Looking back at the works of "Final Fantasy" in recent years, it is not difficult to find that they are always in the whole "new work" - the open world and real-time combat of FF15, allowing players to experience interesting exploration and cool battles; FF7re's real-time action gameplay with the traditional turn-based system as the core also retains the original flavor while making the combat more smooth and interesting; FF14 is a big show in the MMO field, and successfully surpassed the predecessor "World of Warcraft". It has become the MMORPG with the largest number of simultaneous online users in the world.
Today, SE's Final Fantasy: Origins ("Origins"), which SE has partnered with Team NINJA, brings us Final Fantasy with hardcore moves as the gameplay. After as many as 3 online tests, many players have already experienced the game for the first time, so I would like to clarify whether it is a "new game of Renwang" or not
It is, but it is not.
You said this is not a new work of "Ren Wang", who believes it?
I believe that the vast majority of players who have played "Renwang" will have a very strong sense of déjà vu in the process of experiencing "Origin", after all, many aspects of the design of the game are very similar to "Renwang".
For example, the page where the player chooses a level before officially starting the game is very "Ren Wang".
Are you a "benevolent king"?
Yes, the game does not provide an open world that we can explore freely, on the contrary, the entire game flow is not split into a number of different styles of individual levels, the previous level may still be difficult to explore in the snowy mountains, the next level you will be in a catacombs to kill the enemy.
The flow of each level in Origins is staged according to a landmark called the Rubik's Cube. During the exploration, if the player accidentally dies, they will restart from the previous Rubik's Cube, and the enemies on the map will be refreshed again. If a new Cube is found, the record point can be updated and all the state of the body can be restored. In addition, the Rubik's Cube can also provide features such as class points and team mixing — yes, this is the "bonfire" of the Soul game, or more accurately, the "shrine" in Renwang.
Based on this map design, during the exploration process, the player can more or less find some convenient ways to return to the Rubik's Cube. But the flow of almost every map is actually a road, and sometimes even encounter, obviously there is a new Rubik's Cube in front of you, but there is a strange design leading to the previous Rubik's Cube nearby, which often makes me wonder what the significance of these shortcuts is...
However, there are still a lot of map environmental activities in this game, such as the green smoke in the above picture is actually gas, and the fire attribute attack can detonate the gas, causing considerable damage to the enemies in it
Coupled with the fact that after the main line level is played, there will be a branch line in the same map, playing again in the opposite route, and these various designs for maps and processes are the same as in "Ren Wang".
Another aspect that gives players a huge visual sense of Renwang lies in the in-game equipment system.
In "Ren Wang", there is a saying that "the soul of the wilderness is like, and the brush is unmatched", so although it is called a hardcore action game, there is a similar situation in "Origins" that uses the same equipment cultivation system. However, due to the different difficulties of the game in Origins, as well as the class system and lower death penalties mentioned below, even during the opening period, players will have a sense of "unparalleled" in some way.
Once the game week is over, it will change from a soul-like game to a gear-driven brush game. In-game equipment is divided into five levels from white to orange, in order to get better equipment, and repeated brushing should be the core gameplay after the game is completed. If you're someone who's been in Renwang for hundreds of hours for a suit or even an entry, then when you see the entry on each piece of equipment, the value that is accurate to the decimal point should evoke a lot of liver pain memories.
The entry is already ptsd, and each piece of equipment also has class adaptability...
Unfortunately, in addition to these design aspects, the biggest drawbacks of the game are also similar to "Ren Wang". Late in the process, there are a lot of scenes of monsters everywhere, and the bad memories of "Renwang" that rely on stacking values to increase the difficulty have made me experience it again when playing "Origins". And the monster modeling in the game is also pitiful, and there are few new models of monsters in the later stage, most of which are the color changes of the previous monsters, which also makes me have some aesthetic fatigue when playing.
Wrapping up the core of Final Fantasy with the skin of The Ren King
Although listening to the description above, you may think that this is not a "King of Ren 3: Final Fantasy"? But this is not the case. These similar elements, in my opinion, are just Team NINJA's experience in developing Renwang, giving Origins a similar shell, and the core gameplay of the game is still very "Final Fantasy".
Origins builds on the weapon system of Renwang and incorporates a very large class system. The classes in the game are divided into three categories: basic, upper, and top from bottom to top, adding up to nearly thirty classes, and from the classic classes that are familiar to the series of fans, to some original classes.
steel! iron! revolve! wind!
Each class has a corresponding special skill, the warrior's battle roar can give themselves continuous blood, the dragon knight's jump can give damage while avoiding damage, the thief's theft can directly steal the enemy's skills, and so on... At the same time, however, the class system and the weapon system are independent of each other, and some classes can use multiple weapons, and the moves and combos played are only related to the skills of the weapons themselves. For example, a warrior can use all weapons except the staff, but the skill when using the punch may be pointed out from the fighter's skill tree.
Such a set of intersecting weapons and class systems allows players to have unlimited possibilities in the process of playing, and different classes with different weapons will have a new playing experience, which is very interesting. In addition, the protagonist Jack controlled by the player can equip two classes at the same time, and at any time in the play process can change other classes at any time, the player can first switch to the white magician to give themselves a bunch of buff, and then change back to the melee class to start the wilderness, which is also mentioned above, this game is relatively low difficulty during the wilderness.
Of course, such a huge class system, the required upgrade experience points are to think about it makes people's liver pain, for this game provides a kind of prop called "Soul Fragment", which can be directly given professional experience points, but on this basis, I still recommend that you do a career plan in advance, in the evaluation process, I did not deliberately brush the level, to the level of the level is still 4 of the top classes that have not been unlocked. Players who want "I want it all" still need to spend some extra energy on brushing levels.
Look at this slip LV xx/30 already liver pain up
Another reason why I don't feel like Renwang is that a new combat resource added to the game is mana. Whether it is the class-specific skills mentioned above or the skills pointed out by weapons, mana points are required to use, so how to obtain mana points has become the most important thing in battle.
The most basic way to get mana is to rely on normal attacks, and every time you hit an enemy, you can restore your mana. But it is only the general attack back to the magic, the mode of skill consumption, it is inevitable to play a little monotonous, for this reason, the game sets a ceiling for mana values, players want to get more mana value cap, you need to use two additional attack instructions - soul blast and soul shield.
Before explaining these two attack instructions, let's talk about another very important resource in the battle, the break bar. Yes, there is also a classic break in the Final Fantasy series in "Origins", in short, there is a break bar in both enemies and enemies, and once exhausted, it will enter a very dangerous state of exhaustion.
After exhaustion, the player cannot perform any action until the break bar is restored
Players can release the Soul Shield by consuming the break bar to defend against most of the enemy's skills, and even some skills can be directly used for their own use after successful defense. Soul Blasting is a execution skill that can be used after hitting an enemy break. Both of these instructions, upon successful execution, can gain a large amount of mana and mana caps in one go.
In contrast, if the character falls into a state of exhaustion and death, he will be punished by the reduction of the mana limit, and such a punishment setting is somewhat unreasonable in my opinion. On the one hand, the soul shield is actually a very test of the player's reflexes and proficiency skills, and the wilderness period can hardly be expected to use this way to obtain magic; on the other hand, the application of soul blasting is premised on the enemy falling into a state of exhaustion, which makes the benefit of empty breaks is actually higher than directly killing the enemy. And these two points are unreasonable, and when combined with a soul-like game boss, it is magnified several times.
The difficulty of the boss in this game is still not low
The boss battles of soul-like games often require players to succeed in their strategies through constant death trial and error, continuous growth, and finally success. However, due to the unreasonableness of the above two points, the player in the process of repeated trial and error, the character is constantly reduced because of the upper limit of mana points, and the difficulty of the raiders gradually increases, which makes me feel powerless when challenging the boss.
The last few generations of Final Fantasy intersect here
The story of "Origins" is set in the worldview of FF1, and even in my opinion, it can be seen as a prequel story, so players who are interested in the plot can understand in advance what FF1 says, which will help to better understand the game plot.
The story of "Origins" is not so novel, but the unexpected plot arrangement makes the whole story look good. Here I have no intention of spoiling, just to remind everyone, the first 20 hours of the game, if you think the plot is unclear, so, all kinds of riddle people, please first endure the temperament, concentrate on the game's huge and rich gameplay, and finally the middle and late stages will be buried in the early stage of the various foreshadowing in one breath to solve, a variety of smooth super unfolding, so that the excitement of this story will rise in an instant.
There are also such notes in the game that can be collected to let everyone better understand the plot
But despite the game's FF1 background, there are plenty of other elements in the game, including various classes, taken from other titles in the series, and if you're a final fantasy fan of the series, you'll find a lot of designs that make people laugh. For example, one of the levels in the game is very similar to the copy "Natural Key Shatasxia Cave" in FF14; the remains of the classic ancient magic guide city of the series have not fallen; the classic monsters such as lantern monsters, cacti, and Behemoth have also appeared...
Classic magic city-style scene
It is worth mentioning that perhaps in order to fit the darker plot of this work, the action performance of the game is very violent, and the various actions of the protagonist Jack during the execution look very enjoyable.
However, during the review period, the game's graphics and optimizations were somewhat unsatisfactory. Although the picture vista is not bad at first glance, but on closer inspection, the various blurry textures make people wonder if this is really a game on the PS5?
And the game's light and shadow design also has some flaws, some of the more dim scenes, it can be said that almost nothing can be seen, even if the brightness is full, there is no improvement. In the wild scene, the saturation is also too high, and the game has a feeling of being blind after playing for a long time. On the contrary, after turning off HDR, although the picture is not so delicate, it looks much softer.
Often dark to find the way do not know where to look
In terms of optimization, after matching the "RenWang" style of a large number of monsters, there are very obvious frame drops in some complex scenes, and some boss battles will have the same problem when the boss releases some gorgeous moves. In a previous interview, the producers mentioned that there will be a first-day patch to improve the stability of the game, hoping that these situations will improve after the official release.
In addition, the game does a good job of adapting the DualSense controller, whether it is vibration or adaptive trigger, it has a very comfortable experience.
As for the online gameplay of the game, probably because the early review version I got was not played by anyone, and I almost didn't succeed in matching the online room during the test. However, from the experience in the previous three network tests, it is enough to peek at the leopard.
Based on the huge class and weapon system in the game, there will be many genres that may appear in the game, and the playing experience brought by the online will be quite different from the single-player play. Due to the existence of remote classes and recovery classes, the online process is not so much playing a hardcore action game as it is a team copy in an MMO, which is a rare online experience in other action games that can be online.
Rich careers make the online experience very varied and interesting
Overall:
Final Fantasy: Origins is an orthodox Final Fantasy series with a Benevolent King shell. In terms of map, flow, and even mission modeling, it obviously applies the experience of developing Renwang, but at the same time, it also integrates a set of class and combat systems that can well reflect the Style of Final Fantasy, so that the game shows a core gameplay that is very different from Renwang. And the relatively mild death penalty, and the rich skill system, make the game less "suffering" during the wilderness. However, like "Ren Wang", the final gameplay after the game is completed will also transform the game from a hardcore action game into an equipment-driven brush game.
The game's graphics are not satisfactory, and there are still some problems with optimization, but fortunately, none of them are serious enough to affect the game experience. And the game takes "Final Fantasy 1" as the world view background, integrates the elements of the previous "Final Fantasy", and can also make the feelings of the old fans of the series get great satisfaction.