Mecha anime is an enduring category of animation, if you start from the 1974 "Space Battleship" to distinguish the distinction between anime and cartoons, the first manned mecha anime series appeared in 1972 "Demon God Z", the history of mecha fan is almost as long as The Japanese manga, and the Sci-Fi category in which it is located is also an absolute drama in anime works.
The original mecha animation is still biased towards children, from the 70s, the annual production of thirty or fifty, without exception is a toy-led animation project, most of which lack of creativity, with the popularity of the sale of peripherals, and now no one cares. The theme of mecha anime to adults is in 1979's "Mobile Suit Gundam 0079", starting from the fine mecha design, bringing a systematic and serious background setting, the two armies attack, armed upgrades, outside the battlefield to interpret a large number of literary drama, old man drama, for the mecha animation to bring a real look.
Another bloodline of the mecha fan is the "Macross" (Timeless Fortress) born in 1982, in addition to the stunning expressiveness brought about by the breakthrough of the animation industry, it also places the main axis of the story on the emotional line for the first time, exploring the heart of the character from outside the cold machine, and the heroine turns the song into strength, and it is also the first time that the beautiful girl and the mecha animation are fused together. This branch quickly merged with the real system, and in 1995, the most representative "E.V.A" (Evangelion) was born, which also turned the history of the mecha into a new era. In the play, the protagonist's "more autistic and stronger" mecha setting, in the end to break the "barrier of the heart" and talk to the woman he loves. Since then, it has been difficult to separate the different styles of girls from various mechs.
Speaking of games, the most famous video game in history, the original vitality armor series "Sakura Wars", is directly a harem love game nested in the wargame gameplay, with a "heartbeat choice" design with countdown sound paintings, bringing countless "old otaku" a red-faced first experience.
However, this is already a video game in 1996, and in the current wave of mobile games, mecha mobile games are also invariably inked in the portrayal of female characters. Burning Steel Soul and Cute Sister Pilot are the core competitiveness of the two-dimensional mecha mobile game to compete with the outside world, with this as the focus of continuous exploration, the respective development ideas into it, now this track, evolved into what?
From zero to one, the quality online is also full of regrets
The "Mobile Squad" series of the game Principality is the most stable and considerable domestic mecha mobile game in operation, this game was launched in 2017, entering the mobile game field in the form of a grass-roots team, and many members themselves are active participants in the Chinese mecha circle. The early stage of the game was rich in the nature of the ticket, so it accumulated loyal core fans in the word-of-mouth spread, and because the mecha game that promoted the pilot Tachibana to the same level as other two-dimensional games at that time had no other choice, the game occupied the first wave of dividends in the blue ocean market.
The self-made start allows every cent of the game's money to be spent on the blade, and the choice of "Mobile Squad" is to invite the production designers of the big Japanese brands, which also has the ingredient of "dream chasing stars". This is embodied in the strong emphasis on the publicity of the "Hiroyuki Sawano" composition, "Oh Zhang Masaki" as the machine and PV producer. Both represent the two eras of mecha anime, each with an unshakable position in the minds of the new and old generations. In the period when the national tour mecha design was in a desert, the stone of the fake mountain was completed to complete the breakthrough from zero to one.
Box-painted KV poster
The female characters in the game are added to the gameplay as part of the classic form of pilots, and the training of the driver, the transfer and collocation of the pilot and the airframe constitute the main strategy cultivation line in the game. The main draft is mainly a new generation of painters before 2020, with its own influence, and the overall art level is very online. The visual effects of the cut in and the milk shake give the player the feedback collected during the battle.
The play of the overhead view hang-up battle is jokingly called "Fighting Cockroach"
Of course, the limited cost also limits the subsequent development of the game, and the template for the combat gameplay comes from a small game of "Machine Tank" in the early days of the members, so the "tank-style" mobile shooting seems quite monotonous today, and the top-down view of the screen is difficult to show the complete body shape.
The game still maintains a good atmosphere of discussion, once a year a large linkage sword finger heavy Japanese comic works, each time can cause many fans in the mecha fans, in the mobile game to achieve cross-IP crossover big brawl design, deeply loved by senior anime fans, the game was once renamed "Mobile Team: Tomorrow", "Mobile Team: No Tomorrow", and finally changed to the current "Mobile Team Battle", highlighting this "big and complete" linkage dominance.
IP party diversified layout, with culture to attack the city strategically
Whether the linkage can be negotiated or not depends on whether the copyright party sells or not, but if the IP party plans to make the game itself, is it not the completion of the "circulation revolution" of the comic game? Among them, it is necessary to mention the largest anime game in Japan for a long time, "bandai NAMCO".
Bandai's mecha mobile game revolves around the capital of "Mobile Suit Gundam" forty years of IP accumulation. Gundam adaptation game did not miss any stage of the development of video games, for the fans layout hundreds of comic works, after entering the era of mobile games, but also to build a high wall, a wide accumulation of food, the same period of Gundam adaptation of mobile games There are more than 5, from turn-based to class "clash of clans", the gameplay is strange.
The main business model is similar to its other anime IP, licensed to Japanese overseas manufacturers for development, mainly collecting copyright fees, while combating counterfeit infringement. For a time, the name of the Gundam mobile game was preceded by words such as "Bandai Genuine Authorization", and the main theme was IP authority.
On this basis, the various business departments of the company will also release some self-developed or directly supervised strategic works under the Gundam IP, such as the "Gundam Confrontation" led by Kaiying Network, which restores the niche fighting gameplay of the arcade Gundam masterpiece "Gundam VS". As well as the "Gundam Destroyer Mobile", which is quite popular in the fan base in the past two years, highlights the collage collection mobile game with the theme of the Gundam model "Steel Pura", and cooperates with its physical products and the "Gundam Creator" TV animation to create a three-dimensional charm that other IP cannot reproduce.
"High Break Mobile" also can't forget the cute female characters, although the story is about the model maker, the protagonist will recognize that many female classmates are the same as "glue guys", and launch a campus love drama, full of slots. However, these AVG parts do not contain any profit points, perhaps it is the experience of decades of mecha themes that makes Bandai habitually add emotional lines to the narrative, which can not be less red.
Consortium B's idea of the game is to harvest mobile games as diversely and vertically as possible in the huge fan pool around the world, it can be said that kung fu is "outside the game", players play culture, bandai sells culture.
Pull up the upper limit of the sound painting and break through the barrier with the face value
After the fans and IP dominance were gradually taken down by domestic and foreign manufacturers, the stock white blade war of the mecha theme was officially opened, and it was difficult to say that it was ideal to break through the barriers in the same way, and there were too many such things in the history of the game. The new developers have set their sights on the sinking market at this stage - for more two-dimensional fans, how to make the "radish" theme out of the ivory tower of classic animation.
In terms of operation, the mecha mechameme theme has been the main force of "taking over FGO" of Station B, and the period from 2019 to 2020 is after the listing of Station B on the NASDAQ and before the second listing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company is trying to expand its business in many ways, including other mobile games, e-commerce and the overall advertising allocation of the site. The theme of the machine lady has accurately fallen into the two major businesses of game and e-commerce toy sales, so it focuses on the start.
2019's "Heavy Suit Warrior" and 2020's "Mobile Suit: Fusion" have continuously impacted the "peak of appearance" of the mecha mobile game market for two consecutive years. The characters are presented in the form of a power exoskeleton, and the female characters and the mecha shell are launched as a whole, maximizing the display of the human body, which is more in line with the guidance of non-mecha enthusiasts into the pit. Two games from different developers are squeezed into the same category under the same track under the bilibili game agency, which shows the urgency of demand.
After 2020, the goal of taking over FGO has been preliminarily completed
The characteristics of the game are very distinct, the art spares no effort to "move" the 2D drawing in the form of CG animation, and each battle performance will consume huge manpower and material resources, in order to get higher sound and painting expression compared to the overseas imported two-dimensional games. The strategy of operation is the most secure way to reproduce the mature experience of other theme games. Turn-based, drawn cards, social elements, these elements and the mecha theme as perfect as possible. From the perspective of player play, the game has a strong visual impact and rich gameplay content.
Two games that accomplish strategic goals very well. With the strong delivery promotion of Station B, the exquisite 2D level of the game has attracted the user pool of the pan-quadratic circle layer, which has become a hit in the early stage of launch, and has a great contribution to the development of the entire game business plate. In addition, from Taobao's model play agent stores, it also shows that in recent years, it has been a period of rapid growth in the price and sales of machine girls' goods. Every month, there are more than double-digit new peripheral products launched, and there are not a few channels for buying and flowing from B station members.
Next-generation expressiveness + innovative technology, a new dimension of industrialization
At present, there are few satisfactory new works of aircraft combat mobile games in the domestic market, and during the freezing of the domestic version, they have handed over white rolls. However, the longer the charge, the stronger the future explosiveness. In fact, iterations of the two-dimensional mecha mobile game are happening. Tested in the fourth quarter of 2021, The Final Front shows what the track of the future should look like.
The picture impact of the "next generation" is the first impression given by "The Final Front": including high-precision textures and polygon surface numbers, camera mirrors that boldly challenge hardware performance, so that in the case of real-time calculations, classic bridge sections such as "Big Shot" and "Sakano Circus" can be reproduced and expressive storyboards.
The gameplay is also original enough, omnidirectional barrage shooting has both simple operation and refreshing feedback on the mobile game, while the near-range attack mode also opens up the idea of airframe design. It is a mecha action mobile game that players can actually use their hands and maneuver freely. What impressed the author was the manual loading function after the magazine was exhausted, which highlighted the difference between the operation mecha and other action mobile games through small details, and another feature of the bullet screen game compared to other types was that the player's level was very intuitive, and the bullet bar could be accurately operated in the rain of bullets, which had a new dimension in terms of showmanship. The subsequent addition of the shoulder-crossing perspective also gave the bullet hell STG game its own interpretation, and the production team put deep thinking into the part of the play.
The idea of the machine is the most eye-catching place in this game, choosing a size between the giant mech cockpit and the power armor, which belongs to the semi-open medium-sized car. Of course, the advantage is to be able to see the joint performance of the driver's sister and the supporting mech, and the difficulty lies in the human modeling and mecha modeling, including the sense of difference and power between motion capture, and the contrast of the overall design is cute, which is also very helpful for the establishment of brand impression. The available pilot appears in the plot, playing a royal journey with the protagonist to find memories and reveal the conspiracy.
Under the condition of adhering to the national creation machine, domestic designers in this regard from the results, play a good role, the fuselage style is different, the movable surface is rich, and even the capacitive tank is gradually energized, the rear receiver shell is thrown, the hydraulic piston and power pliers, including the flexible rotation of the AMBAC vector nozzle, these heartbreaking details can be seen. It is said that the development process of each character machine requires six figures of money, which is not only the production investment of a single game, but also the bricks and tiles for the design of domestic mecha and even domestic science fiction design, increasing industry segmentation, and achieving more high-density game industrialization.
From the change beta version in October 2021 to the current version, the biggest improvement of "The End of the Line" is the stability of the program, in the Redmi K50 Pro (3000 yuan) mobile phone loaded with Tianji 9000, it can achieve a long-term stable operation of the highest picture quality 80 FPS, optimized well, and escorted the player's high-performance action experience.
If the cultivation of the "Internal Strength" of the "Final Front" game is deep enough. Then its "external power" gives people a sense of advancement. With the development of industrial science and technology, VR has gradually become the fast lane in the field of information technology, especially in the current transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, which has opened up a new vision. "The End of the Line" integrates a new set of industrialization schemes, combining the two-dimensional mecha mobile game with the VR meta-universe concept.
At the 2021 National Day Chengdu AIG International Animation Game & Digital Interactive Entertainment Industry Expo, the "End-end Meta-Universe" debuted, using the all-directional screen display of the offline machine to cooperate with the player's somatosensory scanning, building a VR interactive space that does not play naked and not playing, and providing trial play for players of "The End of the End" in a unique way. With the blessing of VR, the experience and sensory stimulation of mecha games will break through the tradition. This is also a new development direction given by "The Final Front" to the two-dimensional mecha category.
Although "The Final Front" has not yet been officially launched, it has gathered a large number of fans on the channel. Among them, the fans of the game area of Station B reached 420,000, and the number of reserved players exceeded 770,000. In TapTap's "Listen! In the "Mecha Roar" feature, "The Final Front" is one of the main products.
Another good news is that the domestic online game version number was officially unsealed on April 11. From the current point of view, "The Final Front" has caught up with the snow and the long drought, and the new batch of games that have obtained the version number need a period of time to prepare, while players have already rubbed their fists on a new generation of domestic games. The next-generation expressiveness and technological heritage presented by "The Final Front" are the most powerful weapons to leverage the category market.
epilogue
From comics to animation, film and television to games, consoles to mobile phones, the romance of "booting a mecha" has never faded, and the imagination of the vast deep space and the future is rooted in human free will. With the development of science and technology, we may be drifting away from the dream of flying a humanoid mech, after all, this is a kind of flying machine regardless of the cost, but the mecha theme game will definitely become more and more exciting, closer and closer to the threshold of reality and imagination.