8 seconds to make or break.
What is needed for "research" and what is there to "DESTROY"?
If you look at the name alone, it's probably hard to understand what RESEARCH and DESTROY is all about—a brutal human armed with a scientific weapon on the one hand, and a paranormal creature dying in comfort, and the last time you saw a similar scene was probably in the classic movie of the last century, Ghostbusters.
Aside from the absence of giant white ghosts, the biggest difference between RESEARCH and DESTROY and Ghostbusters is that it hardly has any story to tell. The background of the game is very simple, in the near future, human beings kill themselves, zombies, ghosts, werewolves, these "creatures" that originally only appeared in the legendary story, quickly occupied the world, and the earth ushered in an unprecedented peace. But when everyone (the ghost) is enjoying life, the appearance of three humans brings about a drastic change in everything.
Needless to say, you can guess that these three human scientists are the characters that the player wants to play, and those messy monsters are the targets we want to eliminate - in short, this is a game that manipulates the "scientific power" of human beings and brings down all "cows, ghosts, snakes" and gods.
Seriously, compared to other games I've played recently, RESEARCH and DESTROY is almost a three-word "unorthodox" written on the face. Part of the "unorthodox" here comes from the comic-like head-to-body characters, the funny worldview, and the weird linkages of the publisher Spike Chunsoft's brand, while the other part comes from its unique game system.
As I just said, "as a scientist to defeat the strange power chaos god" is the core of this work. In the game, the player plays the role of the last remaining scientist of humanity, and gradually regains human control of the world by fighting supernatural creatures everywhere. And the "combat" here is a product of the fusion of "turn-based" and "action games".
Strictly speaking, you can think of RESEARCH and DESTROY as a "turn-based RPG." On the ruins of civilization after the disappearance of mankind, scientists and supernatural creatures fight in a "you come and go back" way, in order to counter the magical power of supernatural creatures, scientists are cloaked in powerful futuristic technology.
The most special thing about RESEARCH and DESTROY is that it does not constrain the player by "instructions" and "number of rounds", and the "action" part also occupies an important place in the game. For example, in combat, what you need to do is not to "give instructions to the unit", but to "take it personally", from moving to attack to passive defense, all in the player's control.
I know it's not a well-understood concept, but if you've ever played the Battlefield Valkyrie or Battle Bugs series, it's a lot easier to explain.
Research and DESTROY's battle flow has two sides: "Super Science Round "We Round" and "Supernatural Creatures Round (Enemy Round)". When acting, each unit will get a fixed amount of action resources, and how to maximize the use of this action resource is the biggest play point and feature of the game. In the "Battlefield Valkyrie", the resources consumed by the movement of infantry or tanks are called "Action Point", which will only be consumed when the unit moves, and its relationship with the core is more like the maximum number of moves that the unit can move in the wargame system, while showing the overall control, you can also operate the operation by yourself, which can be called the "one dish and two eats" in the game industry.
"RESEARCH and DESTROY" does not fully apply this template, it uses an "8 seconds" action time, instead of "Action Point", and then compresses all the actions that the player unit can do in one go within this 8 seconds. When the player selects a unit and starts to act, the game will start to time, during which the player will be counted whether it is moving, attacking, interacting with the scene, or even aiming time, making the whole action process tense a lot.
In a single-player scenario, the game offers three scientist characters to use, and apart from one of them not being able to put away his weapon and run fast, there aren't many individual or ability differences. Interestingly, however, if the player doesn't complete the action they need in 8 seconds, the character will be fixed in place in a "time stop" look, because the time of each unit is calculated separately, which makes the game, which is not very serious, become comical - fixed in mid-air, or even more strange positions, almost commonplace.
Just like that
When the three characters' actions are over, the game moves into enemy turns, and the enemy player needs to deal with in the game, a group of supernatural creatures, will attack the scientists under the premise of following similar rules. Depending on the type of enemy, their movement speed, attack power, and health points also vary. Many of these units have their own special action mechanisms, such as the "Childhood Shadow Monster" can only be seen by the designated target, and the "Vampire" will be automatically resurrected after one turn if it does not investigate the corpse after being defeated.
Unlike humans, supernatural creatures can quickly replenish their units during their turns, even if they are defeated, and the number will be adjusted according to the number of enemies left on the field, never leaving the player with nothing to do.
When you complete a certain number of battles in the same area, the scientist will take control of the place, and with the funds obtained from each battle, the player can establish a "university" in the area to develop and research new weapons and items, and can also launch investigations and offensive operations on new areas, which is probably the reason for the title "RESEARCH".
And every time forty days have passed since the timer in the game, the supernatural creatures will perform an action. At that time, even the areas that have been recovered will face the risk of losing again, and the more areas are occupied, the higher the likelihood of being attacked each turn.
It is undeniable that under the superposition of comic-style graphics and special effects, the nonsensical lines of the game characters, and the novel gameplay, RESEARCH and DESTROY shows its special and fun side. However, compared with similar works, it is not difficult for players to find that the excessive emphasis on the importance of action elements and the acceleration of the rhythm of a single action have also made the focus of the game itself change qualitatively.
In the single-player mode of "Battlefield Valkyrie", players have enough time to think and act, while in "Hundred Battles of Heavenly Worms", although there is a corresponding time limit, the 2D map and scene can quickly display important information in front of the player's eyes, without spending too much time and cost.
The weapons and equipment that can be developed in the game are quite rich, and the effects are also different
But the situation in RESEARCH and DESTROY is that after you really play the game, you will soon realize that the "8 seconds" time limit is much tighter than expected, and the fault tolerance rate is also very low, it may just be multi-carded by the terrain, and one more look when aiming will change the direction of the battle in front of you.
Because the number of enemies in the game is far more than our units, and the movement speed is extremely fast, so in most cases, the opening less than a turn, the two sides will enter a state of engagement, coupled with the enemy units will be very timely replenished, so that the main direction of the game from "how to implement the best strategic deployment" to "how to eliminate all enemies in the limited time", the requirements for players, but also from the "big picture view" to "reaction".
Although the pursuit of such things in the game itself varies from person to person, there is no good or bad standard, but after the implementation of the overall game experience, research and DESTROY's strategic abandonment does feel a little pity.
In the actual game, the player will receive a major goal such as "reaching the specified position" or "interacting with the ××× device", which means that in addition to putting a lot of effort into dealing with monsters and running, players will have to invest time in additional interactions, but what is really uncomfortable is that the interaction time of important tasks in the game is mostly set at more than 8 seconds, that is, more than one turn.
It will also be attacked by monsters
Indeed, if the creator's original intention was to let the player get the tension of "life and death" and "every second counts", then he will most likely succeed - in fact, most of the time in the game, you will have to compete with the "just a few tenths of a second" unwillingness.
To put it bluntly, here you can basically give up the idea of showing your tactical mind.
On the one hand, the maximum number of three characters fundamentally limits large-scale deployment behavior; on the other hand, most of the time, the game is not recommended for players to make "sacrifice" a certain unit, or use a unit for individual action tactics. Because once the character dies, it must need another character to rescue, and 8 seconds is not enough time to save people and kill enemies at the same time, but drag it to the next game, and then new enemies appear, so repeatedly, even if you don't die in the hands of monsters, you will feel tired.
In this way, "hugging the group for warmth" seems to have become the only "tactical consideration" of this work. But on the best, you don't have to think too much, all that's left is who to hit first, whether you can hit accurately, and don't play with the controller (because you will waste most of your time because the controller is aiming).
Don't pick players, don't need to use your brains too much, and the relaxed and funny game atmosphere - in fact, if you accept this, RESEARCH and DESTROY is still a game worth playing, and if you have some suitable friends, you may be able to get more fun.
Because the game supports two players, the maximum of six custom characters to play at the same time, but also allow teammates to pit each other, so the above problems about the high density of the game, poor strategy, can be alleviated in the two-player mode can be slightly alleviated - or perhaps, the two-player mode is the complete form of the game.
But if you don't have friends like me, you may have to see if you can close the airwave with it.