, but the war does not produce a new king, and it also causes the world to begin to be abandoned by the Great Will. At this time, the long-lost blessing of the faders began to summon, and several long-established faders, as well as the nameless us, crossed the sea of fog and returned to the junction to compete for the position of King of Eldon."
"Eldon's Circle of Law" tells such a seemingly simple, but somewhat ethereal story, and the game was produced by "A Song of Ice and Fire" author George W. Bush. R· R. Martin constructs the background of the story, and Hidetaka Miyazaki's From Software completes the game flow, which means that Eldon's Ring of Law will be a very epic, but at the same time full of "Miyazaki Hideo's malice" game.
The story of "The Ring of Eldon" is set in the story of "A Song of Ice and Fire" author George W. Bush. R· R. Martin
However, unlike the way in which the game is filmed and re-performed with the main theme of the game industry now, almost none of Miyazaki's works are performed, you can't see any close-up animation dialogue, and there is no clear plot line. The player's understanding of the plot and the completion of the worldview mainly come from reading the prop descriptions and the extremely restrained dialogue with npCs.
On the other hand, every prop in the game, every enemy configuration, and other settings for gameplay are not independent of the game world, they all have their own origins and the story behind them, and all kinds of seemingly unrelated settings are silently explaining this mysterious world, which is why everyone will say "NPCs that will not actively attack you when talking about soul games, don't cut him down." ”
Moreover, the biggest feature of the soul game is "the opposite", in the current almost all games are trying to cater to the player to hit the button, in the unscrupulous "mowing" slashing to seek the entertainment pleasure of willful indulgence, Miyazaki Hidetaka chose a more realistic way of expression: in his game, the player must carefully judge their own space of retreat, when the opportunity arises, the tension is launched in a measured manner, and the rhythm is destroyed after the rational and calm retreat. This may be the reason why many players say that they have found the feeling of playing FC/SFC, I believe that every old player's DNA is imprinted with the fear of being repeatedly tortured by Mega Man, Metroider, and Castlevania...
So for the player, the soul game process is also a kind of cultivation, after failing again and again to get up again and again, from the initial chagrin stomping feet or even smashing the handle, to regaining composure and summarizing the lessons, and then to the final concentration to kill the BOSS in one fell swoop, the player's self-control has also been sublimated in one failure after another, at least after I have played the soul game, the mentality in real life has become a lot better, "What setbacks have not been experienced?"
After all, the tree guards me more than a hundred times before I have died." Many players always shout that the hand can not play the soul system, in fact, the soul system on the response requirements are really much lower than the "Ninja Dragon Sword Legend" and the like, the most test is the psychological quality of the player, as long as there is composure and resilience, everyone can pass the "Eldon Ring", this experience is rarely brought to the player by American games.
Thick and thin, standing on the shoulders of the giants of the "soul system"
As the first open-world soul game, The Ring of Eldon's map exploration system is also at its best level, with an inconspicuous elevator shaft on the plains that can descend 20 seconds to a starry underground world; a huge four-legged building that has to clear all the scales on its legs before collapsing to reveal the entrance to the building; ladders by cliffs and paths behind trees may point to a treasure place; patching together words or illustrations provided by NPCs can reveal a new place of battle...
The success of "Eldon's Ring" is not only because of its own high quality, but more importantly, it is also based on the high reputation of the entire soul game, in addition, in the "Eldon's Ring" we can see many shadows of "Demon Soul", "Dark Soul", "Blood Source Curse" and "Only Wolf", such as "Demon Soul" more than ten years ago, we can see the messages of other players, weapons and skills are more soul players familiar with the giant sword, storm sword and chainsaw from "Blood Source", "Only Wolf" "tooth slash" Also appeared in the game. Under the premise that none of the first six soul works have been overturned and all of them have received rave reviews, it is logical that "Hideaki Miyazaki fell to the altar".
Sticking to the consistent style of soul games is Hidetaka Miyazaki's "success code"
In fact, a brief review of the development history of the entire soul game, you will be more lamented miyazaki Hidetaka's uniqueness in game design, he joined From Software to start making games in his thirties, and the company had entered a crisis stage at that time, in this case, he took over a "mess" - "Demon Souls" that fell into the development bottleneck at that time, and it was Miyazaki Hidetaka's big break that led to the birth of the originator of the soul game, and after gaining a very good market reputation, "Dark Souls" One after the other, and within a week, the total sales of Demon Souls were broken, followed by Sony's exclusive Bloodborne Curse...
In 2014, Hidetaka Miyazaki was promoted to president of From Software, in 2015 he was the director of Dark Souls 3, in November 2018, he won the "Golden Joystick" Lifetime Achievement Award, the traditional award in the gaming industry, the release of "Only Wolves: Shadow Death Twice" in March 2019, and the release of "Eldon's Ring of Law" in February 2022... Obviously, it is precisely because of the same game production style that Miyazaki hides and his From Software that they have today's explosion.
Break the open-world "canned" mindset
As an open-world game, Eldon's Ring of Law is destined to be significantly different from the previous more linear soul-based games, but the open world is no stranger to players, but almost all players may ask the classic triplet when they first get started: "Who am I?" Where am I? Where do I go? ”
Yes, the game guidance of "Elden's Circle" can be said to be the weakest in the current open world games, in stark contrast to the Ubisoft games "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry", "Watch Dogs", etc., and the flow of these games is about: the entire large map is divided into several areas, each area is randomly scattered with strongholds, collections and side quests, the player enters an area, these play elements will be presented on the map, after clearing this area, the next area repeats this process... And this kind of guidance similar to opening cans has also been jokingly called "can open games" by players.
With a magnificent story, a soul-like open world, and a surprise of detail everywhere, the breaking of the Ring of Eldon's Law is not unexpected
The biggest advantage of the can design is that the idea is clear or even brainless, but the disadvantage is that the sense of repetition is strong, the experience is monotonous and the game revenue is too low, even if it is "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild", it will feel a little boring after playing for a long time. And "Eldon's Ring" will not, the player can almost only see the guide at the partial blessing place, and this guide is only to point you in a direction, there will be no target point on the map, for example, I have been in the royal city for half a day and have not found how to go to the forbidden land, and the road has been shadowed by various monsters countless times...
But the sense of achievement after finding the path is still quite strong, dare to break the traditional open world design thinking, only Miyazaki Hidetaka's game dares to do so and players will not complain, so "Eldon's Ring of Law" in the follow-up update can bring some surprises, which is undoubtedly what we players are most looking forward to.
Editor| Zhang Yi
Audit | Wu Xin